Deja vu and missed tea parties...

I'm employed! YEAH!! and it's deja vu style at a middle eastern restaurant...called Cafe Ephesus. The owner is Turkish, though he has never been to Ephesus - a land of many, many, fascinating ruins that I really don't know too much about...even though I did go there once...back in my teenage youth. My hiring process was even deja vu - saw the 'now hiring" sign (same as pyramids), applied (same as pyramids), interview 34.58 seconds (just 5 min 34.58 seconds at pyramids), I get hired and work A LOT (just like pyramids)...

Wow, what a drastic difference - not only the eating out/waiting tables w/ no tips concept...but in management as well. This guy is all over the place, and I have to remind myself of the various factors invlolved (language barriers, cultural differences, etc) so I don't get upset and storm out. I've been sooo incredibly fortunate in the last two years to have such low key management. We often worked by ourselves at Pyramids and once the owner trusted you, it was very much an honor system sort of deal. We were expected to do a good job, and we did. I've got to remember that most managers/owners are a bit more nitpicky and even flat out rude and condescending to their employees at times. K, two months, Steph. You can do this! :/ hmm


K, onto more happy thoughts. My housing situation for the next two months seems to be panning out quite nicely. I met Byrdie through www.warmshowers.com - a couchsurfing sort of concept but strictly for cycling tourist. She has toured a whole lot and owns a house here that she very often opens up for tourists in New Zealand to stay while they are in Rotorua. Long story short, she has a small room connected to the dining room that she is letting me rent out for the next two months at a very reasonable rate. I lucked out cause renting a room in a house via the NZ version of craiglist - or even at a hostel - would have been 2-4x the amount that i am paying...I feel like I won the lottery.

Check out some of the tasty delights that Byrdie and her housemate Mishel (from Alaska - she was the first USA-ian I met after a week of being here) made for Byrdie's tea party. Sadly, I had to miss it because I had to work my brand new job on a busy night :( But I did help out as a little beforehand and I was in awe cause they whipped most of this up homemade style the morning of with a little prep work the night before... (I made the puffy pink merengue things below - well I dalloped them - and poured the fillings into the mini-quiches - ooooohh go me!)




Yummy!

Yes, smooth sailing this far. And Kate gets here in less than two months. Defintely getting the 'time flies' sort of feeling inside :) I've got to start planning which sort of routes we are going to take. We will be completely geared to go off-road - and we want to...but coming about these routes and getting from point A to point B will be much more varied and a bit harder to come by than an all out paved tour. I'll be expecting to take paved roads at some points...but it would be super cool if we didn't have to.

gotta peace out to work :( but I get to PLAY tomorrow! :)