Happy St. Patricks Day!!!

well i don't know about you but i had a great st. patricks day yesterday...oh wait, most of you will be having it tonight!!!
well yesterday i think i met all but 2 people i'll be working with, and they all seem great.
in the afternoon i met a couple other people here at the hostel, including Ivan another coworker from NE Italy, he doesn't know english very well and he's very shy about it. a couple of us decided to go to the grocery store, pick and save. i went with the girl i'll be working with andrea and an Israeli named guy or he goes by geyser, we took his car. pick and save is like a mini costco, warehouse style shopping. I picked up some sandwich makings and beer for the party later. the beer is called flame, extreme brewing!!! funny packaging.
had a little adventure driving back, got a little lost, too many oneway streets and not to mention they drive on the wrong side of the road!!! its crazy making turns, turning into the left lane instead of the right, gets me everytime.
found out kiwis aren't punctual at all!!! which is a great thing i guess. Johnny, the assistant winemaker and host for the bbq tonight, said he would pick us all up around 3. well he didn't actually pick us up till about 4:45...good thing andrea has a phone and text messaging or we might have given up on him and started our own party here. Johnny is hilarious, stereotypical Kiwi. i think andrea and i were the only ones that could understand him. hes got a very thick accent and kiwis talk really fast, so ivan has no clue what hes saying and romain has to keep asking him to slow down. we arrived at his house, great little garage in back and a little garden with tables where we hung out. met a couple other coworkers: chris a local kiwi, well travelled but has no wine experience, he thinks they all taste the same. and Isaac Johnny's fiance's brother...and guess what they are from yamhill near mcminnville!!! oregonians, what are the chances, small world. had a great time, lots of drinking, great bbq and more drinking, johnny pulled me aside at one point and we had a really good chat about what i wanted to get out of this job, anything special, and responsibilities i wanted...its funny, that was one of my biggest worries, getting here and hating where i lived, not getting along with my co-workers and the job not being very fun and being stuck doing a job not learning anything....started a bonfire, played some darts, johnny getting sloppy drunk, hehehe, andrea told me she was really nervous about drinking in front of her boss, but after seeing him like that he was very relived. after it got pretty dark we all walked down to the beach and lit off some fireworks and played in the surf, its like oregon in the fall here. we all got cold so we started to head back, i had to help johnny the last bit of the way, st. pactricks day!!! yeah, good times. I'm so excited to start work, all these people are so great. well i think thats all that happened...i need to go recover a little more.