update:
Been to Queenstown and currently in Dunedin... will be in Wellington on the 29th (if i can find accomodations jeebuz).
Queenstown is absolutely AWESOME. Incredibly views, great people... its a tourist trap town so stuff is expensive. Anyone coming here i'd suggest staying in Glenorchy which is 15 minutes away from queenstown and has even more impressive views and excellent fishing and adventure tours.
The road between queenstown and dunedin is amazing as well. I stopped by 2 little towns that were so high up in the mountain range that the cloud cover literally went through town (not fog...clouds!) ... unbelievable.
Dunedin... well dunedin is the first dissapointment ive had in this country (lol). This place is a ticking timebomb.
Its a quaint little city (you can walk one side to another of it in about an hour) with a major university (i think 40% of the residents here are students), a botanical gardens, a castle (only one in NZ)...and nothing else.
thats it. nothing else to do. Entertainment is centered around whatever sport you can find (apparently graffiti art all over town and getting piss drunk is the local passtime), a casino and a red light area.
mix the above with thousands of bored students and you get a glimpse of the feel of the place.
homes are victorian style with modern homes and shops in between (ruins the esthetics)... all buildings show an obvious lack and disregard for maintainance so the city itself is rather ugly.
Job hunting so far has been bad... put hundreds of applications but no bites. Ive been advised many companies take 3 to 4 weeks to tell you yes or no and most dont even contact you if you're rejected.
What irks me is that I see tons of foreigners working here who tell me that they came with tourist visa, got a job and the job gave them work visa (2yrs visa)... yet I went through all the legalities of getting the legit 1yr work visa before entering the country (which wasnt cheap) and I get here and i'm being rejected from some companies because my visa is not a 2yr visa. /sigh.
So anyways.. Vulcan ill be in wellington soon so maybe we can meet up and have a beer or something.. at this stage ill try and get a flat for a couple of months. as things are if I dont land a job ill have to return to the US by january
