Burrito Bros & Job

Friday night
This past weekend Andy (flatmate), Cherie (friend of Andy's), Erik and I decided to try our hand at salsa dancing - before we went out, the three of us had a lovely dinner at home (lamb chops - the best!) and met up with Cherie at the Flying Burrito Brothers. What a night!

Here is a picture of the dinner Erik and I made on Thursday night - it was so great, we made it again for Andy on Friday:
Like I mentioned, we all went out to Flying Burrito Brothers (FBB), which despite the name, is actually a very nice place. Here we are enjoying our pitchers of mango and raspberry margaritas (the mango was better) and laughing about some of the ridiculous decor, such as the hats and the fake watermelon.After FBB, we went to Latinos for dancing. Andy and Cherie have taken a few salsa lessons; Erik and I have had none. Not only we were no match for Andy and Cherie, but we were also no match for the regulars... so many of the couples there were just amazing! Sorry to disappoint, but no pictures of our dance attempts!

After we had our fill of salsa dancing we all went to a bar called The Big Kumara. Kumara is the Maori term for sweet potato. I think this is a superb name for a bar/dance club, especially considering that they have a GIANT, fake kumara strategically placed across the top of the bar! Anyway, this place was a lot of fun - the cover band played a lot of crowd favorites and we danced and sang along right with them...
Job search
I tried a couple more recruiting agencies and finally had some success. Until yesterday (Tuesday), only the door at the Wellington KPMG office was open (although not really "open" until October). Other than that there didn't seem to be many positions available. It was really frustrating for me when other people would talk about how many jobs there are in Wellington and how I would have no problem finding a job... yet I was actively looking for a job and hadn't found anything! Grrrrr... As it turns out, it is my opinion that I wasn't listed with the most active agents - it is very difficult to avoid working with recruiting agencies since 90% of jobs I found were listed through agents. I met with two more recruiters on Monday which resulted in 3 interviews on Tuesday (yesterday). (I did not have any interviews through the first two agencies I used.)

- Ministry of Economic Development: Per the website, "The Ministry works to ensure New Zealand is one of the best places in the world to do business, and to make a real difference to the country's economic performance." The interview went well and I accepted the offer. I start next week on Wednesday, so more details to follow once things get going.

- Xero: an Internet start-up company whose main offering is an online general ledger system. If you have ever considered starting your own business or own your own business, this is a pretty impressive product since you can login from any computer (in other words, it doesn't require any software). If that is you, you should seriously check it out (xero.com/nz). It's like having your GL through an email provider. Unfortunately, this contract did not come through for me, which is a bit of a bummer since the office was exactly what you would imagine an internet start-up to be like... lots of young programmers wearing designer jeans, trendy eyeglasses and sporting ipods. A little different environment from JPMorgan Chase and KPMG to say the least! (traded on the NZ exchange with a share price of NZ$0.71 if you think it has a chance!)

- New Zealand Post: this position was to help the Sales and Marketing team. It would have involved some accounting, budgeting, variance analysis and forecasting. Unfortunately this position, like xero, was also given to someone with management accounting experience. That was also a bit of a bummer since it would have been great to get involved in new areas. Oh well, so it goes.

Upcoming plans
We bought train tickets on the Overlander (http://www.tranzscenic.co.nz/) from Wellington to Auckland for Saturday and plane tickets to return on Tuesday night. The train ride will take the better part of day, but it's supposed to be gorgeous, so cross your fingers that we have nice weather!