It's been a while, hey.

My current residence is the Wood Duck Inn, central Sydney, thanks to Dan and Rich.

My current employment status is employed, twice over, just don't tell the Student Loans Co.! (My tip to you: if you're leaving the UK to travel, for God's sake don't TELL THEM! And there was me thinking they'd applaud me for it.)

So, to explain:

I can't remember how I left my last update, but I moved into this hostel (as recommended by Dan as previously stated, after he stayed here for four months including over Christmas and New Year just passed) after 3 weeks on the floor at Charlie's in Bondi.

Moving into a 60-bed hostel surrounded by mainly Europeans none of whom I'd never met before did not daunt me at all, but after a couple of days of observing and failing to integrate into any of the established cliques I was wondering what was so great about this particular hostel, where the guests were meant to be friendly and the atmosphere sociable. After a couple of weeks I was feeling more at home, helped by the fact that two of the people in my 4-bed dorm are "long-termers" and not the usual constant rotation of people. Robin, a Dutchman who hates the Dutch and works at a bar where the temperature is -15 degrees C, and Lenna, an Estonian girl who cleans here at the hostel for her rent and then works at a restaurant in the evenings have been rooming with me since day 1, and then we've had a rotating 4th roommate.

It seems like yonks ago that I arrived here; since then I've watched the bats fly over the rooftop balcony-type thing of the hostel most nights, watched the beginning of Napoleon Dynamite a hundred times but never the end, eaten pasta 7 nights running, drunk free goon and lost my keycard.

Now, I work here on the reception two days a week, which covers my rent, and I enter data at an educational book company further out of town Monday to Friday. This is the end of my first week working both jobs, and I can't wait for the Public Holiday on Monday (thanks to Queen Elizabeth II's birthday, thank you ma'am). That'll be my only day off for the next 4 weeks, so I hope to use it productively and sleep, perhaps.

The best time I've had in the past 2 months since the last update was when our perpetual changing roommate happened to be a very lovely Dutchman (another who's not so keen on fraternising with the Dutch while in Australia, because, let's face it, he could do that in the Netherlands) named Henk. Henk was at the hostel when Dan and Rich were here over Christmas and New Year too, so we instantly had something in common. For the two weeks he was here, Henk and I exchanged music tips, read our books in the Botanic Gardens, went to the cinema consecutive nights to watch obscure things no-one else was interested in (except Lenna), and got lost and separated buying vegetables on busy Sundays at Paddy's Markets. I'm sad that he's gone, but I'm sure our paths will cross again. And of course I've met some other brilliant people too who have left: Hayley and George, Lou and Adam, Rach, Laura, Freja...

Other highlights of the past couple of months have been learning to salsa dance (I will try to track down Keiron on Facebook and tag myself in the video of our amazingness...), seen some AMAZING photos at the World Press Photo Exhibition, listened to the new Death Cab For Cutie album about a thousand times (whilst also subjecting the guests to it) and slept on the sofa/ floor at H's tens of times after watching Manchester United be the best football team anyone could ever hope to support!

I also had an hilarious trip to the Blue Mountains with my roomate Lenna, courtesy of a crazy Aussie actor who drove us there because he really wanted us to see the view from a certain point. On the way we saw a man have a heart attack inches from the counter at McDonald's... how ironic.

I've been exploring Sydney's different suburbs a bit; Surry Hills and Newtown being my favourites. Next time I'll take some photos and get them up, but Surry Hills feels like a quiet European town, and Newtown a bit more like an organic, vegetarian version of Sheffield, complete with students.

But I'm moving to Coogee, or at least hopefully I am moving to Coogee, in 2 or 3 weeks' time. H's colleague, Lesley, has been offered a job with a music law firm in Melbourne and is moving out of her room in a 3 person flat in the as-good-a-beach-as-Bondi-but-without-the-tourists suburb and I have the OK to move in, so fingers crossed that comes off. Moving out of the hostel and into a flat should co-incide nicely with the arrival of Jemma all the way from the fair city of Hull, which is going to signal the beginning of the Great Australian Adventure (Part I). I can't wait.

Lastly, a book update: since Stuart Maconie, I've been to the Darien Gap in Central America with two kidnapped British backpackers, to rehab for 6 weeks with James Frey, to Ireland and London via Egypt, to a theatre in London's West End and am now On The Road with Jack Kerouac.