I know, this is WAY overdue

Okay, so I haven’t updated this in awhile. I lost my motivation because I haven’t been doing anything REALLY exciting lately.
So past two weekends I’ve just been hanging around Wellington, but I’ve been making the most of it. Two weeks ago I walked up Mt. Victoria and saw some amazing views of the town. Until then I didn’t really realize how small Wellington really was. From up there I could see where I worked, where I lived, the airport, etc, etc. Pretty much everything really looked so close together. Of course when I think about more and more Wellington is really only the size of Grand Rapids.

After walking down Mt. Vic instead of going home I walked over the New Zealand War memorial. It was pretty cool, I didn’t know very much about New Zealand’s history until then.


When I saw the tomb of the Unknown Soldier I thought it was interesting that they didn’t have a guard or rope or anything around it. On my 8th grade trip to Washington D.C. on the things I remembered very well was the tomb of the Unknown Soldier. There was an elaborate ceremony of the changing of the guard at Arlington Cemetery.

Then, last weekend my agency was invited to an industry party that was being put on by a post-production company. It was a lot fun going out with people from work, what wasn’t fun was waking up the next day at 8:00AM and getting in a car to Martinborough. Martinbourough is a town in the Wairappa, which is one of the largest wine regions in New Zealand. Although I’m not a hue fan of wine, it was a perfect day to be driving around and taking in the scenery. The wine was also very good, and on top of that we went to an olive rove. Apparently New Zealand olive oil is supposed to be a bi deal. We tasted many different kinds of olive oil, and I tried olives too. I usually HATE olives, but these were so good. First I tried the dessert olives, yep dessert olives. They’re black olives that are soaked in balsamic vinegar and some kind of fruit. They were nothing like that nasty olives I was used too. Then I tried the green olives, these were the smallest olives I had seen. They didn’t have that red thin in the middle, which explains the size. So these olives savory and salty, and just good, I can’t really explain why these were so good.
Tomorrow is my last day at MEC. Its pretty sad, the time went by really fast. I’m not totally sure, but I think my next internship isn’t going to have much to do with media. Which bums me out, but it will be good to see the other side of things in the industry.
Something I have to look forward to is that I leave for Sydney on Sunday. I’m really excited, right now I have no idea what I’m going to do there, I’m just going, but that’s pretty much how all my trips have been like so far.
So this weekend I was hoping to go bungee, but its not going to happen. I feel like I missed out big time but not doing it in Queenstown. I’m not going to look back and regret any longer though. Now I have even more reasons to come back. Oh yea did I mention I’m coming back to New Zealand. Haha, I don’t know when but someday I’ll make it back here and “relive” my the experience I’ve had.

Work, Work, Work

This past weekend I got to witness the All Blacks obliterate the South African Springbacks in rugby. Apparently this is a huge deal, South Africa is supposed to be very good. I guess New Zealand is now favored to win the Rugby World Cup next year.

This week work has been pretty good. The guys and I have been taken out to lunch twice this week, and Friday Matt, Grant, and I are being taken to the Phoenix game. The Phoenix Wellington’s football team, but they play in the Australian A-League.

One of the campaigns that just finished apparently went above and beyond the client’s initial expectations. So Grant asked me to compile all this data into a neat format for him to use in his entry report for an award. I felt pretty good about myself that he asked me to do something. Then after going through the week after week after week of post analysis reports I understood why he asked me to do that. The client was the Ministry of Health, and the campaign was about flu shots. I think looking at so much data about flu commercials and web traffic gave me the flu. The next day I did not feel good.

Well that’s really my week so far. I know this is a short post, and I have no pictures to go with it, but my life hasn’t been too exciting the past couple of days. On the brighter side, I did buy plane tickets to Sydney the other day. I’m really excited for that trip, I’ll be spending four days of my last week there. I still need to book a hostel and find some stuff to keep me occupied while I’m there.

Rotorua and Thensome

After a delayed flight and wrong directions from a crazy ass bus driver, Kendall and I met up with Wes and Amanda in Rotorua. We finally found them at our hostel Thursday night. Once we were situated we explored the town a little then went to the grocery story to stock up for the weekend. Since our hostel was equipped with a kitchen, we all decided to cook for the weekend instead of eating out a lot.

Over dinner we tried to plan our weekend in “Rotavegas.” We didn’t get very far, and when we finally made some decisions it was way to late to book anything. So after breakfast on Friday morning we talked a little more and when Sarah arrived we finally decided to book some stuff.

Friday afternoon we ventured to Hell’s Gate Thermal Park. The funny thing about Rotorua is that it is in the middle of the thermal area of New Zealand. So there are a lot of geysers, and also the entire place smells like sulfur. Walking around Hell’s Gate was pretty cool. The sun was out and it was a nice day, but boy did it reek walking around that thermal park.

After we walked around the park, we went to the spa. The spa was all right; we went there thinking it was going to be a thermal pool and crazy mud pool. Well the spa looked like a collection of hot tubs. The mud pools had some privacy walls around them, but they were filled with borderline hot water that had some mud at the very bottom. Then the sulfur pool was this large communal hot tub-ish like thing. To sum up, Hell’s Gate wasn’t really worth my time or money. I wish I had spent my afternoon doing something else, but whatever it probably could have been worse.

Rotorua has a very large Maori population (the Maori are the indigenous people of New Zealand) so Friday night we decided to do a Maori cultural dinner. We went to the Mitai Village where we learned about their culture and enjoyed a traditional Maori meal.

The meal we had was called a Hangi. Hangi is the Maori word for oven. The Hangi is a pit that is dug out of the ground then filled with some wood then large stones. The wood is set a flame and the stones act as coals. They use the hangi to cook the meat and some vegetables.

Saturday was simply an incredible day. We rented a car and drove out to Waitomo, which is about 2 1/2 hours from Rotorua. There we did a cave tour, which involved abseiling down a small cliff, floating around a pitch black cave on a inner tube, crawling through cave holes, seeing glow worms, and rock climbing the cliff we abseiled down. However, because I was walking through a river in only semi-water proof boots I ended up with a case of frostbite. When was the last time you got a case of frostbite in July? It was so much fun, I don’t even car that I got frostbite on my feet. It was totally worth it.

The scenery on the North Island doesn’t seem to compare with that on the South Island. Usually that’s how people describe both islands, but my trip last weekend on the South Island has really shown it to me now.
It was another good weekend for me. Sadly it was the last trip that my friends and me planned. I’m sure there will be at least one more though, especially since my boss gave me my last week off. Right now I’m trying to decide what I’m going to that week. I don’t really want to stay in Wellington; maybe for a couple of days I’ll try to get out to Australia or somewhere. Depends if anyone is willing to go with me.

Right now work is getting pretty intense. I’m working on two big projects along with my usually mundane duties. Then on top of that, during a meeting today my boss asked me if I was willing to help out with a brief. Me being a retarded intern I said, “yes.” I guess I’m not at that point where I can tell my boss, “Sorry, I already have a ton of shit to do.” I don’t think I’ll ever get to that point at MEC though. It’s hard to believe, but I really only have less than three weeks left. I kind of wish I could stay in Wellington and keep working for MEC. It’s been a sweet experience so far, sadly I’ll have to return to reality eventually and…graduate, ugh, just typing it makes me shudder.

I think I’m all caught up on the blog!! This weekend the gang and are going to see a rugby match. New Zealand is playing South Africa in Wellington. OH, and next week I’m going to the Wellington Phoenix game in Matt and Grant. Steve gave me his ticket, and here’s the best part, we’re going with some media reps, so every thing is going to be paid for. Next few weeks are looking pretty sweet.

Queenstown and More

Waking up at 5AM wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be and check in at the airport was the easiest thing I’ve ever done. All I had to do was put my name into a kiosk, select my flight, and then hit print. That was about it, there was no security, no questions, nothing.

I brought two books with me thinking I’d finish one on the plane and read the other on the bus. The flight was incredible, and I didn’t need to open a book. I was too distracted by the sunrise on the snow peaked mountains.
The weather on the South Island was perfect. The sun was out all day Thursday and Friday. I don’t think I’ve seen that much sunshine since I left the states. Apparently the people in Dunedin also had not seen the sun in a while either.

When we left Dunedin on Thursday for Queenstown, I thought it was a pretty cool town and I looked forward to spending Sunday there. There are a lot of cool old buildings there; it was like we got off the plane somewhere in Europe.


The bus ride to Queenstown from Dunedin was long, but also very scenic. We saw amazing snow capped mountains the whole way there. I have to admit though, I’ve seen so many mountains lately that they are starting to become less and less interesting.

Queenstown wasn’t quite what I was expecting. I didn’t really know what exactly to expect, but I wasn’t expecting the busiest ski town I’ve ever seen. All the buildings were fairly new, and they were filled with ski rentals, cafes, and expensive shops.

Thursday night, after the long day of traveling, we all signed up for a pub crawl. It was probably the best deal I’ve bought in New Zealand. I paid $25 to go to six bars with this crowd, and got six free drinks. Some were pretty good, others not so much, but it ended up being a lot of fun. Ironically it was Canada Day, so a lot of the bars had Canadian Flags and maple leaves everywhere. The Canadians sure were proud to be there.

Not going to bed until 3:30AM didn’t make the next day very easy. I woke up really early hoping that I would be able to sign up for a bungee, but we missed the first shuttle into town. Because of the Lord of the Rings tour a few others and I booked we couldn’t do any other bungee that day. So bunging was put on hold for a while I guess.

To kill time before our Lord of the Rings tour Wes, Sarah, and I walked around town taking in the scenery. We boarded the skyline gondola up the mountain where the views were incredible.

The view of the town next to Lake Wakitipu beneath The Remarkables can’t really be described with words. We couldn’t of asked for a better day either. The sun was out shiny bright and keeping us warm too.

We eventually met up with our tour guide for The Lord of the Rings. His name was David, and he wasn’t very bright. He couldn’t really tell us a lot about the scenery we were looking at, he mostly just referred to his book and read aloud from it when we had a question.

Towards the end of our tour I was talking to David about my bungee problem and he asked if we wanted to try paragliding. Wes and I jumped at the idea and David booked it for us right over the phone.

Paragliding was a lot of fun; it was a good time of the day to do it too. Seeing the sun set over the mountains while in mid air was definitely something I’m not going to forget. The best part of it all was going down. My guide made a hard left turn and we circled our way down. We got going pretty fast too.


Our last day in Queenstown wasn’t really spent in Queenstown. We had to get up even earlier than the day before to catch our bus to Milford Sound. It took almost five hours to get there, granted to stopped in a town called Te Aneu and many other places along the way to take pictures.

Milford Sound is tucked away in the Fiordland National Park. Besided hiking, the only way to get there is by taking the Milford Road. Thankfully, because we had booked spots on a tour we didn’t have to drive.

The Milford Road takes you past 14 fiords and below the 45th parallel, which is the 1/2 way line between the equator and the South Pole. Only 10% of the world’s population ever goes below it, and now I’m part of that.

Milford sound was mistakenly named, it’s actually a fiord. A sound is formed by a river and a fiord is formed by a glacier. All the fiords we past were amazing, but they had nothing on Milford. When we finally got to Milford we took a boat out to the Tasman Sea turned around and returned to the pier. Everything about Milford was amazing, the water, the mountains, the waterfall, everything. When we were coming back it began to rain, and then even more waterfalls began to form. We couldn’t go very fall with out spotting a few waterfalls.

After we returned to the pier, we got back on the bus and returned to Queenstown. Without any stops on the way the drive was much shorter. The remainder of the day was not very exciting. We all got some food and I basically passed out afterwards, but a good nights sleep is what I needed.

Once again we had to wake up early the next morning, this time we were catching a bus back to Dunedin. The bus ride was pretty fun, I sat next to this cool guy from California. He’d been living in New Zealand for six and a half years. His wife is a kiwi that he met on some skiing trip or something.

This time around Dunedin was pretty boring. We’d basically seen everything so we ended up just walking around trying to kill time. We found our way to the world’s steepest street and successfully climbed our way to the top.

Overall the weekend was one of my better trips. Not bunging was a big bummer for me, but I know the opportunity will arise again. I know this post is really late, but I’ve been busy at work I swear. That’s another story though.

First 4th of July in an Airport

As of today I’m half way through week four. That means I only have 45 days or seven and a half weeks left here. AHH. I guess I might freaking out a little too early, after all I do have a lot of interesting plans happening right now.

This Thursday Wes, Sarah, Kendall, Amanda and I are getting on a plane at 7:05AM and flying to Dunedin. We get into Dunedin at 8:50AM then we wait for our bus to leave at 2:25PM. THEN at 6:15 we arrive in Queenstown! The self-proclaimed “adventure capitol” of the world.

Needless to say I’m really excited for this trip, and the five of us have hardly any free time there. We only have two full days in Queenstown so we all have to make the most of them.

On Friday morning Sarah, Wes, and I are starting early with a Lord of the Rings tour. We’ll be seeing the river where the fellowship past the big stone statues, the river where Arwen drowns the ring wraths, a battle scene that I can’t remember, and the delta where Faramir attacks the elephants. It’s going to be sweet to see all that cool scenery.

Friday afternoon I may very well be doing a bungee (sorry mom). I’m having a hard time justifying which bungee to do. Mom, this is where you skip the rest of this paragraph. I can do the big bungee, which is roughly 140 Meters (450 feet) or the lame cheap 40-meter bungee (131 feet). That last sentence makes it sound like an easy decision, but the really cool bungee is really expensive. I’ve already spent a pretty penny on plane ticket, lord of the rings tour, and on Saturday (next paragraph).

Saturday I will be seeing one of the most amazing places in the world, Milford Sound. Milford Sound, which is actually a fiord, is in the middle of Fiordland National Park on the west coast of the South Island.

So before I say anymore I will explain what a fiords and sounds are. A sound is, “a slim passage of water connecting either two seas or a sea and a lake. A fiord is a long, narrow inlet of sea tucked between high cliffs.” The story behind Milford Sound is some glacier formed it way back when. Then after years and years of this glacier sitting on top of the fiord, the glacier…left, or melted, or something.

Milford Sound is covered with peaks, waterfalls, and other cool New Zealand scenery. This is a trip the group and I have been looking forward to for a while. I wish I could spend more time in Queenstown, or go in summer. But I’m here in winter and I have a job, so I’m going to do the best I can. Sometimes I forget I’m not here to travel. I’m here to do my job and learn about advertising. Though I can’t explain how long the weekend feels like, in the sense that I don’t think about work at all over the three-day weekend. When I return on Monday it feels like I haven’t worked in weeks instead of days. Don’t get me wrong I do like my job, the people I work with are great, and all the people I’m introduced to are all really nice too.

Speaking of work, I have a big project in my lap now. I am doing my own media plan for a pie shop! Pie being along the lines of potpie. This plan is not for a client, it’s more of a tool for the agency and I’m building it for them. To do this plan I need to select a target market that I believe is the best choice, and find the best way to reach them. I’m little tempted to do a full marketing plan for this project. I could easily form a mock full service agency with some of my fellow interns. Then again, that might be biting off a little more than I can chew.

I really want to knock this thing out of the park, especially since I have to present it to Grant, Steve, Matt, and probably Jason and Rowena. This is my big chance to make them go, “Damn, this kid is good.”

Here’s another exciting thing about work, a second intern is starting soon. This Monday, after my amazing weekend in Queenstown, there will be another American intern at the Wellington office of Y&R and MEC. Her name is Jenny and she is from Colorado. This is the fifth Coloradan to join us in New Zealand, where the hell do they keep coming from? I shouldn’t be talking though, if I count as a Michigander then there are four of us here in NZ scattered around. Jenny is either an account management or creative intern. I’m thinking she is an account management because she is working on my end of the office and not with the creatives.

So with all that the next 4-5 days are going to be pretty exciting. It pains me a little knowing that I’ll be spending my 4th of July traveling back from Queenstown. It’s the first time I wont be in New Buffalo celebrating on the beach with my Shady Lane family accompanied by smores and fireworks, but I think the gang and I will make up for it.

Good Things Happen to Good People

On one of my last days as a waiter at Blue Plate Café I had a one top table. It was this really cool lady and she made my day. She asked me about the restaurant and how long I had worked there and what not. When I told her I was leaving for an internship oversees she became very excited for me. Before she left she said to me, “thank you for being so accommodating, when I was about your age I was traveling like you’re starting too. My aunt said to me that good things happen to good people, and its been proven true to me time and time again.” She left me a very generous tip that day, but her words are what I remember most.

Its only week three of my internship, but I have arguably learned more about relationship marketing than advertising. The funny thing is that people keep telling me about how different the media industry is here in Wellington than it is in Auckland. Yesterday while I was out to lunch with Steve and a TV rep named Donna, Donna basically said she doesn’t take care of her Auckland clients the same way she does her Wellington clients. It sounds as if media planners in Auckland are more demanding of their media reps, and vice versa.

A heard a similar story today from another TV rep. His name is Andy, and he is basically Donna’s competition. When Andy, Steve, and I were out for coffee Andy started telling me about this media planner he used to know. The guy was from the UK, and he was supposedly one of the best media planners in London. Andy was having a meeting with him one day, and the planner said to him, “this is the rate I want, and it’s the rate you’re going to give me” or something along those lines. Andy was a little appalled, and he thought about it for a moment then he wrote down Donna’s number and gave it to the planner. He told him to piss off and that he didn’t want to do business with him.

I guess the planner from the UK was confused, this had never happened to him before. Andy described him as nice guy, and they did do business together but I don’t think Andy ever went out of his way to help him like he the way he helps Steve. If this planner simply had said to Andy that he needed to impress this client or his boss he would of given him the rate without any questions.

It seems like when Grant, Matt, or Steve try teaching me something it all comes back to relationship marketing. Andy gives Steve a lot of good rates, and in return Steve spends more money on Andy’s network than he has to. Andy’s not the only rep who’s like this either. The other day I did my first brief with a rep, her name is Annabelle, and she works for a company that run’s the New Zealand equivalent of Ebay. I told her about the brief and what we wanted to do. It turns out our budget was too small for Annabelle to make our plan work. Even though she wouldn’t do what we wanted, she emailed me with a couple of other good ideas that can potentially accomplish what we want to do. I suppose any planner would expect this of a rep, but because of Annabelle’s ties with Grant she went out of her way to help us out.

All of this makes me think about ethics. I had a marketing teacher who preached ethics like no other. He even planned a conference about ethical leadership in business. A point this teacher often made was that people succeed in business because of their ethics. Its simple really, people don’t like to do business with other people who aren’t trustworthy or respectable. I would be very interested to hear what he has to say about Andy’s story.

I don’t know if I’ll be a media planner for an agency after I graduate. I had never really thought about that job until I started working for Grant. I like working at MEC, and so far I’ve learned a lot from the guys. If I do find a job back in the states as a planner I hope I can build the kind of relationships that Grant, Steve, and Matt have. I definitely don’t want to be the kind of media planner who has to beat up a rep to get the right rate.

It’s a little weird that I’ve only been here for three weeks and I’ve come to realize this. I don’t know if media planning in Chicago is like Wellington or Auckland, but I know either way what kind of person I am and what kind of ethics I have too.

A Little About Work

Today I realized that I had been mostly writing just about my traveling and drinking escapades. It made me think that I was avoiding a huge part of my trip, my internship after all that is the reason why I am here.

So what’s been going on at work? Well so far I’ve just been learning. You really have to know a lot to be a successful media buyer. That includes knowing the client, the different mediums, and the software. Last week was one huge training session that my mind has just combined into one long day. I learned how to used three different programs Pegasus, which is used to clock hours and bill clients. Asteroid, this giant database that can tell you almost anything about consumers and different demographics, and Arianna, this is an AGB Nielsen product that deals with TV ratings and campaign monitoring.

So I learned about all those programs, and with that my boss is teaching me about New Zealand and the ad industry here. So last week we spent and hour talking about TV. Pretty cool huh? Lol When working in the ad industry though you need understand all the mediums. So we talked about the different channels in New Zealand, who owns them, and what’s their target market. I was baffled when I found out that the New Zealand Government controls channels 1 and 2, but I guess they don’t abuse that. They pay people to be unbiased when it comes to news and content. Personally I don’t think that would work in the U.S.

By the time Thursday came around I was ready for the weekend, crazy to think that I’m that dependant on a 4-day workweek. Anyways, I get to work and I find out that Steve, Matt, and I are being taken out to lunch. So I’m pretty stoked, I usually eat a sandwich everyday for lunch. So I did the work I had that morning and at 12:00 we left. We didn’t come back until 3:30, and that was after 5 of us drank three bottles of wine, and I had two rum and cokes. The two guys who took us out where from some company in Auckland that is like the equivalent of Clear Channel. These guys were pretty hilarious. They gave me the nickname Capone because I’m from Chicago. One of the better nicknames I’ve had.

I guess media planners get taken out to lunch like that a lot. That’s not even the end of it though; we got back to the office at 3:30. I had no work to do so I’m waiting for Matt to give me something to do and he tells me that we have to go downstairs to the café for another “meeting.” So that was the rest of my day, at least until 6:00. Then I find out that the reason that we have two of these in the same day is because there were all these media reps down from Auckland that day. There were two parties that night for media planners in Wellington, so I went to one with Matt. It was at this bar, that I can’t remember the name of, but it was sweet because it was an open bar. So I talked to a few people, as soon as they found out I’m American they all wanted to get to know me. That’s making me sound way too cool, it was only about two or three people I met at the party before I left. This was all on a Thursday too, and there was another party going on too. I can’t believe all those people went to work the next day. I wonder if that’s an industry thing or a Wellington thing.

South Island Adventures

This last weekend Amanda, Kendall, Camille, Sarah, Wes, and I went to the South Island. We took the ferry to Picton spent the night there, then the next day we took the bus to Nelson. Then we were supposed to be able to spend Saturday afternoon through Sunday afternoon in Nelson, but because our ferry on Sunday was cancelled we had to catch the first bus out of Nelson on Sunday to get back to Picton so we could catch the earlier ferry back to Wellington.


So with that in mind, we tried to do as much as we could while we were in these two towns. Trouble is, there isnt that much to do in these two towns. When we got to Picton we walked around for awhile then Kendall, Camille, and Amanda went on a wine tour. Meanwhile, Wes, Sarah, and I decided to go to the aquarium. The aquarium is the smallest thing I've ever seen, its just this one room with some moderately large fish tanks. The guy who worked there feed the fish in front of us and explained a few things about them so that was kinda cool. Really the whole reason we went there was to see the blue penguin, who only comes out in the afternoon after the fish have been fed. When the guy walked out of the back room with the penguin, we got really excited cause we thought we were going to be able to pet him or get close to him, but then he put the penguin in a tank to swim around in.

Other than that, we really did nothing else in Picton. We walked around the shops a little bit, explored the beach, and then waited for the girls to get back from there wine tasting.

The next day after we woke up we went to this bakery across the street from out hostel and got some really good sandwiches and doughnuts. Then we walked around aimlessly waiting for out bus, we finally got on the bus at 12:00 and left at 12:15. Then we all got excited again because we were on our way to Nelson, a town that everyone described as "so much fun, and just a really cool place." Well, since we got there after 1PM all the half day tours and adventure stuff had already left and we werent going to be able to do the morning tours because we had to leave really early.

So now we found ourselves again needing something to do. So we walked around town, and followed a map a women at the hotel gave us. We decided to go check out this thing on the map called the Center of New Zealand. It sounded pretty cool, and we all figured it could kill some time. So we get there, and its a football (soccer) field. Now we're all like "wtf" then we wander over to a sign that says Center of New Zealand and its pointing up a hill. Then it translated, Center of New Zealand literally is the center of New Zealand. After we cleared that up we walked up the hill and got some awesome views of the valley and of Nelson.

After we got down we walked around again, found some diner then headed back to the hostel. We attempted to go out to the bars, but none of them were that much fun. It could of been because we got to the first bar around 9:30 and left our last one around 10:45. So maybe were trying to go out a little early, but I think other bars in other cities would have been fun at that time too.

All in all, it was a good trip. At the very least we got out of Wellington and explored a little, and that alone made the trip worth it.

They spent how much at Wal-Mart?

Yesterday I was at work and I had a free second so I checked my email. My dad sent me a note saying that my bank had been calling the house and that I needed to call them. So I woke up early this morning and I called them before I went to work. I found out that my identity was stolen. Yep, someone has been trying to use my debit card while I’ve been in New Zealand.

Thankfully, my bank did not authorize any transactions, but now my debit card and internet banking is shut off. So I have no way to access my money. The bank is mailing a new debit card to my house in Michigan, and hopefully it will be there by this weekend for my sister to pick up.

As for money, my other sister is going to try taking some money out of my checking account then sending it to me via Western Union. Lucky for me I have some good friends with me here. One of them bought me a bus ticket so I can go away with them this weekend and the other said she could give me back the money I gave her yesterday for a plane ticket. I’ll pay her back later when I have my new debit card.

On the brighter side 4 of the girls, my roommate and I are going to the south island this weekend. We’re taking a ferry from Wellington to Picton and spending the night in then going to Nelson. I don’t know how much stuff there is to do in Picton but there is a ton to do in Nelson. You can go hiking, mountain biking, kayaking, and horseback riding. Even in winter! It should be a fun weekend, and I’m really excited to go explore somewhere that’s not Wellington. I really like Wellington, but I’m ready to go see what else is out there.

Well tonight I have to stay up until 2AM so I can call the bank and tell them to let my sister take out money. Don’t really know what I’m going to do…god willing I don’t fall asleep.

The Weekend Cont

Where did I leave off? Oh yea, after BK the night ended and we all crashed. On Saturday one of the girls got the bright idea to go to the zoo. When I think of the zoo, I think of the Brookfield Zoo outside of Chicago. Huge, expensive, stupid gift shops everywhere. The Wellington Zoo was not like that at all, it was really small, they had one café/gift shop and it was pretty cheap too. Since we road the bus there we got 1/2 off our admission. I'm loving public transit more every day. Because this zoo is so small, it really didn’t have much there. Don’t get me wrong, there was plenty to see but there was a lot less than the Brookfield Zoo. It was fun to explore more of the town with the gang, and we learned a few things too.

While we were on the bus going back to town, we started brainstorming where we might want to go to get food. Then someone came up with the idea of fish ‘n chips, and we all remembered our coordinator pointing out a little store that has “the best” fist ‘n chips in Wellington. So we took a hike, got our food, and went back to our place to eat. The fries were really nothing special, I’ve had way better, but the fish…Oh…just thinking about it wants me to go get more. It was this HUGE fillet (which they pronounce FILL-ITS) and I know this might sound weird, but it actually had more fish than breading. If you’ve ever had fish ‘n chips in the States you’ve probably noticed how crunching the breading is, and sometimes its too salty, and the fish is just manza-manza. This was not like that at all! The breading to fish ratio was perfect, and the breading is the perfect combo of soft and crunchy with the right amount of salt. I didn’t care about how greasy it was, or the fact that my lips were chapping as I ate it. That was one of my best dinners yet. I only wish I had some malt vinegar to top it off, but I guess that’s not Kiwi enough for this meal.

As we were eating, one of the Amanda was telling us all about this party her co-worker was having that night. It was a mid-winter, summer party, but I couldn't dress for that theme since I didn’t bring any summer clothes. The party wasn’t in Wellington, we had to take a train out to this suburb like town called Lower Hutt. Since Amanda works in Upper Hutt, which I assume is the next town over, I figured Lower Hutt is probably a nice town. Well……its not that nice. Not to say it was the ghetto, but it sure was creepy. We got to the stop probably around 10:30 and we looked around…there’s practically nothing there. There was a platform, some stairs to get to the road and some trees on both sides of the tracks. At this point we’re all looking at Amanda thinking, "really?" So we walk up the stairs to the road and there seems to be some houses and a few streets, but no people or cars. We eventually found the house where the party was and life became a little normal again. Everyone there was pretty cool, but they were probably being like that because we were all Americans. I think they were wondering what the hell we were doing on their side of the world. While at the party we all got the usual questions, where in the states are you from? Where’s that? Do you go to Uni? why did you came here during winter? All in all we ended up having a good time and met some Kiwi’s. A couple of Amanda’s work friends invited us to go to Lake Taupo with them, which would be AWESOME! Especially since they have cars and we wouldn’t need to rent one or take a bus.

Sunday has been pretty chill. A couple of us went to the farmers market this morning and bought some veggies and fruit……and that’s been about it. We still need to plan our trip to Rotoura next weekend, which I am going to make everyone due TONIGHT.

Pictures are up on my facebook, let me know what you think.

The Weekend

I was a little unsure about how this weekend was going to go since the group and I didn't have anything planned. Turns out we all ended up having a good time hanging out in Wellington. Since most of us don't work on Friday, we all got to sleep in. Friday afternoon we decided to treat ourselves to a Kiwi (thats what local NZer's refer to themselves) lunch. We found a meat pie shop and treated ourselves. Now I know what you're thinking, and you're wrong. Pie here refers to a meat pie, which is basically a pot pie. Even though it was a $5 lunch, I was really impressed. The crust was warm and flaky, and inside is full of vegetables, cheese, and meat. It was the best breakfast/lunch I've had in a while.

After lunch our group split up into two. Some decided to go shopping while the rest of us took the trolley up the hill to Wellington's Botanical Gardens. We walked through the gardens back down into downtown Welly. The views were priceless, and we got to see all these different types of palm trees and plants that are only local to New Zealand. Some of which are endangered too. Again, the views from the gardens are really amazing and can't be described with words.

Afterwards we all met back up at home and we got ready for a night out. Bar hopping in Wellington turned out to be a bit of an adventure. The first bar we went to we couldn't stay at very long since a few of us pre-gamed a little too hard. Once we dropped off a few party animals, we met some Kiwi's at another bar, and hung out with them for another two bars. To my surprise we then met more Americans from Tennessee and South Carolina. We ended the night ended at Burger King, which is a freaking circus at 3AM. I almost have a hard time here getting past a buzz since hard liquor is so expensive. I just can't force myself to spend $30 on a fifth of booze. Which is good, I'd rather buy a bus ticket with that.

I"ll have to share the rest later, right now my roommate is waiting on me to leave. More stories coming soon.

MEC and Y&R

First week on the job went pretty well. So far I’ve learned a lot about media planning and working in an agency. Media buying definitely has a lot of perks to it. The guys invited me to this party that celebrated the 30th anniversary of this magazine Fashion Quarterly. It was pretty swanky, and it was at this AMAZING house out in the Wellington suburbs. To me this house looked like something out of Beverly Hills.
Apparently media planners get taken out and invited to parties like that pretty often, I guess its all about building those relationships. Steve was telling me today that relationships between media planers and media reps are really different in Wellington than most of the world. The way Steve was making it sound was if you go to Auckland, media planners put a lot of pressure on their media reps to get the deals they want. Where as in Wellington, Steve is actually friends with his media reps, and he hangs out with them all the time. He even plays football (American football) with his TV rep every Saturday. I guess people in Wellington are just more laid back, and they all follow that philosophy, "work to live, don’t live to work." Where as in Auckland, and maybe the U.S., life is a little more cut throat, especially in the ad business.

Right now at work, I’ve got two projects that I’m working on. The first seems pretty easy, all I have to do is research facebook and make a recommendation as to how a client should make their debut on the site. The second is a bit more difficult. I’m working on figuring out how many people in New Zealand watch sports. Specifically I have a huge list of sport teams and brands that I have to track down ratings for and give an estimate in thousands. Then I have give a price per thousand viewers for the each sport. This project wouldn’t be so hard if I was in the States, but being here I’m looking up teams and sports I have never heard of. Like the New Zealand Silver Ferns, which is a net ball team. I have no idea what netball is, or who the Silver Ferns, or if netball exists in the database I’m using. So what I have to do is look up their schedule for last year and go off that.

I’m sure I’ll get these both done by the end of next week, I’m just worried I’m going to look bad while doing it, or turn in a bad report. I’m sure I’ll be able to do it though, it can’t get that much harder. Plus, I could do the facebook one from my apartment on my laptop this weekend.

Speaking of the weekend.....it's here! Thus far the group and I have no travel plans. However, next weekend we might be going to Rotorua! Rotorua is a town a couple hours north of here that is famous for adventure sports and other cool stuff. Should be fun, but hopefully I'll be able to keep myself busy this weekend.

More of the First Day

Alright, I have no idea where to begin. Overall my day went very well. It started with me walking up to the reception desk and me hearing “ADAM” from the office to my left. My boss, Grant, walked up to me and introduced himself and then told me I looked exactly like my facebook photo. Inside I was thinking, “Oh god, what have I gotten myself into,” but now it’s just funny. I’m laughing about it right now as I think about it.

So after I got a tour of the office, I sat in on the weekly WIP (Work in Progress) meeting. I learned about their clients and what they have planned for them. From their Grant gave me a quick history of MEC and Y&R. It is easily the smallest agency I have ever been in/heard of. From what I understood a small agency usually encompasses 30-50 people. Here Y&R and MEC combined have a total of 9 people. I guess they are all pretty happy they have me to help them with their work. So the head of the agency is Jason, and right now I don’t really know what he does but he is a cool guy. Then the one account manager is Rowena, but everyone calls her Row. Then my boss is Grant and he is in charge of strategy and media. Under Grant are Steve and Matt who are media planners. Then in the creative department, there is Louise and I can’t remember the other girl’s name. They are both the junior creatives, and the senior creatives are in India. Perks of working at a global agency huh?

After my crash course at the agency, I started to be trained on the software and I learned how to buy TV spots. Matt went over the program with me, and boy did it look hard when he was doing it. Sure enough when I started it on my own it was pretty easy. The only hard part is making sure you stay under budget and buy spots that will reach enough people.

It took me forever to do this because I almost had to teach myself to do it. Matt did a good job of explaining it to me, but it was just one of those things I had to do myself to figure it out.

Besides buying TV spots, I went to all these different client and rep meetings. One was with AdShell at the café below the office. AdShell is an out of home company that sells media to MEC. Then I had a client meeting with Colgate-Palmolive about a direct mail campaign that they are doing with the NZ Post Office. When the guy introduced himself as from the NZ Post, the first thing I thought of was, “why is Colgate using a newspaper to do direct mail?” Cultural differences collide yet again.

that was my whole day in a nutshell, it felt pretty good being there too. Grant asked me what I knew about advertising too, and I gave him my answer and, to my surprise, he was impressed. I couldn’t believe it, I didn’t think my answer was that good, but apparently Grant thought that would be my answer when I was done with my 10 weeks. So I guess they think I’m pretty smart. Hopefully I can keep impressing them.

First Day

8:30AM
Today is my first day of work. Right now I have some time to kill so I’m just chillin in my apartment writing this. I am a little nervous, but I think its because I don’t really know what to expect. I mean, I know that its an advertising agency, I know I’ll be helping around with almost everything, but because I havnt interviewed or met anyone yet this feels like walking into an interview.

Well I’ll let ya know how it goees.

Have you ever gotten stuck here?

Where did I leave off? Right, we went up into the hills/mountains that surround Wellington. Did I mention we were in two 4-wheel drive trucks? Alright, well we were in these old Toyota Land Cruisers. Nine of us were in one and then the other 7 and our two guides, Bob and Gavin, were in the other. The views were simply amazing, the last time I saw anything like it was when I was in New Mexico. That's not to say that Wellington is like New Mexico.

From there we went down to the Cook Straight, which is the part of the ocean that is in between the north and south islands. We drove down through the hills/mountains to the beach looking for a seal colony. The question was in all of our heads, and someone in the car had to ask the driver, “do you ever get stuck in the sand?” Needless to say, shortly after that we were stuck. The driver got us out pretty quickly, but another ½ mile further up the beach, both of our drivers decided the sand was too soft to go to this particular colony and we needed to back track. So we turned around, and then the other truck got stuck. Once again it didn’t take them very long to get it going again, but it also didn’t take us long to get stuck again. After the third time we got stuck, we all decided to get out and explore the beach, and try to help. It didnt take long for me to get bored, so I started to take pictures of the beach. I decided it might be a good idea to climb the hill/mountain to get a better view, and I thought it might make a good photo. Climbing up it wasn’t hard, but when I started to climb down it turned in to me sliding down. I'm sure it looked pretty funny.

Another “good” idea that came across my mind was to wander out on the rocks that went into the sea. Well that ended up with my shoes and jeans getting soaked, but it was a cool photo opp. Eventually, our drivers were able to get the trucks out of the sand, and we found the other seal colony. The life of a seal is definitely not a hard one, we spent about ten minutes watching them lay on the rocks. Some of them do like the camera, and one in particular kept posing for my friends and I.

After the seals, we made our way back to Wellington and ate lunch at Mac's Brewery. I've learned that New Zealand does not have very distinct type of food, but they are very well known for their beer and wine. They have so many different types of wines and beers that anyone can find something they like. I definitely plan on making my way back there for more beer, and their food.

After lunch we went across the street to Te Papa, which is the national museum of New Zealand. Not only was this museum free, but it seemed to combine the best of the Field Museum and the Museum of Science and Industry with a New Zealand twist. It really opened my eyes to the uniqueness this country, and lucky for me its just down the street from my apartment.

That night was the last night all the interns were going to be in Wellington. The next day half of the group was leaving for different parts of the country. To celebrate our trip, we all went out to diner at a really nice restaurant, covered by australearn, then we all got a little crazy and started bar hopping. We started with drinks and dinner at Southern Cross, then after a few rounds of table tennis at Bob’s office, we ventured to J.J. Murphys where they had a decent band doing some covers. Overall the band was nothing special, but the pub did have Bulmers Cider and I thought it was only sold in Ireland. After we realized how lame the band was, we went across the street to the Mighty Mighty. This bar came heavily recommended by Bob, but a couple of the girls really did not like it there. It was small and there was a ton of people there, but the band was way better than at J.J. Murphys.

All in all, it was a fun night. I can tell that we have good group here. Today begins my real life in Wellington. My roommate and I moved into our two-bedroom apartment, and when we walked in we were pleasantly surprised. The living room is pretty big, and it has these huge windows that look out on the balcony. Both bedrooms are pretty big with queen size beds. We thought we had it pretty good.....and then we saw the girl’s apartments. The seven girls are in the two penthouse suites on the top floor of our building. Both of these suits have two floors, Jacuzzis, bars, and awesome views of the city. We agreed that we're going to be living it up on that floor for the next 10 weeks.

Right now the nine of us who are left in Wellington are trying to figure out what we are going to do this weekend. We all have Monday off for the Queens birthday which is a national holiday. Pretty much we have no idea what to do for the next few days, but I’m sure we’ll work something out. Hopefully we can avoid the bars for a little bit, I feel like they have taken enough of my money already.

We did get internet in our apartment, but its one of those mobile memory stick internet things. So to save $$$ my roommate and I arnt going to upload pictures with it. As soon as I find an internet cafe with wifi I'll upload them

I'M HERE!

Let me preface this post by saying I have less than 10 minutes left on this computer. So don't judge if something is mispelled or does not make sense.

I've arrived! I've been here for 2 days so far and they both have been awesome! The 12 1/2 hour flight wasnt as bad as I thought it would be. I slept most of the way and watched movies. When we arived in Wellington, we met the guys who set up our internships and housing. Their names are Gavin and Bob, and they are both really cool. They made us stay up until 8:00PM that night to help us avoid jet lag. Which worked out really well. Monday they showed us around Wellington, AND we went to a bar for lunch that had the Stanley Cup game on!!!! I was so happy to be able to watch the first period of the Hawks..........even if they did lose.

On Tuesday we saw and did some of the coolest stuff ever. Bob and Gavin arranged a four wheel drive tour of the area around Wellington. It started out going through some suburbs then up a mountain, which was pretty bizare for this midwest kid. We were 500 meters high...I think...and I dont know who mamy feet that is.

Damn, I'm almost out of time so I'll have to tell you guys about the rest later. I've got some good stories too.

Pictures to come soon.

Forecast in Wellington this week

Sunday: Rain
Monday: Rain
Tuesday: Rain
Wednesday: Rain
Thursday: Rain
Friday: Rain

I'm going to need to buy an umbrella

Less Than 2 weeks!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's been a while since my last post and a lot has happened. First off, let me just say I hate The WMU Financial Aid Office! I don't understand why it takes them SO long to do something. My loan was disbursed on Monday (May 17th), and it is now Wednesday and they have not done anything with that money. I would greatly appreciate it if they would just pay the bill and give me my MONEY! I still have to pay back my parents for the plane ticket and my sister for the initial fee. What is uber scary is that the money might not be deposited in my account until I leave. According to my sister, at the latest my money should be in my account by June 2nd.

The scary thing is I leave on June 1st, but the funny thing about traveling to New Zealand is you're losing a day when you go there. Also, this trip has more connecting flights that I've ever heard of. I leave Chicago O'Hare at 3:11 and arrive in L.A. at 5:47 PST. From there I have a lay over until 9:30PM and I arrive in Auckland at 5:30AM on June 3rd, THEN I get on another plane at 7:00AM and FINALLY arrive in Wellington at 8:00AM. At that point, I'm sure I am going to want to sleep, in a bed....not in a chair, but I have to do some seminar with the rest of the gang. God only knows how long thats gonna take, but hey.....not like I will have money, but hopefully thats not the case.

I've been emailing my boss, Grant Maxwell, and he sounds like a really cool guy. From what he tells me, I'll be working on media bookings, campaign monitoring, research, and he even said I might be able to help out with creative development and account management processes. Of course, I have to do "front of house duties" which is just a really nice way to say.... SECRETARY!

I am going to be living in a two bedroom apartment about a mile from where I'll be working. I really need to start to try and understand the metric system, since they all talk in kilometers and what not. I think I only have one other roommate, but I wont be surprised if I have 3 of them. I know one of my roommates name is Wes and he is from Colorado. I have not talked to him much, but we have 2 1/2 months to get to know each other, so I'm not worried about it.

Right now I'm really excited! Especially since I wont be working at the restaurant I've worked at the past two summers in Lakeside, MI(AKA Hobunk town north of Indiana on the lake). I'm anxious to start work, because this is the stepping stone for the rest of my career. I'm really hoping I don't look like some stupid American at work, but I'm sure I can pull it off.

As important as my job will be, I also want to make traveling a priority. I was looking at car rental agencies in Wellington today, and I can rent a car for less that $10 a day there!! ROAD TRIP! I really want to see Auckland since its the biggest city there, but there's also a lot of cool stuff on the way since its on the other side of the island. Lets not forget about the south island too. That is of course where they filmed Lord of the Rings! They have all these cool tours that shows you where they filmed some of the really iconic scenes. Those sites are pretty far away, probably a little too far for a road trip, but if its cheaper than a plane ticket to Queenstown or Christchurch I'll be down to drive.

More to come soon!

Adam

41 Days

Today was my last day as a junior in college. Now I have a month until I leave Michigan and fly almost 20 hours to Wellington, New Zealand. Myself and 12 other American students will be living and working in Wellington from June to August. I have no idea who these 12 people are or where they are from. I assume, and hope, these other Americans are not from Michigan or the midwest.

Up until last week I thought I would be living in Australia this summer, but for what ever reasons the company I am working with (Australearn) could not find me an internship in Australia. Even though I was hoping for Australia, I am really looking forward to New Zealand. This will still be an AWESOME experience that I know I will be talking about for years to come.

The company I am going to be working at is MEC Global, and they are a global media agency. To be frank, I don't really know how I feel about working in a media agency. I was not thinking about going down the media route in advertising, but none the less I know I will still learn a lot. And if worse comes to worse, this should make my media planning class in the fall a little bit easier.

I'll be leaving in 41 days, which seems like its going to feel like a long time. I wish I was leaving tomorrow, but I still have a lot of stuff to do. I have three scholarship essays I have to turn in by this Friday, I still have to get a loan to pay for this, and I have to figure out what I am going to need to take. I am not sure about certain things like what kinda clothes to bring for work. I know the industry standard here is usually pretty casual, but for all I know it could be totally different over there. Hopefully my study abroad advisor can shine a little light on this and my questions when I meet with her tomorrow.