“Would you like a sausage, Dan?”It took a couple seconds for my delirious mind to register this statement. There I sat a picnic table in Duncannon, surrounded by people I had met literally only seconds ago, and here was this tall English fellow with crazy brown hair offering to barbecue me a sausage. What a cool guy. I answered the only way a sleep deprived, exhausted, and hungry adult male could: “Yes, please.”
We started talking, and as it turned out, all of them had temporary crush jobs as well. Then came the best piece of news I had heard since I arrived in Blenheim.
“So where are you working?” one of the guys asked me.
“Mud House Wines. I think my bus passed it on the way into town.” I replied through bites of sausage.
They all laughed. “We are too!”
“Actually, I’m not sure how much I’ll get to write in this from now on, I hadn’t expected everyone to be so cool right off the bat (3-6-11).”
And just like that, I was part of the family. We hung out and barbecued for the rest of the day, only stopping briefly to capitalize on a ride into town to do some grocery shopping. That night, all of them decided to go out to celebrate one of the guy’s 30th birthday party, and I was excited to go as well, but at about 9:30 that night, the 40 hours of travel with little sleep caught up to me. I tried to convince myself that I was not swaying awkwardly back and forth, but I took it as a sign to go to bed when I started nodding off and having small dreams, while I was standing up. I didn’t feel too bad about missing it, there will be other nights, and I heard all of the good stories the next morning.
I wish now that I had gotten here earlier; maybe arrive on February 25th instead of March 5th. It would have been nice to have established a friend base before I started work. It also would have been nice to get the lay of the land a bit better before the crazyness of a full time job ensued. However, I needn’t have worried.
The longer I stayed in Duncannon and explored Blenheim the more I realized that this place, or at least my immediate surroundings, did not feel that foreign. Blenheim itself doesn’t have any stoplights, which was a bit strange, but the shops here sold a lot of the same things that I would find in a shop in the states. Also, the types of cars I see in and around Blenheim are strikingly similar to cars I see in the USA. This was probably the most surprising, when I was in Europe, the cars were much smaller, and only recognized a few of the brands. Here, I see a lot of familiar brands: Honda, Mitsubishi, and Mazda. I suppose this makes sense, Japan would have more of an influence here then a US or a German manufacturer. I see a lot of vans, SUVs, and pickup trucks though, despite the fact that gas is horrendously expensive. These are full sized, V8 vehicles too. My guess is that because Blenheim is an agricultural town there is a need for extra carrying capacity, and because this is the south Island, one of the extreme sports capitals of the world, a lifted SUV with a snorkel air intake would also fit here.
Duncannon itself also seems very familiar: I have been describing it as a cross between an apartment complex and a hostel, but truthfully, it looks and feels like I am at an international summer camp, or back in college living in a dormitory. The camp is divided into blocks of ten rooms, two beds to a room. The administrators have divided the blocks by winery, which is nice: you get to know people a lot faster this way. Mud House occupies the high red block (rooms 11-20), St. Claire Winery occupies low red block (rooms 1-10), and Oyster Bay Winery occupies high yellow. A few of the blocks also house people who either pick grapes, or put nets on the vines in order to keep the birds away. There are a few backpackers here as well, but at this point they are definitely a minority. Right now everybody is a bit cliquey, and there are also some language barriers which contribute to that (there is a Thai block and a Tongan block, and if they can speak English, they definitely prefer their native tongue, as do we all I suppose), but hopefully we will socialize with each other a bit more. A few of the guys have also described it as a concentration camp, and since we are all working full time, the comparison is easy to make. There is even a small oven in the back, and sometimes at night the camp has this really bad smell…
There alsoseems to be a lot of Americans here at Duncannon, especially my block and the blocks close by. I will admit, this was something that I prayed would not happen. People gravitate to people who are like them; hence, all of the Americans, including myself, have isolated ourselves from the others a bit. Yes it is easier to hang out with other Americans, but if I wanted to do that I would have stayed in Oregon. I am making a conscious effort to have a diverse group of friends, however even with an international entourage, as I stated earlier, it doesn’t feel that foreign right now.
“Right now in Blenheim it feels like I’m back in college: working and hanging out with a bunch of new people, all of whom speak English pretty well, while trying to save money. Nothing has happened so far that I would look back on and say, ‘This would only ever happen in New Zealand’ (3-6-11).”
An experience like the one I am looking for may have to wait until the job is over and I travel off the beaten path a bit. Speaking of, I may have to extend my ticket, it seems like there is too much to do in New Zealand for just one extra month of travel.
And speaking of work, there is a reason I have put off talking about it until now: not much has happened. Paperwork, safety briefing, winery tour…large portions of the last few days (Monday through Wednesday the 9th) were spent sitting around doing nothing. I am trying to enjoy the boredom while it lasts, we will be getting grapes soon enough. The ladies who work in the lab also seem very nice. I am constantly amazed and thankful at the number of attractive women who just happen to work in the labs that I do, even if they are unavailable. However this has had an unfortunate consequence, in the way of a nickname: I am now affectionately known as “lab chick” or “lab girl.” There is even talk of making me a t-shirt. It’s kind of funny now, but I hope this gets old fast. Besides the scenery, the other awesome part of my job is that we have an FTIR. I may or may not start petting it every morning when I start my day.
Besides finding out I had an FTIR to play with, the one other highlight of the last few days was confined space training. Some of you are rolling your eyes, but hear me out:
“I am going to be stuck in a lab for the majority of my adult life, so when I get a chance to put on a harness and crawl into a wine tank, I take it (3-8-11).”
That’s all for now. A word of warning for the reader: the entries following this one are more than likely going to get very boring, since the only thing I will be doing for the next 6-8 weeks will be working. I’ll try and put as many interesting stories in as possible, but there are only so many ways you can write the phrase, “today I did wine chemistry,” and have it sound interesting . I’ll do my best though. I don’t plan on using this as a forum to bad mouth or gossip about my coworkers, so any readers hoping for some winery drama will be sadly disappointed.
I will keep writing though, in spite of any lack of interesting subject matter. I make time to write in my journal every day, it’s very relaxing. And as long as I have a journal (and a working laptop), I will blog.
Well, until next week! Take care.
-DK
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