Yeastie Boys is a name of a stout from Wellington, New Zealand and is quite delicious. Most closely tastes like a Lefthand Nitro Milk Stout.

I drove for the first time last night. Okay let me back up. I got a job at LoneStar which is basically this restaurant at the edge of town. Longest bike ride ever. It’s all up hill coming home and after a long day that’s the last thing I want to do, but nonetheless I’ll do whatever I have to do to get some money rolling back into my pocket again. So Lonestar. Is basically your American streak house. Lonestar Steakhouse. Yeah I’m pretty sure they just stole the name from the original Texas restaurant chain.

Country music plays over the speaker system. There is the occasional good classic Johnny Cash, but its few and far between. The place is covered in pictures of butch Cassidy, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and a few other legends. I think my Johnny Cash picture count is around 30 right now.

So far I have had their steak fillet and Salmon dishes. I must say the steak was pretty comparable to something you’d get back in the states. The Salmon was alright, but they laid it on top of some green baby poop, so that pretty much ruined it for me.

I get to this place not really knowing what they want me to do. Quickly I am told to run the bar. Okay cool. I can do that. Or at least I can pretend. Bartending out here is pretty simple other than the coffee part of it. Which as I mentioned in the last blog, they are pretty crazy with their specific ways to prepare coffee and the different sizes of each cup for each. Okay so bartending, Pour some beers and wipe down glasses. Cool.

 Well.. yesterday I get told that I get to drive the curtesy coach which is the 11 person van they have to be able to pick people up. They pick people up from their house or wherever and bring them to lonestar and then at the end of the night the van driver takes them all back home again all for free.

Not bad of a deal, since A: the restaurant is kinda far away from the main strip and B: You do not want to get caught drinking and driving here.

 So yeah pretty good deal. So one of the managers asks me if I have my license to drive and I was like I have my states license. She says okay cool you are our driver tonight. I was like..um… okay.. I haven’t ever drove a car yet, let alone a van with 11 passengers in New Zealand ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ROAD…She said well... you’ll be alright. You’ll figure it out.

So away I went. There really aren’t a lot of stop signs here, they are more like yield signs. Which I was used to in Germany. There is also a lot of Roundabouts or traffic circles here. Those can be a bit more confusing, since you are entering on the left and exit on the left. I almost made the mistake of exiting on the right. Thankfully I didn’t. 

 My first couple of customers noticed that I had accidently put the windshield wipers on instead of the turn signals ( The turn signal is on the right of the steering wheel and the wipers is on the left) At first they were concerned, but quickly were like..oh you must be an American. I told them yup and today was my first time driving on the other side of the road. One woman said “ohhhh help help” but in a joking tone. She just kept telling me to always remember to stay to the left and I’ll be alright. Upon taking that same woman back home she asked me “ Which side of the road do you drive on? I jokingly said “ummm the middle right?” by this time she was a bit drunk and was like yeah that sounds right.

All night everyone was quite friendly and after I told them I had just moved here, they were quite excepting and helped give me directions around town to get them back home safely. After about 3 hours of that I actually got a hang of driving and I think as long as I don’t space out and just keep focused I’ll be alright with this whole driving thing. I remember in Germany I was a bit scared to drive, because there they have 100 more signs than we do in the states and everyone there drives super crazy fast., but that too I got the hang of and soon I was driving 90+ everywhere I went.

I think this job will be alright for the time being, until I either can find something different or until Teryn and I decide to take off to another part of the south island.

 We are looking at Nelson, New Zealand or Bay of Islands. But right now our main goal is securing the campervan, so we can take off and explore more.

Oh cool thing about lonestar is that some of the bartenders believe there is a ghost there. Every now and then there is an order for Brandy on the register screen. Never anything else, just brandy. And people here don’t really drink brandy. But every now and then it’s popped up on the screen and already ordered. So weird. At least the ghost is trying to pay for the drink I told them.

I’m going to wrap up this post, because I wanted to post about the driving experience and I need to organize my notes for my next big post. I don’t have good pictures to show this time, since we have been working and not really getting out but we are trying to see about going for a hike tomorrow.

Also future post I’m looking to forward to is Teryn’s post of our videos that we have been doing. We have decided to film each other with tasting the food here and describing it. It’s pretty funny. So those will come soon. Hope everyone is doing good back there. Thank you for reading!