Our Aussie adventure starts now. Via Auckland where we had to get through customs with shells in Lou's bag, luckily she wasn't caught and we were not arrested. Our connecting flight was the next day so that was annoying having to spend then night in Auckland but never mind. We flew into Melbourne with Emirates which meant we were fed on the flight, yum. It was a good menu too. This time Lou decided she didn't want to risk customs so the shells were ditched, or so she thought, we were later sat on a kerb (thats another story) and she found more in her bag. Fool. We arrived to rain in Melbourne which was not what we wanted. It seems to follow us. The new plan was to look for a job for a month and stay in Melbourne. We applied for a couple of jobs on the internet and I got an interview for the next day, it seemed such a casual email I told Lou to come along. We got there far too early so we went and walked around the sports stadiums which weren't far away. It was impressive having so many big arenas close together. We didn't want to seem too keen so we also sat on the kerb a few streets down (which is when the shells were discovered) and passed some more time. Finally we thought it was an appropriate time to make a move and go to the interview. Basically the job was working for Energy Australia and it was door to door sales trying to get people to switch supplier. What gave us a little vote of confidence though was that they really were the cheapest in the market so it didn't feel like we were selling a bad deal. We had a full day training and learnt about all things electric. We also spent a day shadowing an experienced worker. It was funny though how they didn't seem to want to seperate me and Lou, we seem to come as a package! It was an alright day following Stacie around, she was an interesting girl. It was all very surreal though. Most of the staff seemed drunk a lott the time, they were all a bit ott. In the minibus the music was blarring and they would try and tip it and bang the sides to the music, a little mental. There was also lots of shouting and motivational talk. Me and Lou seemed to take it in turns as to whether we liked the job or not and if we thought we would survive it. But we carried on and tried to stick it out.

On our first proper day Lou was dropped at one end of a very long street and I was dropped at the other. We both looked stupid in our ridiculously big coats and folders. It was really nerve racking knocking on the doors but we both managed to make a sale. But then the definative moment was when Lou text me: í want to kill myself'. Oh dear. I looked at my watch and it was 4 o clock, we had only been out there for about an hour and a half but it felt like a lifetime. We still had another 4 hours to go. It was so tedious knocking on door after door saying the same thing over and over. We also didn't really understand what we were talking about which didn't help. And it ws cold! We met up in the middle of our street and bought a muffin and a drink and discussed how much we hated it. Charlotte, one of the trainers, was suppossed to come out to each of us and help us a bit but she never showed. We spent the rest of our shift sat in Borders figuring a plan B, C and D and hoping that our phones wouldn't ring. Plan A was a bad plan it seemed. It got to 8 o clock and we went to stand where I was dropped off to be picked up again. Half an hour later Lou had a phone call asking where we were so she told them. 5 min later another call saying we weren't where we said we were, we were though! So we moved further down the road and they drove around again and finally saw us. We then went and picked up everyone else but some people weren't picked up til after 9! They had to wait in the middle of nowhere, on their own i the dark for over an hour. This was after being on the street for 6 hours anyway. It took the piss. We didn't show the next day but just sent a text saying it wasn't for us. We then sat ignoring phone calls for 10 min and laughing at the situation. It was time for plan B.....

We decided to look for jobs in hostels where we would be given free accomodation in return for a few hours cleaning or something. There was so much of this advertised in New Zealand we didn't think it would be a problem, unfortunately plan B didn't work. It was time for a plan C. We looked in windows for bar and waitress work but I have no experience in waitressing and for bar work you need a license so it was a bit of a non-starter. It also went against us that we would only want to work for a month. Plan D....Fruit picking. More on that later...