Before I get into the trouble that Ryan and I got into in Kaikoura, I need to tell you about the last few days of work. It was a fairly somber affair: the vast majority of the temporary Mud House workers finished on April 29 and moved out, turning both the winery and Duncannon into strange, quiet, ghost towns. I think work was especially eerie: all of us were so used to seeing people walking around with spanners, water blasting, or hanging out in the break room, and all of a sudden the noise stopped, the presses, floors, and recieval bins were clean, and the people just disappeared.
They went out with a bang though. The night of April 30, there was a party to end all parties at Duncannon sending everyone off: people barbecued, bought lots of every kind of alcohol to share with everyone, and played drinking games. Later we went into town and continued until the wee hours of the morning; thank god I had the next day off. Other people at Mud House drove out to Duncannon to join the festivities, as well as a few from Oyster Bay. We made so much noise that the managers claimed they could hear us all the way from their house, and the next morning the janitors refused to clean up the mess in the kitchen that we left them, something which they never made much of a fuss about before. This party was not the straw that broke the camel’s back, it was just a mess that, in my mind, would rival the aftermath of a college frat party.
“I have never bore witness to the aftermath of a frat party; it probably would look something like this, minus the leftover barbecue. I found a note on the door to the mess hall saying that this time the Duncannon staff wouldn’t clean up after us. I had to laugh, most people aren’t going to care that we have to clean up, because they are checking out today.
I gotta pause writing, Chang is awake and he’s started cleaning, I gotta help out (5-1-11).”
Chang and I cleaned off all of the tables and swept. I didn’t do any more past that, first because it was someone else’s turn to help clean; and second (the big reason), because I got invited to go to Nelson with some Oyster Bay friends. It turned into a very relaxing, but rather long excursion: we poked around some shops, had a good lunch at the Mac’s Brew pub, and had a little fun on the beach. Afterwards, the kiwi who grew up in the area asked us if we wanted to visit the Nelson Lakes, telling us it was just a short drive. That was the day I learned that kiwi’s can’t judge distances to save their own lives: this short drive turned out to be a 60km detour.
I would have preferred to see the Nelson Lake at some other time, a time when I wasn’t tired, and when the sun was still out, but it was still a memorable trip. The drive to Nelson Lakes National Park was quite beautiful: green fields and green mountains as far as the eye could see, all of them covered in sheep. I cant remember which of the Nelson Lakes we visited, this one was just cut out of the mountains, and might have been made solely by rain accumulation; the water was crystal clear.
What I remember the most about the lakes however were the eels: enormous, black, freshwater eels that apparently live to be a hundred years old and get to be nine feet long and as thick as small trees. I didn’t see any of those monsters, but I did see quite a few smaller eels swimming off the dock, and by “smaller,” I mean that these eels were only 2-3 feet long. You actually are allowed to feed the eels bread from the dock, but the local ducks have gotten smart and snatch up the bread before the eels get a chance. Sadly, the eels don’t have a taste for mallard, they prefer bread and algae.
The trip to Nelson was the last bit of fun I had before the craziness that I told you about in the week 9 entry ensued. I know I am telling you the story a bit out of order, but I am trying to keep the entry’s a uniform length, to satisfy my OCD tendencies. I am now going to get back on track with my writing periods and tell you about my near perfect last day at Mud House: May 6, 2011.
I woke up early that day to take a shower, and as I waked out the door to my room, I stopped, turned on my heel, and walked back in. Why? A beautiful neon orange sunrise greeted me outside my door, and I felt the need to take a picture.
I got to work on time, and proceeded to calibrate all of my instruments. I don’t particularly enjoy this task, you can usually judge how smoothly your day is going to go by how smoothly calibration goes, and the last couple days had been a bit rocky. However, today everything clicked: the sulfur benchmarks looked ok, as did the FTIR benchmarks, and when I calibrated the pH probe—by far my least favorite task, since it takes so long—I got a 99.82% calibration curve, which was my highest percentage all vintage. Things were looking up.
After lunch, I ran into Drea, my friend at one of the other wineries, and we had a nice chat. She had given me a lot of cool ideas about where to go and what to do while I was in New Zealand over the weeks, and that day she gave me the name of the fantastic hostel that Ryan and I ended up staying at in Kaikoura, as well giving me a few ideas as to where to bungee jump when we are in Queenstown. Afterwards I got a friendly hug goodbye, and we both went back to work. Pretty damn good day so far.
At the shift change, we took a group photo with all of those that were left at Mud House. There weren’t too many vintage workers left, and four of us were leaving that day as well. I don’t have the photo right now, but if it shows up on facebook I will post it here in an edit. It was a bittersweet goodbye: I was glad I was leaving, but I had made a couple good friends that I may not see again, and that was a bit sad. However, I learned that a couple of my new friends were actually going to be working a vintage in southern Washington, and that brightened my mood considerably.
That night we did our best to duplicate the madness of the previous Duncannon party. We did a decent job too: it was a lot of fun, but it was a different kind of fun. There were many fewer people at this one, so there wasn’t near as much food as before, near as much noise, or as much mess afterwards. And to our slight disappointment, we did not piss off the management with our noise level. Instead of a crazy party night, I had a good night with some good food, good company, and a few drinks. It was a pretty-damn-near perfect day.
The day afterwards (Saturday May 7) was a bit of a blur; nothing interesting really happened, everyone was just packing up. I remember Sunday morning pretty clearly as well, but for another reason. It was the day the entire Oyster Bay crew and I were checking out of Duncannon for good. The day started pretty normally as well: I woke up at about 8:30 like I normally do, and logged on to the computer to check my email. I had sent a message to the people at UC Davis inquiring as to the status of my graduate school application a few days earlier, so I figured I would be hearing back from them any time. I was right: my application for admission was incomplete because they never received the transcript I ordered for them in January (either they lost it or I screwed up when I ordered it from Oregon State, I still don’t know), and because that fault remained uncorrected for so long, my application was rejected.
The following is an email I sent to my family and a few friends, the morning I got the news:
Subject: disappointment….well, sort of
Dear friends and family,
I am here to report that I have recieved disappointing news from UC Davis: my application was canceled because it was incomplete. For those who don't know, the other four places I had applied to, Penn, Cornell, UW, and UCSD, have all rejected my application, so this means that I will not be going to graduate school next fall.
Back in January, I received an email saying that I needed to send them an official transcript in order to be considered for admission. I clearly remember ordering said transcript the moment I got that email: I was at Dads, and I remember talking about it with him afterwards, and how I thought this news boded well for me. I checked back into Davis earlier this week, since I hadn't heard anything. This morning I discovered two things: first, that I had put that particular message in the trash, and thats why I wasn't receiving replies; and second, that I did in fact get a reply, telling me the information that I am giving to you now.
My first thought was "What the fuck happened to my transcript? Did I send it to the wrong department? Did I click something wrong and not send it at all?"
Second thought was: "Is it too late to salvage this?" I sent my contact an email about this, but as luck would have it he's out on jury duty till Tuesday.
Third thought was: "You know, I'm strangely OK with this." Before I had the Gallo internship, my intent was to not go to graduate school at all, I figured that all I needed was a BS and I'd be fine. Throughout this waiting process there was part of me that really didn't like the idea of going back to school; that it was something that I needed, not something that I wanted. I guess now I get to see if I had the right idea the first time.
Fourth thought: "Now life gets interesting."
New plan: work an Oregon vintage through a contact I made out here, all the while brushing up my spanish. Afterwards work a vintage in Chile, through another contact. After that vintage, backpack north until I get to Portland or until I get tired. Then find a real job.
Thank you all very much for helping me with my applications and lending me your support through the process. I wish I had better news to report to you all, and if there is the slightest chance to salvage my application I definitely will. But until I find that out, I am operating on the assumption that graduate school is going to be put on hold for the time being.
Time to give this "real life" thing a try (cracks knuckles).
Best Wishes Always,
Dan
After I sent that off, I packed up what was left of my room, checked out of Duncannon, bid all of my friends at Oyster Bay and Mud House a fond farewell, and walked to Ryan’s house in Redwoodtown. Before giving “real life” a try, I was going to make every moment of my New Zealand vacation count. I had been waiting for that moment for close to 7 months, and I wasn’t going to let a little thing like getting denied from graduate school rain on my parade.
After some ordeal checking out of Ryan’s house (I hope he posts the story of the majestic Blenheim cockroach on his blog, in retrospect its actually quite funny), Ryan and I hopped the bus south to Kaikoura. Originally, Kaikoura got its start as a whaling village, but now I believe its chief industry is tourism: Kaikoura is ideally placed between Christchurch and Picton, is breathtakingly beautiful, and is one of the few places where you can swim with dolphins in the open ocean. Ryan and I checked into our hostel and decided to walk around town to get our lay of the land. It was a pretty short walk: Kaikoura’s commercial district is spread along the waterfront, most shops, hostels, and attractions spitting distance from the beach, and only occupies about a mile of coastline. Afterwards, we went back to the hostel, broke into a bottle of champagne that Ryan had gotten for his birthday earlier, and spent the evening talking to the other backpackers in the hostel. There is also a hot tub in the back yard, so of course we spent a bit of time in there as well. All I will say about that is: if you ever find yourself in a hot tub, staring up at the stars, listening to the ocean, sipping good champagne, all while getting an upper back massage from an attractive German lady, somewhere in your life you made a good decision.
We only spent one full day (two nights) in Kaikoura. Sadly, we never got to swim with dolphins, due to rough seas, but we did get to a pretty cool pioneer museum and went on a tour of the Maori Leap Caves, a sea-carved limestone cave system a 30 minute walk from downtown Kaikoura. That night, I participated in my first pub quiz night with a group of backpackers from our hostel. We got third out of eight, and I am proud to say I played a good part in how well we did. The next morning, we packed up our things, and hopped the bus to Christchurch.
That’s all for now. I’m very excited that I can actually start sharing my adventures in the country of New Zealand with you all, as opposed to my adventures in the Mud House lab. It’s going to be a wild ride. Talk to you all soon!
-DK
Edit: We actually skipped Dunedin altogether, and I am actually posting this entry from Queenstown. It would have been cool to go to Dunedin, but if I did I wouldn't get to go to the north island.
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