Farewell 2011, may 2012 be the year of prosperity

If you followed our traveling blog I left off while we were still in New Zealand finishing up the first leg of filming on The Hobbit. If you did not follow the blog a quick summary of the first half of the year…


Our Billionaires Crew

Zach and I jumped at the opportunity to work on the catering crew for The Hobbit. It paid well and got us directly involved with the people who made our favorite movies – The Lord of the Rings trilogy. The work was intense with long hours and alternating six day work weeks, but we learned a lot and made good friends along the way. Moving to Wellington also brought us Tommy, who is now a very dear friend of ours. The whole experience now seems a bit surreal, but incredible. We miss Wellington, our friends, and the adventures we had in New Zealand.


Zach and I at the Vail's house in Montana

In early July we said goodbye to Billie and the Billionaires Catering crew and headed back to the US. In a whirlwind we visited my family in Santa Cruz while car hunting, drove my niece to Montana to visit my mom, Eastern Montana, and my dad, Russian relatives and my friends in the Flathead. Then Zach and I and a solid Montana crew spent several nights in the bliss of Hood River to take part in Graham and Marcella’s wedding. After that we came to Portland where, for the first time ever, Zach and all of his siblings had a real siblings’ reunion. We followed that up by celebrating Zach’s parents’ 40th wedding anniversary in Tacoma. We visited some of Zach’s friends and his old stomping grounds before holing up in his brother, Travis’s, house to figure out what our next step would be.


The Farnes Family

Things are tough for everyone right now and I won’t try to claim we aren’t among the people who are struggling. For those few days in August we talked and talked and wrote pro and con lists for various potential living situations. I won’t go into details, but my health hasn’t been that great over the past few years. We thought we’d get help in New Zealand, but it turned out my visa limited the kind of coverage I could get from the government. Moving back health care was our primary concern as well as being near people we loved and trying to start a lifestyle more suited to us. All that and we have a wedding to plan.

In the end we chose Portland. Zach, for various reasons including health benefits for me, took a break from kitchen work to get a job in the meat department of a local high-end market called New Seasons. He is excelling quickly and working hard to learn, as always. I was fortunate enough to have a restaurant within my San Francisco restaurant group in Portland where my old boss is the general manager. He hired me right away and I have been waiting tables at Irving Street Kitchen now for the past few months. A good friend from Blowfish in San Francisco works there as well. After much searching and couch surfing (thank you Tiffani and Travis and Graham and Marcella!) we found a place to live. We also made a couple mini trips to Whitefish to find our wedding venue for next summer. So much to figure out in such a short time period!


My mom, Zach, and his sister, Tiffani being silly outside on Christmas

Though things are stressful for us, we are looking forward to 2012. It will bring some new babies amongst family and friends and our wedding. My hope is it will also bring us improved health via whatever miracle necessary, richness in undefined ways, and happiness.

Catering Hobbits

One of our days off in Wellinton

Wow! It has been too long since I’ve written. I work so much that making time for much else has been impossible. In fact now we are approaching the end of our journey and travels outside of the US. We still have a couple months left, but it seems like it isn’t too far away and my thoughts are already on what we will do when we get home.

Once filming began our schedules intensified greatly. For the past seven weeks we’ve been working from 5 to 5:30 am until some time in the late afternoon. We alternate six and five day work weeks meaning we work every other Saturday. It is a full day of work with no downtime other than the few minutes we take to eat breakfast and the half an hour we all plop down for lunch. With movie catering there is no way to know when exactly everyone is going to eat or if they may all come at once. This makes figuring out timing and quantities some sort of mystical magic that I cannot wrap my head around. Some days we go through impossible amounts of food while others we have a bunch left over.

We feed the people of The Hobbit breakfast and lunch which means a lot of setting up, topping up, and cleaning / moving things around which encompasses most of what I do. I help with some of the chopping and prep as well, but not nearly to the degree of most of my co-workers. We all work really hard and are, rightfully, exhausted. That being said it’s amazing to see the actors dressed in costume and see the bits and pieces of artwork and preparations around and about. You really feel like you are a part of the whole thing. I know I won’t be able to believe it myself when I see all these people on the big screen.


Doing the dishes! It takes a lot to feed 400 people

I’ve met some amazing people at work many of whom I’ve been a fan of for years. This includes Sir Ian Mckellen, Martin Freeman, Hugo Weaving, Andy Serkis and the list goes on. What amazes me is how incredibly nice they all are. Each person has been impressively warm and friendly to everyone they encounter. They eat the catered food with everyone else and are thankful at the end of every meal. I never would imagine celebrities to be like this, but maybe I’m just working on an especially great film. It certainly makes me feel lucky to have landed this opportunity.

Outside of work we haven’t managed to do very much. After I wrote my last blog my friend, Nikki, visited us for a week. It was a fantastic way to celebrate Wellington before diving into filming. Since then we’ve mostly just tried to get enough sleep and relax on the weekend. Two weeks ago we celebrated Zach’s 30th birthday. We had a party at Tommy’s house with an impressive spread of food made by Zach, Tommy, and some friends. It included slow roasted pork, steam buns, kimchi and accoutrements. I would’ve love some leftovers, but unfortunately the table broke and Tommy now has a kimchi scented kitchen. For those of you who don’t know kimchi is fermented cabbage. Luckily the disaster happened after everyone had eaten. It was a fun night overall and a nice break in the middle of filming – we had a four day weekend for Easter that week.


Zach's birthday feast

In two weeks we will be moving in with Tommy where we will live until we fly home July 10th. Tommy’s brother is temporarily moving overseas to do his med school externship so Tommy needed a housemate and we liked the idea of spending less on rent and bills, plus we get to see more of our friend before we leave! Filming is scheduled to end on June 4th; however, things in the film business can change at any time. Still, I’m assuming the job will end in four weeks, which means we will be looking for more work to get us through our last five weeks in Wellington. We aren’t stressing too much about it yet. If Billie needs our help with any other catering jobs we will be happy to work for her, but otherwise are hoping to fill in work with temp jobs and / or working for friends if they need help. I’m hoping to work less than I am now so we can get out and enjoy the city a little more. It continues to be an amazing place full of interesting nooks and crannies.

More than anything I admit we’re excited to get home. This is the longest I’ve been away from the states and we’re both missing the many conveniences that we are spoiled by back home. We miss friends and family more than I can even describe! For that reason we’re planning to spend a bit of time with several family members after we get back to San Francisco. It will be time for us to think long and hard about how we want our future to look and where we see ourselves living. I still would like to not live in a city, but that may not be an option for a while. We will see. It’s all very big, but exciting. I will be sure to write again before returning hopefully with some more real stories about work and life in Wellington. I hope everyone is well and has a great mother’s day.

Lots more pictures on Facebook - click the links on the right.

Windy Welly

After surviving the great sandfly attack of 2011 we arrived in Wellington ready to apartment hunt and settle in. The first place we parked to view a studio there was a garden café on the corner where we stopped to look at a map and plan out our apartment viewings. The espresso was perfect and sitting in the sun surrounded by various plants in all kinds of random planters we immediately took a liking to our new city. The café sat at the top of Cuba Street, which I’d read was one of the two main streets in Wellington for cafes, shops, art galleries, bars, and whatever else you may like to find. So, we walked a few blocks stopping to read menus and continuously add to our mental list of places we wanted to come back to for closer investigation.


The Garden Cafe

It was a bit of a shock to the system to see endless cafes all proudly serving quality espresso and menus full of delicious sounding food. The south island is so beautiful, but didn’t have the variety and quality of food that we were spoiled by in San Francisco. Wellington has done it’s own thing when it comes to eating and drinking and, from our experiences, is doing it very well.

Our boss, Billie, put us up in a hotel until we found an apartment. Luckily it didn’t take us long. After some stressful searching that turned up either tiny studios or tattered larger places we found our spot. We had to up our budget, but with the inclusion of a parking spot and internet I doubt we ended up paying much more than we would’ve had we paid for those things separately. It is a two bedroom apartment, which has already come in handy for guests. It also just so happens that we are about a half block away from that very garden café also making us centrally located for anything you’d want to do in Wellington. We work in Miramar, a suburb that is home to all the film industry in the area, which is about a 15 minute drive from where we live.

Our first weekend in the city we met up with our friend, Tommy, at Scopa. I could write a lot about who Tommy is, how we know him, and all of the great things he and the people he works for do with food, but it would take up the whole blog. Lets just say Tommy came through Zach’s restaurant last year and now is our good friend here in Wellington. He instantly treated us like old friends and it’s made our experience of the city even more amazing.


Tommy and Zach

Last week Zach’s chef from A16, Liza, stayed with us for a week. It was the perfect chance to indulge in some of the restaurants we’ve heard so much about. She knew Tommy as well so we got treated to more dinners including a steak meal I will never forget. Tommy, Liza, Zach, Simon (one of the three owners of the restaurant), and I started the evening at Crazy Horse off with specialty cocktails. After we sat down a bottle of Quartz Reef sparkling wine accompanied our first course of heirloom tomatoes with basil, buffalo mozzarella, and grilled bread. We were then each served individual crab and corn omelets, with which we had a Marlborough pinot gris. The crispness of the pinot gris paired beautifully with the sweet corn and crab in the mini omelets. For our third course we shared the chicken liver parfait and the steak tartar topped with a raw egg yolk all of which was accompanied by a bright Hawks Bay syrah. Zach and I are well versed in chicken liver pate; I really enjoyed the way the parfait maintained that rich flavor, but had the lightness in texture of a mousse. Last and best of all came the steak feast. The five of us ate enough steak to easily feed ten. The wine Leonardo (another of the three owners) chose for us was a smoky, mushroomy, Waheike Island pinot noir and it was perfect for the chateaubriand, bone-in rib eye, and wagu. I wanted to melt into my seat with pleasure when I took a bite of steak with a bone marrow red wine sauce smeared on top. All of the side-dishes and sauces were fantastic as was every cut, piece and bite of the steaks. Zach and Liza happily chewed the rib eye bones while I got the honor of cleaning up the bone marrow. We ended our five hour feast with a couple glasses of digestif. It was amazing. I could write details about this meal alone and it would fill pages. One thing is for certain; I will hold onto the memory of that evening my entire life.


Our Feast!

There is something even more indulgent about enjoying the perfect meal with people you can talk to about food. Liza being here gave Zach and I the opportunity to talk about food endlessly with another person who understands what makes the art of a meal so amazing. That night at dinner the five of us talked endlessly about food, the business, and even coffee roasting. There are moments in the midst of those conversations where I can’t help but be reminded of why we do what we do.

Knowing Tommy has made us feel like we already have a group of friends here. Between the three restaurants there is a crew of fun and interesting people who we’ve had the chance to spend bits of time socializing with on random Sunday afternoons as well as some other occasions. We’ve also spent quite a bit of time on our own wandering the streets and exploring the suburbs. It is merely minutes in the car to stunning coastline and family-filled beaches. We’ve explored art galleries all along Cuba Street and walked along the waterfront. As often as possible we go the big farmers’ market and grab a slice of Tommy’s pizza, which he makes out of mobile pizza oven. It is some of the best pizza I’ve ever had. I’m already wondering how I’m going to deal with not having access to it when we are back in the states.


a beach near the city

As you can probably tell we are working normal working hours. It is strange. It’s been at least 5 years since I’ve worked a day job. Currently we are working from 8 am until around 3 or 4 in the afternoon. Initially learning the art of high-end catering was a really difficult adjustment. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy learning a new side to the food industry, but I have very little experience chopping, pealing, mixing, slicing etc. We work in two trucks, but you’d be surprised in how much space we have. Billie designed the trucks herself; they are well organized and larger than many restaurant kitchens. We work very closely with our 7 co-workers. The trucks are permanently parked outside of a huge marquee where we feed the people of The Hobbit. After adjusting to cooking for the masses we are now in the rhythm of the job. When filming starts in a few weeks we will be serving breakfast as well which will have us starting work around 4:30 or 5 am. It will be another adjustment, but we are enjoying learning new skills and the people involved with the film are all incredibly friendly.

We’ve made some friends through work as well. Our co-workers have a wide variety of out-of-work interests making for constant opportunities for random adventures. Thursday night we went to a show put on by two of our co-workers that was unlike anything I’d ever been to. Nathan and his group performed their music improv while streaming a live video of dancers in Berlin. Then Nikki and Nathan took the stage for their indie / experimental group called Nancy and Norman. Sam, one of the guys who takes care of whatever is needed around the studio as well as makes coffees for anyone and everyone, has taken us out with his friends as well.


Zach and two of our co-workers, Nicola (Nikki) and Leona

All in all I would say we have more of a social life here than we ever did in San Francisco. I think it was difficult to find time off in SF that matched up with either each other or our friends. The kiwi way seems to be that of an ever-inviting attitude. One friend leads to many. Though we will be working a lot and will have much less time for socializing it is a breath of fresh air to feel like you have a community of friends. It helps as well that we work together. In San Francisco so often we were desperate to get time to just see one another. Now we spend every minute together and have nights and weekends off so making time for friends is so much easier.

This coming week I have a friend from back in my Santa Cruz days coming to visit. We are hoping to take advantage of our last couple weeks of freedom (before filming and early mornings) and the last bits of summer by exploring more of the area with her. We miss everyone back at home immensely. The waves of homesickness come without warning. But, a few more months and we’ll have had a life-changing experience making a new home across the world, which will also be a place full of many dear friends.

Lastly I wanted to make a note about the tragedy in Christchurch. One of our co-workers, Rachel, lives there and has just been up here to help Billie out for the movie. She lost a relative and had family and friends that lost their homes. It devastated so many people. In a country this small nearly everyone had a friend or family member affected by the earthquake. It’s another reminder of why we need to live life to the fullest and love without hesitation.

Lots of love to you all!
Jessie and Zach

new address

Our Wellington Address:

Jessie Malchik and Zach Farnes
1 / 30 Webb Street
Wellington, New Zealand 6011

The New Job and the Journey North

Glenorachy Storm Coming

When I last wrote I must admit we had some potential plans brewing. Since I didn’t know if anything was going to come of those plans I decided not to mention them. In December Zach and I worked a wedding with Mash Catering. Matt, the guy who owns the company, has lived one of those lives which most of us cannot imagine. He’s cooked on music tours for a list of famous artists as well as traveled the world cooking and working randomly wherever he could. Long story short Matt gave our names to Billie, the woman doing the catering for The Hobbit movie while it is in studio in Wellington, who then spoke to us and later flew down to Queenstown to feel us out in person. We had a beer with her and then met with her the following morning at which time we agreed to join her catering team for The Hobbit project. This meant a move to Wellington as soon as possible and committing to a serious number of hours per week in a fast-paced work environment.

I know what you’re thinking… “Didn’t she just mention a couple of blogs ago that they weren’t going to work long hours and days and were instead going to take it easy and enjoy living life?” Yes, it is true that we set out to work little and be outside more. Of course, we also said we’d do that until the money ran out. I’m not saying we couldn’t have survived in Queenstown, but we would’ve needed to take on full time work pretty quickly as our weekly earnings were consistently less than our outgo even though we were living a frugal life. We went on many hikes as well as walked the pathway to and from town regularly. We swam in Lake Hayes and laid in the warm grass. We learned the tricks to living on a very small budget. But, now it is time to earn money not least because some day we need to fly home and get settled somewhere there and we have depleted all of our savings.

Reading that again makes it sound like it is all about the money, which would be misleading. As huge Lord of the Rings fans the idea of working on The Hobbit had appeal from the start. We will pretty much entirely be working a cafeteria feeding 200 – 300 movie workers, but still we will be a part of it in some small way. It is likely we will also be spending 10 days or so further north on the north island in “Hobbiton” for location filming. We will meet people who do all kinds of interesting and creative work just by being where we are and, well, feeding them. In addition we will learn even more about the high-end catering business. The days will be something like 10-12 hours starting probably around 5 am, but the pay is excellent. Wellington is notorious for its café culture and we even know a couple of people there who can point us in the right direction for restaurants, bars, and culture of all sorts. So, not only will we be re-cooping, hopefully, some portion of our quickly spent savings we will also be again somewhere where good food, markets, and ethnic eateries are abundant.


A Rainforest Walk in The Catlins

Within a week and a half all of our various new Queenstown friends were notified and we were set to head up to Wellington. It was hard saying goodbye. As anyone can see from the pictures (quantity and quality) I was madly in love with the scenery around Queenstown. Hiking all the time, reading books for the first time in years, running along the lake, familiar faces appearing all over town, and a few already great friends made the departure even tougher. We are both really glad to have had the chance to spend a couple of months in such a beautiful place and will be soaking up the memories for a long time.

We set out first to the south coast to stay in a rainforest park called The Catlins. Rainforests require a lot of rain, obviously, so it was a rainy first night after a stressful couple of days packing and cleaning. The next day we headed to Milford Sound on the west coast. The scenery was breathtaking. We found a cozy campsite amongst enough trees that we could situate our tarp to keep the rain out and settled into the view of jetting, rainforest-covered mountains and the sound of a nearby stream. Charlie, the bird of our campsite, kept a close eye on things for us and chased away any unwanted other birds or people. Actually it was a “campground” with only one real campsite so we were lucky enough to watch tourist van after car after van pull in and pull out once they saw us there. I like to pretend it was Charlie that kept us so nice and isolated from the other tourists.


Zach on the Cruise on Milford Sound

On the first night we started to notice these tiny little flies nibbling at us. By the second night we were well aware of this evil little demon I’d read about in traveling guides to New Zealand – the sandfly. Charlie was a fantastic campsite guard, but even he did not have the power against these mini ferocious beasts. Attempting to stay dry and unbitten we often had to hide out in the tent all evening reading, playing games, and listening to book on CD. Luckily we’d downloaded The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, which provided us with over 8 hours of entertainment. (Side note: it was a fantastic book and the audio version is a great way to “read” it. It helped that their adventure in the jungle coincided with our adventure in the rainforest.) We snagged cheap tickets via an online deal for a cruise on Milford Sound, which will stand out in our minds forever. The scenery was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. Drastic glacier valley are scattered all over these intense mountains. The glaciers of ages past carved out what are now fiords into the Tasman Sea making the coastline drop straight down into the water. With over 250 inches of rain per year the forests are dense and tropical and the number of movie-worthy waterfalls are too many to count.


One of our Milford Sound hikes

After leaving Milford Sound we drove back down and around through the center of the island; the mountains make it impossible to drive directly. Seven hours of driving later brought us to our campground in the Haast River gorge about 60 kilometers from the west coast and just a little ways north, over a mountain range, from where we started that morning. This was our fourth night camping and all four had been very wet. The sandflies in the gorge were at their peak loving the wet, spongy ground and gobbling the passing tourists. We hadn’t showered since we’d left and evening after evening of being cooped up in our little tent trying to kill any invading flies and keep dry was getting very old. We both felt itchy and soggy so we agreed to spend a little extra cash and get a hostel for the following night.

We headed up the coast stopping at various sites and walks fighting sandflies every time we got out of the car. We also started to notice a bad sound coming from the right, front tire. Once we rolled into Franz Josef, a small tourist town with coastline and mountains as well as beautiful glaciers, the sound in from the tire was terrible. We got to our hostel and found small grooves in the rotor. Deja vu? On our way down in November we split a radiator hose and had to stop in the tiny coastal town of Kaikoura, on the east coast, where the one mechanic ended up being really nice, fixing our car without charging us an arm and a leg. We couldn’t possibly get lucky twice so the following day our stomachs churned with anxiety as we awaited our appointment with the one mechanic in Franz Josef. To ease our tensions we hiked up to an old mining cave and explored the tiny, wet tunnel until I, admittedly, got scared by a rumbling above and had to get out. It was incredibly cool, but the whole region is highly prone to earthquakes and a big one could come any time. I guess my imagination got the better of me.


A view on the east coast

Also, by this point, we were tortured by our sandfly bites. Mosquitoes have never loved me all that much nor do their bites affect me particularly badly. I never had the chicken pox. Nothing in my life could prepare me for the itch caused by these tiny creatures. The brush of my jeans, rub of my sandals, or even a breeze sent me into agony. I was up half the night because, as a squirmy sleeper, I upset the bites constantly and the itch would wake me up. I don’t even remember creating in my sleep what are now healing scabs from scratching on either side of a bite on my leg. The itching never ceased. Zach, poor guy, has at least four times the bites I have. I think he was initially more patient and probably tastes better. His feet are covered. It was nice to be in the hostel to finally be dry, wash clothes, and at least not incur any additional bites.

As luck would have it the mechanic was another fantastic guy who just happened to have an old Mitsubishi in his yard from which he stole the front brakes and gave them to us. Again it cost us a mere $150 ($115 US), which is less than anyone would’ve done it for in the states. Kiwis are just good people.

After our two nights in Franz Josef we were a little on edge. We were really happy about the mechanic and felt lucky for it all working out. Our stuff was clean and dry and we had enjoyed lounging around our funky hostel for an easy couple of days, but the stress from the car problem, the days of being soaked camping, and the ever-present itch of the sandfly bites had all taken their tolls on our nervous systems. We started driving north with no particular notion as to where we were going to camp for the night. We had one night left and wanted to get at least half way to Picton where we were to take the ferry to Wellington. There were lots of sites to see up the coast, but looking at the rainforest was much less appealing by this point. We wanted to be dry and we definitely did not want any more sandfly bites. Also, we’d hoped the week would be a relaxing, outdoorsy summer break before diving into four months of intense work and, though it had been beautiful, it was not the slightest bit relaxing.

Early in the day we hit the town of Greymouth, the site of the recent mine disaster where all the miners were forever lost in a series of explosions. We parked and looked at the options of roads to take from there. Our DOC (department of conservation) camping booklet gave us plenty of options, but the ones inland, en route to Picton, specifically warned of sandflies being a massive nuisance in the summer months. Mind you not one of the previous sites we’d been to mentioned them so this told us that it could be even worse. There were almost no coastal options. We were grumpy and bickering over the most trivial subjects. While looking at the map we both glanced longingly at Kaikoura. Kaikoura was the coastal town we’d unintentionally spent the night in on our trip down during the previous car disaster. We’d only been to one little café along the main road and spent the night in a holiday park cabin, but we loved it. The short drive from Picton there had been incredibly beautiful even though, at the time, we had to pull over every 15 klms to check the fashion tape temporary fix on the radiator hose. After looking the options over and over we agreed that it would be worth the extra kilometers to drive back across the island and re-visit the little beach town leaving the rainy, sandfly-swarmed east coast far behind us.

The decision was the best one of the trip. Little did we know we hadn’t even seen the main strip of Kaikoura on our first visit. With no interest in camping again we booked a cheap hostel and spent the night and the following day (today) soaking up all the place had to offer. We re-visited the little café, the Hilsop Café, which again had the most amazing appetizers and cocktails we’ve had on the south island. We roamed the beach-side streets and today spent much of the day playing around in tide-pools and taking endless pictures of the seals, birds, and crystal blue ocean with the peaks of the Kaikoura Mountains just behind (some still with patches of snow). I am adamant about sunscreen and covering up (New Zealand has the highest skin cancer rates in the world due to the ozone hole), but today I did get a bit of a sunburn. We got caught up in the beauty and peacefulness of the day. We even had lunch at a roadside crayfish stand. Then, driving up the coast today was nothing less than stunning.


Happy in Kaikoura

With our bites starting to fade and our skin a bit too sun kissed we are now in our holiday park cabin in Picton. Tomorrow, Thursday, we take the 8 am ferry to Wellington where we already have several afternoon appointments to look at apartments. We are eager to find a place as work starts on Friday and from then on out our free time will be severely limited. It is hard to imagine what life will look like in just a week, but fingers crossed it will all go well. We now have barely a cent to our names and are looking forward to that first paycheck and the ones to follow that may allow us for a bit more to spend.

The job is supposed to be from now until the beginning of June. The first of the crew start work on Monday and two weeks later the actors arrive. We are thinking that we may try to work until the end of June or beginning of July to save all the money we can before heading home. We still have no idea where we will settle once we return depending entirely on job and housing prospects. Since we have a wedding week to attend to in early August we figure it would be easiest to settle in after that so if you all have any ideas feel free to pass them along.

Sorry for the longest blog ever. I hope to write again in a bit about life feeding the people of The Hobbit. I hope you are all well. If I don’t send something soon happy Valentines Day to you all. It is my absolute favorite day of the year. Remember to tell your loved ones how much they mean to you and, if you are up for it, try making someone’s Valentines Day special. I try to find the saddest, most Valentines Day- hating person around and send them flowers or make them a present. It isn’t just for couples it is a day for everyone to give and receive love. This year is extra special because my sister, Sasha, is turning 40. I wish more than anything I could be there to show her feel she is the most important person in world to me, but instead I’ll be trying to send those vibes from half a world away. Lots of love to all of you.

Jessie and Zach

Queenstown holidays and personal thoughts

I hope everyone had the kind of holidays memories are made of. I’ve had a lot of time to reflect over the past few weeks and that is really what the holidays are about. The Christmases where I was the most irritated with family, struggling with getting around in the snow and ice, and having random things go wrong are some of the most memorable. Whether I like it or not all that running around highlights the fact that it is all worth it to spend time with the people I love. It is worth laughing uncontrollably at that fact that in simply trying to close the rental van’s trunk full of luggage my ever-strong sister managed to dent it and we all proceeded, unsuccessfully, to fix the dent with suction cups in 0 degree weather (2004). For all the New Years Eve nights that I spent either partying with friends in Montana (and inevitably crying – don’t ask why!) or with family wishing I was doing something more exciting, I now see them all as treasured times.

I spent most of my life living in the daydream of what my life could be if all the right pieces fell into place. I thought I daydreamed a lot as a child and teenager, but I took that fantasy world to a whole new level in my 20’s. I daydreamed every moment I had about somehow coming across enough money to make everything easier or getting the job of my dreams or winning the lottery. With my imagination I took those daydreams beyond reason creating a whole imaginary life. The reason I am sharing something so personal is that this year, for a variety of reasons, I am striving to “awake” from this daydreaming life and actually focus more on living my real life. I have had so much fun, lived enough experiences for several lives, traveled, been in love, been in pain, struggled, and thrived. Rather than relishing in this amazing life I’ve been half awake in it dreaming of an easy answer to all the inevitable struggles we face.

Zach and I didn’t have much this Christmas. Over the past few years Zach has taught me to appreciate the holiday more, but I still like buying presents most of all. On Christmas Eve we were downtown running an errand when it hit me. Despite having no money I couldn’t bear not having a couple of presents in the stockings. So, we both dug into pockets of our U.S. bank accounts to scrape together a little cash for present buying and wondered around for a half an hour looking for little gifts. Honestly, though I only had $30 to spend, it was exhilarating. That evening Zach’s chef (from a temp job) generously gave us a bunch of food and some beer she had so we could make food for the holiday. She’d seen my Facebook post about us being poor and offered up her extras. Talk about generosity! We can survive perfectly fine, but she wanted us to have something a little special.



Christmas day we partied with our housing complex enjoying a barbecue and the company of Irish, British, Brazilians, and I believe some other nationalities. A little bit of alcohol makes language barriers somehow not matter and before you know it you’re laughing and talking.

Unfortunately during the last couple weeks, when we’ve had the most time off, it’s been raining almost daily. It was supposed to be a dry summer, and still might be, but right now it’s wet. I cannot complain as we’ve already hiked more than we have the past three years combined, but rainy days made it tough to get outdoors. That being said we took advantage of any moments of sun. We continue to find more amazing hikes and have even started running along the trail to town. Getting back into running is tough, but always worth it. We also steal sunny afternoons for laundry because it’s so much cheaper to dry our clothes on the line rather than paying for a mediocre drier. I like what it does to the clothes as well – maybe I’m a bit of a hippy after all.



Zach got the details for our catering job only about a day before New Years Eve. As it turned out they wanted a four-course dinner starting with canapés. Though there was a little stress surrounding the budget (or lack thereof) causing a case of sticker-shock for the dinner hosts Zach worked everything out explaining the price of filet mignon for 16 people as well as the preparation required for such a meal. It is the first time I’ve ever helped Zach in the kitchen professionally. I just did what he told me to while also presenting the food to the guests. I was amazed at how well Zach juggled all the tasks while putting each course out with seamless timing. There are some recipes we would adjust in the future, but all in all the night went amazingly well. The hosts ended up inviting us to join the party and crash at their place. We politely declined, but were touched. I am ever more in awe of Zach’s skills. We headed home leaving the guests with a clean kitchen, a strawberry rhubarb crumble finishing in the oven, and bourbon vanilla whipped cream on the table. As we sat bundled (it was cold) on the deck of our housing complex overlooking the lake it struck midnight. We were one of the first places in the world to ring in the new year. In the distance we could see the reflection of the downtown fireworks show on the night sky. The mountains loomed around us and the air was crisp. Another perfect New Years Eve.

This week Zach is back to working four shifts though I am still waiting for more work. I am now doing some regular wedding coordination and this weekend I am helping my caterer with an all day birthday event. I finished writing her website yesterday and will be working on creating business templates for her later this month. Tonight we are going out to dinner for the first time since we arrived in early November using a gift certificate Zach’s chef, Kim, gave us when his temp work with her ended. She is the same person who gave us dinner for Christmas Eve – a shining example of New Zealand friendliness, though I think Kim is just an especially good person regardless.

With debts to pay we may need to work more soon so the focus right now is the fun in freedom. Summer is in full swing I am giddy to explore more hikes, swim in all the lakes, and bask in my freedom. I know living this life will likely never happen again and, though we are poor, we are richer than most. For however long we are here I will appreciate what we have right now which is beautiful surroundings for endless exploration. (Side note: I have had momentary bits of painful jealousy when hearing about all the snow in Montana and the hours my dad has spent skiing on Big Mountain) ☺



Thanks to everyone who sent Christmas cards; it’s more mail than we usually got back home, which is more appreciated than you all know. Thank you also to my mom and sisters for the packages. I realize this blog took a bit of a personal direction, but I guess that is just my nature. Now it’s time for me to get out and enjoy a rainy run. This next holiday is my favorite – Valentine’s Day! I wish you all the happiest Valentine’s Day season. A season of loving all the people that you love and making sure you let them all know!

As NZ Summer Begins

I last left you all with Zach and I signing on with Addstaff, a temporary employment agency, and getting settled in our new little apartment. Since then we’ve been working lots of different odd jobs through Addstaff trying to make enough to pay our bills and relax a bit. Thus far it hasn’t been quite as much work as we’d like. Well, truthfully I would love to keep working 1-3 days a week, but our bank account doesn’t like it at all.

Zach has had less trouble finding work. Chefs are in such high demand that they usually have more work for him than he needs. For a few weeks he was working at a hotel in town three nights a week covering for the chef. He was by himself except for a dishwasher doing the dinner service. It wasn’t too busy giving him time to listen to music and help do a lot of the prep work for the rest of the week. Their new sous chef starts this week so that job ended, but he has had other bits of work as well such as catering jobs at wineries and golf courses.



I, on the other hand, have done very random gigs. Mostly I work banquets serving conferences at big hotels and resorts or working at those same wineries and golf courses doing weddings or corporate events with catering companies. Since I have a varied skill-set Addstaff calls me for a lot of odd jobs. Last week I took a few hundred free check presenters from MasterCard – official sponsor of the New Zealand All Blacks and the Rugby World Cup, which will be here next year – to restaurants and hotels all around the area. It gave me the chance to see how many really nice hotels, golf courses, and restaurants there are in such a small area. Plus, it’s giving free stuff to restaurants, which is usually well received.

This past week they asked me to help a caterer set up a filing system for her new catering company. She wasn’t even sure what help she needed, but she knew she needed something to make sense of the chaos. Addstaff sent me and I evaluated her papers and tax time-line and then set up a filing / bill system. She was more organized than I think even she realized. I designed the system with instructions so that any one, including a family member or friend helping out, could understand what to do with each piece of paper coming through the office and keep bills organized and paid. At the end of next week I will go back and help her create templates for her events as well as time sheets for employees, inventory sheets with pars, and packing lists to keep her events organized. It is pretty satisfying to go in to someone’s new business and be able to provide so much help.

What we are discovering is that the more people are exposed to us the more they want us to work for them. On Saturday we worked for a caterer who used to tour with bands such as the Rolling Stones doing catering for the tour. He is in the running to get the catering contract for the second year of the filming of the Hobbit. Saturday was just a wedding, but without any front of house staff of his own he just put me in charge of organizing the event. I did a housekeeping job a couple of weeks ago for a couple who own a beautiful winery / bed and breakfast / event location and now they requested me to be a wedding coordinator for several upcoming weddings. The caterer I am setting up the office system for would like me to manage her events on the front of house side and potentially do office management for her as well. She would love for Zach to help cook for all the events as well so she could have us as a team.
On New Year’s Eve we are preparing a dinner for 14 to 16 couples at a home. Addstaff says we can bill like a catering event so we are working on menu ideas and will discuss a price per person with the woman whose hosting the event. We then get to create a menu and run with it. It is especially nice because they always think of Zach first for more skilled chef jobs. And, in this case, they mentioned me working with him to help get food served and do all the little odd jobs so that we could be together on New Year’s Eve.



Writing it all like this makes me feel very lucky. You’d be surprised how most of the time we’ve been stressed because Zach’s been working 3-4 shifts a week, but I’ve only been working 1-3 and several of mine have been short shifts making our income barely enough to pay bills, pay for gas ($100 per tank), and buy a little food. We can’t even afford beer as a treat. This week is the worst as Christmas is a time most people stay home with family. Zach has a job on the 26th, but otherwise we have nothing. It’ll be a tightly belted holiday for us! However, we have work coming and the season really starts here after the new year. You can see it in the streets and feel it in the air as vacancy signs start turning into no vacancy signs and restaurants begin to fill. I have a few long-term job offers on the table and am just having trouble deciding what would be the best option to take.

Otherwise we’ve been trying our best to do what is local and cheap in our free time. The hikes are amazing. There are so many trails in the area each showcasing ridiculous views and pretty scenery the entire walk. There are stream, rivers, trees, and fields. All of the hikes are challenging so it’s a nice way to exercise as well. Occasionally we walk to town just to be outside and wander the streets. We don’t have enough money to drink or eat out, but the walk is nice and people-watching is always entertaining. There is a lake not too far away that we already love swimming in. The lack of ozone down here I think makes it feel even hotter than the temperature. I won’t deny that we are very jealous of the Christmas snow back in the northwest, but it’s also been a while since we’ve enjoyed a summer.

Though we are having a present-free Christmas we have stockings on the wall and a $2 tree with decorations in our place and a star at the top consisting of two pieces of paper sewn together and stuff with paper towels. Ah, the makings of a true experience. Christmas day there will be a barbecue, as is traditional here, put on by our apartment managers. It is free and will hopefully be fun. We are in need of some interactions with others.



On that note I wish you all very happy holidays. It is a tough time of year to be far away from loved ones, but it makes it all that more apparent how important those loved ones are. To all of you who normally get presents, you know how much I love to give them, I am sorry for not getting any out this year. Hopefully I can be cheesy and say that this year our gift is to be on an adventure that reminds everyone to take risks and live in the moment not forgetting all of the ways in which your own life is good. May 2011 bring us all an improving economy (one can hope) and more good stuff than rough stuff.

Happy 2011!!
Jessie and Zach