Spent most of this week unsuccessfully job hunting. After trawling round shops, cafes and pubs for days when the online search didn't seem to be paying off we decided we needed to get the RSA - responsible service of alcohol certificate, as it is compulsory to have it to be able to serve alcohol in New South Wales - but annoyingly every state has a different one, so although I have an interview for a job in an Irish pub in the Whitsundays, as that is Queensland I'd have to pay another $100 odd to be able to work there. Lame.

So anyway, we went to get the RSA bright and early Tues morn - had to get up at 7 for once - urgh. We got there and saw two people we recognised - they had driven the minibus to the beach walk we'd done on the orientation week and were from one of the biggest backpacker bars in the city! One of them was bar manager, the other events manager and another girl was with them who must just work behind the bar and none of them had it! The course just involved an incredibly boring 6 hours of sitting and being lectured, looking at powerpoint slides and answering blatantly obvious questions before a two page written test, though it was open book. The book was about 200 pages long though, so it wasn't fun flicking through for the exact-worded answers, so we started to ask each other what page they were on and got threatened by the teacher we would be failed for cheating! Ended up with 100% though, not too bad, somehow a few people managed to fail, including one that already had a job lined up - not fair!

On Friday we moved hostel again, but Kirsty left to go to a guesthouse instead. Friday morning was the worst day of our lives though. Kirsty gave up walking through the park and got a taxi to the next road where she could get a bus to her guesthouse and my case kept getting stuck dragging it through the sand, but eventually Becky and I made it the 150m to the station! Then I decided I couldn't get my case down the stairs so stood there looking upset till a nice man came and took it for me! Then we couldn't fit through the barriers, then my food bag collapsed on the way down the escalators, then we couldn't fit on the train, then our stuff nearly prevented a woman with a pram getting off at the right stop, then there were more stairs to get out of the station but luckily I discovered a sneaky lift. The problem then was we only knew directions from the stairs and the lift had taken us somewhere else, but eventually after what felt like years we got to the new hostel only to be told we couldn't check in for another hour! So off we went to a café. Came back and the reception guy said if we shared a bed we could get it much cheaper and otherwise we would have to be in separate rooms, so assuming he meant a double we agreed and paid. After a nice guy had carried my case and Becky's backpack up literally about 7 flights of stairs - we're in the very top room we discovered it was in fact a single bed!! Bearing in mind we've only known each other 2 weeks we decided to top and tail and actually ended up having an average night's sleep.

Friday afternoon had a promising interview at a brand new bar/restaurant opening in a couple of weeks. Was lucky the guy saw me as turns out he only interviewed 8 out of 350 applicants and hadn't even seen my cv - well, didn't even know my name when I called, just got the number off Becky who had seen him the day before. He encouraged friends to apply so I went for it. Seeing as its from scratch and so he'll need quite a few people and only interviewed so few fingers crossed!