No More Crumbs For This American.

Yowza. This last week and a half has been B-U-S-Y. I put in a 60 hour week between working as a "viticulturist" at the vineyard and washing dishes like a little piggy at the cafe. I tried to mentally psyche myself up to work 7 days a week, but alas after doing it for a bit I have decided that I can't hack it and I quit the dish-pig job. The boss at the cafe is a jovial fellow named "paul". Whenever Paul makes a somewhat comedic remark to me he winks when he does it. He has an incredibly thick and quick kiwi accent and in combination with my failing hearing

I constantly find myself saying "what's that?", or "come again?. Sometimes, out of embarrassment, I pretend that I understood what he said when in actuality I didn't catch a word.
Each day he makes me a pretty good lunch for my mid-day break. I have the pick of the entire menu and most of the stuff is pretty good-looking and pricey. He asked me what I wanted my first day and I told him that I was a vegetarian so my options may be slightly limited. He squealed, "what!, you're a vego!?"..."aw come on, you can't be a vego, you're a bloke!". I assured him that it was true, I am both a vegetarian and a bloke. "oh, can't be", he went on, "you're just caught up in the little fad like the rest of 'em"...."you'll be back to the beef before you know it!" Paul was a little sore when I told him I was quitting the job.

Just last week I finally found a room to rent while living here in Wanaka. The house is in a great location and is quite nice. My room-mate and landlord, Paul, is a 38 year-old Kiwi who practices Law here in Wanaka. He drives a little scooter around town while wearing a business suit. He drinks wine and tells me all about the complexities of it. His brother owns a coffee company and he has an expensive coffee machine in the house (it cost $3000, he told me that, he tells me how much everything costs) that I make espresso with every morning. Before moving into the house he gave me a little speech about how to keep things clean around the abode. He came across as a wee bit anal-retentive, so over the last week I have been keeping an extra close eye on my level of cleanliness. I feel as if it is an extreme challenge to keep the house up to his standards. I find myself constantly cleaning minute crumbs that would be entirely insignificant in any other household. Last night I took the time to do the dishes even thought none of the dishes belonged to me. He saw me doing the dishes and in passing said "good job". An hour or so later he passed me in the hall and again told me "good job". Now that I think about it I am pretty sure that he is playing some sort of sick mind game to see how much work he can get the new room-mate to do. Well, I am onto to his little head game and from here on out I am reverting back to my old slovenly ways. No more crumbs for this American.

Ciao! Chow.