Of Belt-Tightening and French Maids

Back in Queenstown i do be. Met up with yet another bum from Ireland when i did. A fello called Rob that i used work with in ISI is over for a week so we are just having a few drinky-poos and what not, none of the expensive stuff. I think he might have gotten the wrong impression of the place though cuz the first pub we went into was strangely enough filled with attractive women dressed in French Maid outfits, believe it or not this is not the usual scenario in Queenstown bars. So we hung around there for a while as the girls were now on the tables and bar dancing around, which was nice, the bar staff were all taking pictures fro0m behind and below. Anyhow after a while the DJ cam on the speakers and announced how "hot it was getting, maybe we need some......firemen!!!" At which stage a ton of guys in firemen outfits ran in, at which stage we left.

So bar the occasional drinking not much going on, i am back in the Black Shep in a proper warm, clean room without condensation on the windows and dripping from the roof. Will be here for 2 weeks then have to move again. goingtop be pro-active this time and book a proper hostel a few weeks in advance. See i have also looked at my bank account and it is not doing that well. Anna's visit really took a lot out of it, typical women. So i have decided to tighten up the bootstraps and give myself a budget and try and stick to it. Cutting down on all my stupid expences, which unfortunately involve all my internet time. I am a member of the gym and library and have a ski pass so hopefully if i justy stick to those things i will not be tempted to spend that much else. I am not in dire straits by any means but just cant continue like i have been spending.

I joined a job agency in town and will wait for a call from them but i think that i will also start randomly sending my CV to a few of the hotels around the place and see tdo they have any wokr. I do not want a full time job though, cuz that would just make all the money i spent no snow boarding stuff a waste of money, 15-30 hours a week is what i am looking for.

On another random note however, i was walking down to the gym last night when i saw this guy practising Capoeira over by the lake front. I went over and asked him if he knew of any classes that go on around town and while he mentioned one or two he invited me to go training with him a few times a week. I told him i had only been doing it a year or two cuz he was pretty class and it turned out he had been doing it 20 years, but he said that that was no problem as it is just easier to train with somebody else and that he would be able to teach me some stuff as well. So hopefully i will start getting my 1 on 1 free capoeira lessons next week. Then after talking to him and walking 50 yards down the road i met another South American guy i know (they are common as dirt over here) and his friends, also from South America. I got talking to them and it turnes out they are looking for a house, gave them my number and we may go looking this weekend. Then while in the gym got talking to a guy about his tattoo and it turned out he was from Ennis, its a small world.

Thats one thing that weird over here. When you are travelling on your own you have to learn to be self-sufficient, or insular as one girl i was talking to about it said. If you are not with a group then you have to get used to spending a lot of time just on your own and learning to be happy with that. But you also have to learn to be more out-going and willing to talk to complete random strangers, to initiate conversation with people anywhere cuz otherwise you will never make any headway. Have to admit that was not very easy for me at the beginning but you get used to it.

I will be well insular this weekend though. Have pre-ordered the new Harry Potter book and will be picking it up on Saturday morning. Its being released at 11 o clock in the morning over here so i though, "super, i will get to read it before all ye bums back home" then i realised that with the time difference it would be just about midnihgt in Ireland ant thats when the big releases are at back home, grrr. Will probably spend the weekend reading that, its nearly 800 pages long so i should finish it in a day or so, a day if i dont sleep til late. Sounds like a plan.