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Well, its been a while since our blog as we have spent the past 4 weeks scrambling for jobs and digs but we're settled now and can fill you all in on the recent shananigans!!
So last time, we were just preparing to leave Singapore to fly to Perth. We were really tired after flying and getting to the hostel so we just went to the garage across the road for something for dinner and nearly had a heart attack!!!! $5 for a loaf of bread, $6 for butter, so you couldn't even have cheap toast!! It was after seeing these prices we thought we would head to Melbourne asap to start earning some cash, else we would be home earlier than we thought. Although once found Cole's, we realised that grocery shopping isn't that expensive, just rip off garage prices.
So we straight away booked flights to Melbourne for the next day; we were intending to go by bus but it's not much dearer to fly, so happy we skipped out the 30 hour bus journey!! We walked in to Perth city on our first day, it was so sunny here, but nice. Not like Singapore where the sweat was lashing from you!! The city was pretty nice, quite small but everything was just so different from Asia, in a good way; no more squat toilets, you could look at your food and tell what it was and set prices meant you didn't have to barter for absolutely everything!!! On our second day, there was a street festival on which is an annual festival in Perth, right on our street, so that was good timing!! We walked up there and had some food and checked out the farm animals etc, it was all very old school festival but was good!! Then that night we flew to Melbourne!! We were happy to go as we didn't really like our hostel or the people in it!!
When we arrived in our hostel, Habitat HQ, in St Kilda, we straight away started looking for jobs; if I never have to look at Gumtree again, it will be too soon!! The hostel was so much better here, it was much more sociable and everyone chatted to eachother and went out together. So we were sitting there on our second night with a box of goon (cheap wine), and started talking to a couple from Milton Keynes and turned out they were going to Kings of Leon concert the next night and had 2 spare tickets. Did we want them?? Bear?? Woods?? So I bought them for Matt's birthday which was in a couple of days time and it was a great concert, a little unlively on the crowd end but the singing was amazing!! So we've finally seen KOL!!
Speaking of Matt's birthday, what a godly mess of a night that was!!! First of all, we were drinking a box of goon and playing some drinking games with people, like the name game you can see in the fotos. Then Andy and Tebble came down, we met these 2 guys in Kuala Lumpur and they told us they were going to Melbourne too so we kept in touch and they came down for his birthday. It just seemed to nosedive from there, 2 promo girls for a bar came into the hostel giving free drinks tickets and we said it was Matt's birthday so they gave us about 20 tokens and a $50 bar tab for vodka. It was just a messy messy night, we barely remember anything except that we had a brilliant night. Matt said he put me to bed when we got home but I woke up the next day on the sofa in reception so no idea how I got there!!! But fun times were had!!
The next day was a different matter, absolutely dying a death all day, still job hunting though. In our first 2 weeks there, we must have sent our CV's out to about 40 people each, it was crazy, and we weren't hearing anything back!! It was so strange because we both had experience in what we were applying for but weren't getting anywhere. Then a few days later, a guy came into the hostel and asked if a someone would like a few hours work doing removals so Matt jumped up and went off with him, and ended up getting a regular job out of it, which would have been great if the pay weren't so poor and the job weren't so tough!! But money's money so he stuck at it!! I was getting absolutely nowhere in the job front and it was getting really annoying being constantly rejected and worse still ignored!!! And offers on Gumtree for bikini-clad lawn mowing girls were starting to look appealing!!lol
When Matt was working one day, I got chatting to a Dutch guy and girl and we went for a walk to St Kilda pier to see the colony of penguins that go there every night. It was really busy and they have volunteers there every night to keep people in check. We only seen about 8 penguins but apparently they don't really come out until pitch dark as they are scared. They are the world's smallest penguins too!
I finally managed to get a weekend job in a clothes shop in St Kilda, so horray, I was finally earning and they paid cash at the end of every shift! Things were looking up, although I still needed a full-time job as it wasn't enough and Matt wasn't really enjoying removals as the work was too hard for poor pay and then he managed to hurt his foot again!!!lol He was lifting a cabinet and it dropped on his big toe!! It was bleeding and he thought the nail was going to come off. After a couple of days of limping and still working on it because his workmates told him to stop being a big girl, it actually did start coming off but he couldn't pull it off so he was just in agony for ages!!
In the meantime, we moved into an apartment in the city centre with 3 other Irish girls. The apartments nice, with a gym and pool and balcony etc so we will be here for about 3 months as we are only sub-letting from French students!! The girls we are living with are great, we all get on and I went to uni with one of their boyfriend's which is how we know them; it's a much smaller world out here than you would think!! We had a few drinks in the house on our first night here and invited some friends round, including Andy and Tebble who we met in Kuala Lumpur. So the drinks were flowing and of course Matt gets his gammy toe out to show everyone, nobody actually asked to see it but he got it out all the same lol I'm not sure where the idea came from but somebody suggested that Tebble try to take Matt's nail off with his teeth, which he tried, and failed to do. It was absolutely rank but it was good entertainment value and we videoed it, so you should be able to watch it on this!!
The next day I had to go to my new job and all the other guys were going to a BBQ in a friends. I was in pieces for most of the day then after work, I went and met them all. You can imagine the shape they were in after 7 hours drinking ahead of me!! But we had a great evening, dancing on the tables, the food etc, I may not be able to do a 2 day bender often but I'm glad I could do it then!! Although we were home for around midnight and Andy came home with us and slept in the living room. I wasn't tired yet so I sat up on the laptop while he slept. Then all of a sudden he rolls over, starts picking his nose and eating it in his sleep!!!!! This went on for about 2 hours and it was barf!! So I took some incriminating pictures, which you can also see in the album. And he was asleep the whole time too, ewwwww!!
Then I managed to catch a lucky break, one of the girls I live with was temping at a new restaurant and they were clearing out all their crappy staff and getting new people so I gave her a ring and lo and behold landed a full-time job, horrayyyyy!! When she offered me the job, i told her about Matt and she said for him to go see her, and she gave him a full-time job too so it's nice that we are working in the same place, though a lot of our shifts are opposite to eachother but it's ok money all the same!! Matt was able to quit his removals job and I kept on my other job and am working 7 days a week!! But only til after Christmas so I can get some money up!!
We have also booked flights to go up to Sydney and spend Christmas with Louise and Keith, so we are really looking forward to a break from working, although it could be a longer break than we thought as we haven't actually told work yet that we need 10 days off after Christmas! So hopefully we can show them how invaluable we are and they will just give us time off!! We are planning to go to Bondi beach on Christmas day, a very different way to spend Christmas day but will be a welcome change!! I asked Louise if we were having Christmas dinner and she said we would have some seasoned chicken sandwiches, excellent (not)!! But we are having Christmas dinner in our apartment with the girls this weekend so at least we'll get some turkey!! Then on New Year's Eve, we are going to head to the harbour to see the fireworks which are supposed to be epic so we are really looking forward to it.
Speaking of excited, we booked our trek and overnight cruise for Milford Sound yesterday!!!! The thing I'm most looking forward to in the whole trip, for those of you who haven't heard of it, google it; it's absolutely awesome. We aren't going until end of March as it was fully booked until then but the weather should still be decent even if it is the end of peak season!!
I went to the cinema with Jane I live with to see the Breaking Dawn movie and dear lord, what a disappointment. It was the biggest pile of tripe I've ever seen, they completely destroyed the story and replaced with some crazy Americanised cheesey crap and ridiculous fake looking make-up on the Cullens. Thoroughly cringe-worthy and absolute let down and it cost flipping $20 to see it!!
Anyway, that's pretty much everything that's been going on here for the past month, now that we are working and every day isn't as exciting as before, we will be posting the blogs a little further apart until we set off travelling again so I hope this monster post keep you all going for a while!!!
Lots of love
Nicola & Matt x
- comments
Helen Brett horray another blog!!! please keep it up its great Nicolla. great that Matt isnt working for the mafia anymore too. when wiil you get a chance to go diving in the barrier reef??? xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxtake care both of you
Helen Dempsey Great blog Nic. I bet you are staying in the same apartment block we were in. Glad you got sorted with jobs & still finding time for drinkies. I've seen Breaking Dawn 3 times now - I LOVE IT! Looking forward to your next blog xxx