the misadventures of bryan and rachel

we've spent the last three days volunteering at the church, as otherwise we'd just be sitting around waiting for calls about the resumes we've strewn around christchurch. it's turned out to be a great way to meet people, as the pastors' kids and other interns are in and out during the day as well. and while we work, we talk, and when we talk, we find funny little kiwi words and phrases to add to our vocabulary, like these:

musos - musicians, band ("the musos are meeting for practice tonight")
togs - swimsuit ("you could go for a swim if you've got your togs")
bonnet - car hood ("do we really need to keep this bonnet in the storage shed?")
sweet as - awesome ("that song is sweet as!")
jandals - flip flops - bryan's especially fond of this term; we saw a shirt in a store in nelson that read "you can't handle the jandal" and was especially hard to pass up.

yesterday when we left the church at 3 (their closing time - fantastic, eh?) we headed downtown to retrieve a flash drive left in a computer at the library and to pick up some much-needed toiletries at the warehouse, the wal-mart equivalent. somehow, because we are truly awesome, we managed (in three separate incidents) within the course of an hour to spill three products. i set off the trend with a tester perfume bottle that i set back on the shelf unevenly, watching in horror as it tipped off the edge and shattered glass and smelly water at the entrance to the store as other shoppers snuck around the new hazard. a friendly salesperson rushed over and assured me that they'd clean it up as i offered an embarrassed apology and tiptoed out the side door, vowing never to return to that store again. not a half hour later, in the warehouse, having collected more items for purchase than we'd planned on, a bottle of conditioner slipped off of the pile that bryan was holding in his arms like a baby and leaked oozy hair product down the aisle in some forgotten corner of the store. and then, as we were just about to check out, i noticed a large green puddle on the top of my left shoe and traced it back to the dish soap nestled in the crook of my left arm, which had somehow cracked along the cap in a way that i still can't attribute to anything that i might have done. no wonder we can't find jobs in this town - christchurch hates us because we keep trashing its stores.

-rachel