Queenstown is an oasis in a desert of mountains in the middle of nowhere. And after living here for about a month and a half I can both feel its isolation and its intimate nature. The town’s big winter celebration, Winterfest, just ended which concluded a weeklong celebration of the coming winter season. People flooded in from all over, Australia being the #1 overseas representative. The Prime Minister of New Zealand, John Key, was also here for a while as well. Now the school holidays have come and both Australia and New Zealand ‘schoolies’ flock to Queenstown for the skiing and boarding as well as the night life. You might be able to draw some comparisons, of course on a different scale entirely, between Queenstown and Las Vegas. Only here you have to wear thermals.
Working and living in a ski town is and isn’t exactly what I expected but then again nothing really ever is what you expect it to be. The work aspect of it is simple enough and anyone who’s ever worked in hospitality of any kind knows the terrain. Loads of people flock to the mountain every morning, depending on weather conditions. All of us who work up there get up when it’s dark and get home when it’s dark. This was something that took adjustment as I was always tired for the first few weeks regardless of how exhausting the day was.
The mountain itself is divided into departments and there isn’t too much inter-departmental mingling since work begins and ends within your group. I am in the Food and Beverage Department, conveniently referred to as F&B. You’ve also got the Lifties, Maintenance, Janitors, Admin, Mascots, Snow Patrol, Instructors and Guest Services. It’s a good mix of people from all over, or better put a good mix of people from the UK, US, AU, and NZ, basically all the English speaking countries. There a couple South Americans but they’re not as heavily represented. Within F&B there’s also another two divisions consisting of FOH and BOH, or rather service and kitchen. Everyone brings their own personality to the mix and at times the dynamic can resemble that of high school; everyone comes in the first day for orientation, we’re taught where to go and what to do, further divided up into smaller groups, people vying for certain roles be it the party animal, the laid back individual, the class clown, and so forth. Sometimes it can be exhausting as most of the people are younger than me and have what I can only describe as more youthful energy than I. I make myself sound a lot older than I actually am. In this way it is not exactly what I expected.
Then there are the things I’d been looking forward to ever since I left: free season pass to snowboard all winter, picturesque views from the slopes, work parties, and heaps of good food. I must say of this one place in town that it might be one of the better burgers I’ve ever had. It’s called Fergburger and despite what everyone calls their ‘massive burger’ I would say it’s about the size of an average big burger in the States. Of course between all of this I would have to say the full season of snowboarding has me the most excited. There are two mountains in Queenstown, both owned by NZSki. Coronet, the one I work at, and The Remarkables are totally different mountains which is a nice way to switch it up now and again. I’ve already progressed a good deal and can ride switch, drop in, jump big kickers and do board grabs, and coast at accelerated speeds. And despite all this I have not become the quintessential snowboarder dude which is exactly the opposite of my nature to do.
As for the day to day operations of my life in Queenstown it mainly consists of three things up till now: working, drinking and snowboarding. And as fun as this all sounds it can get old fast. So after a month and a half there’s some of us who are looking into other options of spending our time. Some guys from the kitchen and I play poker after paydays, I’m starting to play basketball again with Jack from the kitchen (which to no surprise reiterated how out of shape I am). I am also looking into swimming laps at the local pool and starting up yoga classes. Of course this all, including all the good food, completely depends on the price as Queenstown is one of the most expensive places in New Zealand.
I am currently living in a house just outside of town, about a 20 minute walk from here. This has proven to be quite a hassle so in less than a week’s time I am moving to a new apt with Mitch and Taylor, a Kiwi couple I work with, and another co-worker, Lida. Being outside of town has limited, only somewhat, how often I get into town and so a closer to town location should prove a bit better.
Among the places we find ourselves most often are a handful of bars in the town center. These are usually the places that offer drink specials, like Fraser’s $2.50 handles on Wednesday night or Montieth’s Recession Session where the handles are $3.00 every Thursday night. There’s also Brazz, Revolver, World Bar and Winnies that are common gathering places.
One of our favorite forms of entertainment at work is to try and put on the other’s accent which is never found to be satisfactory to the one being copied. I think that on occasion my northern English accent is spot on but they don’t always agree. There are loads more cultural exchanges from slang to common English words that one country uses but others never attempt. I’ve started saying ‘keen’ which the English, Aussies, and Kiwis use but you almost never hear it in the US. I also can’t stop saying ‘chips’ in the Kiwi accent which are of course fries and kind of pronounced as ‘chups’. There’s also sweet as, keen as, taking a piss, on the piss, on the lash, bugger all, and bobbydazzler. There is a funny video on Youtube of a beached Kiwi whale who is talking to a seagull which takes a piss out of the Kiwi accent (I’m beached as bro).
And so within in this small town there is certainly a large quantity of diversity which does tend to keep it lively. I try and balance everything out between working, playing, and relaxing. I’ve been reading several biographies on American Independence figures as well as watching as many movies as I can from my roommate’s boyfriend’s hard drive. Still there are 2 and a half months to go in the season and I’m sure there is plenty more to come. I am very much looking forward to Ole’ Jude’s visit in August when we will go bungee jumping for her birthday. And so since my life is fairly routine this will probably be one of just a few posts this winter season. I tentatively have plans to travel to Fiji and Hawaii in Nov/Dec. so we’ll see what happens. I first have to secure the means to do so. So in this sense movies and books sound like a good plan. The hard part is sticking to it.
Working and living in a ski town is and isn’t exactly what I expected but then again nothing really ever is what you expect it to be. The work aspect of it is simple enough and anyone who’s ever worked in hospitality of any kind knows the terrain. Loads of people flock to the mountain every morning, depending on weather conditions. All of us who work up there get up when it’s dark and get home when it’s dark. This was something that took adjustment as I was always tired for the first few weeks regardless of how exhausting the day was.
The mountain itself is divided into departments and there isn’t too much inter-departmental mingling since work begins and ends within your group. I am in the Food and Beverage Department, conveniently referred to as F&B. You’ve also got the Lifties, Maintenance, Janitors, Admin, Mascots, Snow Patrol, Instructors and Guest Services. It’s a good mix of people from all over, or better put a good mix of people from the UK, US, AU, and NZ, basically all the English speaking countries. There a couple South Americans but they’re not as heavily represented. Within F&B there’s also another two divisions consisting of FOH and BOH, or rather service and kitchen. Everyone brings their own personality to the mix and at times the dynamic can resemble that of high school; everyone comes in the first day for orientation, we’re taught where to go and what to do, further divided up into smaller groups, people vying for certain roles be it the party animal, the laid back individual, the class clown, and so forth. Sometimes it can be exhausting as most of the people are younger than me and have what I can only describe as more youthful energy than I. I make myself sound a lot older than I actually am. In this way it is not exactly what I expected.
Then there are the things I’d been looking forward to ever since I left: free season pass to snowboard all winter, picturesque views from the slopes, work parties, and heaps of good food. I must say of this one place in town that it might be one of the better burgers I’ve ever had. It’s called Fergburger and despite what everyone calls their ‘massive burger’ I would say it’s about the size of an average big burger in the States. Of course between all of this I would have to say the full season of snowboarding has me the most excited. There are two mountains in Queenstown, both owned by NZSki. Coronet, the one I work at, and The Remarkables are totally different mountains which is a nice way to switch it up now and again. I’ve already progressed a good deal and can ride switch, drop in, jump big kickers and do board grabs, and coast at accelerated speeds. And despite all this I have not become the quintessential snowboarder dude which is exactly the opposite of my nature to do.
As for the day to day operations of my life in Queenstown it mainly consists of three things up till now: working, drinking and snowboarding. And as fun as this all sounds it can get old fast. So after a month and a half there’s some of us who are looking into other options of spending our time. Some guys from the kitchen and I play poker after paydays, I’m starting to play basketball again with Jack from the kitchen (which to no surprise reiterated how out of shape I am). I am also looking into swimming laps at the local pool and starting up yoga classes. Of course this all, including all the good food, completely depends on the price as Queenstown is one of the most expensive places in New Zealand.
I am currently living in a house just outside of town, about a 20 minute walk from here. This has proven to be quite a hassle so in less than a week’s time I am moving to a new apt with Mitch and Taylor, a Kiwi couple I work with, and another co-worker, Lida. Being outside of town has limited, only somewhat, how often I get into town and so a closer to town location should prove a bit better.
Among the places we find ourselves most often are a handful of bars in the town center. These are usually the places that offer drink specials, like Fraser’s $2.50 handles on Wednesday night or Montieth’s Recession Session where the handles are $3.00 every Thursday night. There’s also Brazz, Revolver, World Bar and Winnies that are common gathering places.
One of our favorite forms of entertainment at work is to try and put on the other’s accent which is never found to be satisfactory to the one being copied. I think that on occasion my northern English accent is spot on but they don’t always agree. There are loads more cultural exchanges from slang to common English words that one country uses but others never attempt. I’ve started saying ‘keen’ which the English, Aussies, and Kiwis use but you almost never hear it in the US. I also can’t stop saying ‘chips’ in the Kiwi accent which are of course fries and kind of pronounced as ‘chups’. There’s also sweet as, keen as, taking a piss, on the piss, on the lash, bugger all, and bobbydazzler. There is a funny video on Youtube of a beached Kiwi whale who is talking to a seagull which takes a piss out of the Kiwi accent (I’m beached as bro).
And so within in this small town there is certainly a large quantity of diversity which does tend to keep it lively. I try and balance everything out between working, playing, and relaxing. I’ve been reading several biographies on American Independence figures as well as watching as many movies as I can from my roommate’s boyfriend’s hard drive. Still there are 2 and a half months to go in the season and I’m sure there is plenty more to come. I am very much looking forward to Ole’ Jude’s visit in August when we will go bungee jumping for her birthday. And so since my life is fairly routine this will probably be one of just a few posts this winter season. I tentatively have plans to travel to Fiji and Hawaii in Nov/Dec. so we’ll see what happens. I first have to secure the means to do so. So in this sense movies and books sound like a good plan. The hard part is sticking to it.
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