Finally got wifi after 3 weeks! Sorry another super long one probably best to just skip this post all together, I would!

First day at the bakery was a success! We didn’t screw up the whole day until the end of the day where we were told we were a distraction, typical. We worked with 2 kiwis, a German, and a person form Holland (I have no idea what you call a person from Holland). At the end of the day we got to take home all the baked goods that were not sold, we came back with so much bread.

The next day we had to drive 45 min away to Thames just to find a grocery store! But on the way we saw an American flag so it was well worth the drive. We came back to Pauanui and I climbed the Pauanui Mountain while Mags tried to stretch her poor ankle. The view was amazing at the top! We went to the BBQ our boss had organized to meet everyone we would be working with. Everyone else was a backpacker too. We just learned that we were the oldest of the backpackers; they are all babies at 18!

I caught the sunrise because I was up really early the next day, we were going to see Trudy that day and I was just too excited to sleep, it was Christmas after all! The drive to Trudy’s was the most comical thing. In the beginning Mags was in the back of the van making Santa fruit kabobs to bring to Trudy. Number one Mags gets incredibly car sick if she is not driving, not our best idea. Number two the roads here are so winding and curvy it’s dumb! Stuff was flying everywhere in the back, I had to yell out “right” every time we curved so Mags could stabilize everything so it wouldn’t fall to the ground. Shortly after we started driving Maggie and I had to switch, the winding roads were just too much for her to handle! I finally finished the Santa kebabs [I, Maggie, did get ¾ of the way through making those beautiful kabobs, and I even peeled and chopped a banana] and had to climb back over our counter to the front seat. This is always an adventure and a sight to be seen, but anything for Trudy!

We finally made it to Trudy’s and I fell in love with her dog Coco! She is like a human; she just hops up on the bench when you sit down and is the most loveable dog! We met Trudy’s lovely and just as amazing friends and family! It didn’t feel too much like Christmas but having brunch with a bunch of amazing people is never a waste of a day, and we loved every moment of it! Hopefully we get to see Trudy’s kids race a car in a couple of days as well!

The next day we worked at the bakery from 1am to 1:30 pm. It was a crazy shift, and really everything here is a bit of a shit show. It’s gotten to the point where all we can do is laugh about it! Who would have thought that I was one of the most competent people in the room, not me [or me -Maggie]! I would like to thank food trucks and the fact that America is so great at customer service for this accolade. Mags and I are a well oiled machine; we work a cash register together and we kill it. But in all reality this job is nothing compared to the fast pace food tuck situation we were doing, we miss food trucks!

The best part about this job is that as soon as we get off work we can head straight to the beach. For a summering vacation town there really aren’t that many people here, but then again there aren’t that many people in NZ. This is great for us because we get a big chunk of the beach to ourselves!

Mags did make it to flat rock because it was a flat walk and only 5 min away!

It is becoming increasingly obvious that we will never have a normal schedule when working for the bakery. We never know what time to go to the bakery to start until about 4 hours before maybe 10 hours if we are super lucky. Again this whole thing is a shit show.

We keep seeing people with US teams on it, more specifically Boston and NY teams [YANKEES SUCK], but we get excited every time we see them because we just think, HOME. [I, Maggie, personally just pity those wearing Yankees hats] We try to interact with these people but these dumb people don’t even know what they are wearing. We said Go Sox to a man that came in and he was like what? Apparently he just liked the look of the Red Sox logo, we call bull because while we love our Sox, the logo is literally just a B. These people just think it’s cool to wear American style apparel. Why because America is cool! We did however yell “Go Blue” at a man wearing a UMich hat and he was actually from the states and we freaked out a bit! [And he actually lived in Lowell for a while and his daughter went to MassArt! Yay Mass] But then again we also saw a boy wearing a Patriots jersey and we started yelling go Pats out the bakery door and literally everyone was looking around to see who we were yelling at and what we were yelling about…even the boy wearing the shirt was looking for who we were yelling at, quite a big fail if I do say so myself!

The next day was more of the same at the Bakery, and we are starting to get a bit stressed out over it. At the end of the day, though, our boss offered everyone tequila shots, and guess what? No one wanted to do them. Well no one but Mags and I. Our hands shot straight up, typical Americans. This is how we also learned that the proof in New Zealand is way lower but still way more expensive than the US.

The days go on for so long here at that bakery and we get more furious each day so I’m not even sure what has happened from day to day because Mags and I just start yelling in frustration when we try to think about what we are putting up with here.

On the plus side we did finally get a new housemate! Her name is Brooke and she is from Tennessee and she is fabulous! We don’t get to see her too much because we are too busy running the whole damn operation here but when we do hang it’s full of laughs.

The only saving grace was New Years! We peaced out of work early with out a care in the world, because we were off to see Mama Trudy again!! Her children race cars and we have missed 3 of the races she has invited us to, but not this time baby, we pedaled to the metal and made it to Huntly! These car races are nothing like the car races at home! The cars were freaking adorable and I swear most of them were just held together with tape, and it was all amazing. There was one race with some specific car that I have no idea, the rules about where they are allowed to hit each other and it was the highlight of the night if not the whole trip! Cars were flying everywhere! (no one got hurt but most cars didn’t make it around the finish line, that’s my kind of driving) We also learned there is a lot of parading in car racing here and it’s adorable. Before the race happens the drivers sit on top of their cars and someone else drives them around the track as they wave to the audience, its all-very Miss America like.

Trudy and her husband Paul were amazing and spent the whole night trying to explain the rules of the crazy sport but in the end I couldn’t tell ya who won the race even after watching the whole damn thing. I’m not even sure how her son ended up doing but he and his car made it in one piece, which is enough of a win!

Trudy’s sons invited us to a “gathering” for new years and Mags and I were like: it’s either this or the hell hole of Pauanui. The house we showed up to was beautiful, it was the most elegant house we have seen in New Zealand so far and the cherry on top was there was the cutest puppy named Crumble there! We met their friends (I can’t for the life of me remember a single name though) who were all so nice and welcoming. We laughed, we drank, we ate, you know the typical night but this time with actual friends and people kind of our age! We headed out around 3:45am (Maggie was sober because you know tummy monsters) and we drove the 2 hours back home, just in time for our shift to start. So we worked 2 days straight no sleep and quite hung over, the workday could not end fast enough!

Waking up at 1am to start our short shift of only 13 hours!

Over the past 3 weeks we have tried to quit our job twice that’s how bad it is! However the middle child curse was in full swing. Every time we tried quitting we some how ended up showing up to work earlier and working more hours than before, we literally have no idea how this happens! We do however love the night shift part of our shift (we work 11 pm to about 3 or 4 pm, that’s correct that’s about 14 to 15 hour shift with about 4 hours of sleep a night). Donna and Paula are the only reason we are still alive at the moment! They have been the only light of joy we have in Pauinui! We laugh we sing and we get so exhausted that we cant feel our feet knees or backs together! By the time Mags and I hit about 1 pm on our shift we are pretty delirious, like to the point of slaphappy, we were drunk off sleep deprivation! If we have learned anything from this experience it’s that we could probably be pretty high functioning alcoholics if we had too! One day during our day shift a bird got into the bakery and was flying around and ended up taking a dumb on the baguette sandwiched we spent hours working on the night before, all our hard worked trashed. Then that night when we finally got home another bird was stuck in our bedroom and it had apparently pooped on Maggie’s sleeping bag! Not a great day for Paggie and birds.

Our final days at Pauinui have been anything but boring. There was a physical altercation between a staff member and the owner. There was pushing and shoving and things thrown at each other. It got the point where 2 people called the police! This entire excperinece has been ridiculous and almost unbelievable. After the police 2 people were fired and 3 people quit. That meant we were short staffed, guess who had to pick up that slack… you guessed it Paggie did! Our new manager was fantastic though he let us leave at 12, which was only, and hour past our end of the schedule shift. I know an hour after for a 12 hour shift seems crazy but once you understand that we have been doing 3 or 4 hours after our scheduled shift one hour seems like the luckiest day ever! We just always feel so bad leaving because then another rush of people come in and we hate seeing the 2 lonely people at the register have to run to help people as fast as they can…again middle child curse! But the best part about new manager is he loves the Mighty Ducks!

Our last shift at the bakery only lasted 14 hours so a short shift woo! I got to make sprinkle buns! I got to play with 2 of my favorite things icing and sprinkles and then they paid me dollars for it!

End note tid bits

Patric’s Yoo Hoo works so well! Mags and I got separated in the warehouse and there were tons of people talking and yelling children but over all of it I could hear Maggie’s Yoo Hoo over the crowd! THANKS PATRICK

When making the sandwiches with the French people at night I learned the difference between a 2 dollar sandwich and a 4 dollar sandwich is literally based on how you fold the ham! (The French people ended up quitting a week and a half into the job)

Our bed in Pauanui dips big time right down the middle so this means that Mags and I are constantly rolling to the outside to prevent collision. This also means that Maggie somehow punches me in the face in her sleep at least twice a night! I feel like she’s subconsciously trying to tell me something.

There is no way we are escaping death by tsunami if it ever hits here. The tsunami warning is the exact same noise as the fire warning, it just goes on for longer. The fire warning is already pretty freaking long so we just have to wait it out and see if other people start running to tell if the alarm has sounded long enough. But we would also have to run 10 minutes to get back home to pick up Paggie Waggie just to make it higher ground. So every time we here the fire warning our lives flash before our eyes. (Side note to the end note: there are a lot of fires here for some reason) However NZ here is an easy fix just have the Tsunami warning be a different sound, there ya go all problems solved.

Brooke is from Nashville and actually went to school with Taylor Swift and confirmed what we all have known for ages, she's not the best. However she said Kelly Clarkson is actually one of the nicest people she has ever met and is truly hysterical!

Sprinkle buns are the best and I don’t care how dumb they are. Sprinkle buns are just a white rolls with frosting on top then dipped in sprinkles, that’s all. And you know what it is magical!