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Hello all,
Here I am again on Monday afternoon in an internet cafe in Nelson. Its cloudy outside and it rained yesterday, a suprise as it is almost always sunny here. I watched the weather on the TV yesterday evening (exciting!) and they said it would be 25 degrees today - its certainly not!
Since my last update I have been successful in finding a room to rent in a house. The minute I got my job I rang up lots of numbers on the web and in the newspaper, went to visit a horrid place (I decided about 3 seconds after arriving there was no way I was living there!), and then saw a great house that I am in now. It is in a pretty street about 10 minutes walk from the centre of town, over a river and past my favourite supermarket (Fresh Choice) and the swimming pool (which I am going to join later on today). The road is backed by really steep wooded and grassy hills, a beautiful backdrop. I could see the clouds rolling over them yesterday morning. I am sharing the house with 2 Kiwi girls who have very strong Kiwi accents (which I often have to translate) and German girl. They are all very friendly and took me for a pint on Saturday evening - I had a Nelson classic - the first real pint I have ever drunk I think, and I quite enjoyed it! My bedroom is lovely and nice and big, bigger than my hostel room which had 3 bunks in! I have emptied the contents of my rucksack and spread them out although the room is still looking a bit bare. I've started listening to the radio too which is great, I've really missed it, and have found a Heart 106.2 equivalent - Breeze FM, Nelson's easy-listening station, I love it!
Yesterday I cracked the supermarket hierachy and found out that Fresh Choice is a Waitrose equivalent, I was a bit suspicious as the cakes and fresh bread are pretty yummy. So I hiked to 'New World' instead yesterday evening, although I'm not sure the few cents I saved were worth the hike, my arms were dropping off by the time I got home.
My job is going well and I'm enjoying it quite a lot. I've done lots of reading this week to get up to speed on tents, sleeping bags and rucksacks, although got plenty of technical questions yesterday which I muffled my way through. The Christmas sale starts this week so I expect it will get busy and hopefully I'll get some extra hours. I'm going to get cracking on finding an extra job this week. I was hoping to work in a cafe but they take the job of a barista very seriously here and I have failed miserably at several attempts to explain the fine art of coffee-making. Hopefully something will come up.
I've just joined a queue of Brits in the PostShop sending off their Christmas parcels. I hope my cards get to you all ok!
Grace xx
P.S. Some more delightful Kiwi words to share with you. I discovered recently that an 'eggplant' is an aubergine (I thought for ages it was some amazingly unique Kiwi delicacy). Also, a courgette is a zucchini. I keep coming across the word 'Manchester' in magazines and on the radio - '20% off Manchester', and I was in a shop yesterday and they had a whole isle labelled 'Manchester' - huh?! I have just googled it and it means bed linens. So I will sleep soundly tonight in my fresh Manchester :)
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