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Down Under!
Well hello there again!
My apologies for the huge delay inbetween journal entries (again!!)
The last entry ended with Andy, G, Jase and myself chugging into Sydney in our very battered Mitsubishi. We parked outside the trusty Railway YHA where me and Jase had stayed on our previous trip to Sydney (and accidentaly ignored the no parking sign, oops!) Jase and I went to a cash machine to see what the damage was to our account never realising what was awaitng us. Dun dun der!!! the evil receipt came from the ATM saying we had only $7!!! What happened to all the zeros!!! Jase and I were gutted although we knew G and Andy would pay us the $200 they owed us from when we paid for both our halves of the car registration... or so we thought... It turns out that apparently G and Andy had ran out of money too so couldn't pay us, and then they said they were going to stay with Andy's Granny for a few days. Now Jase and I were unbelievably gutted. (Beware, this may turn into a depressing journal entry). I was just joking around with G saying well you could atleast give us $5, hoping that he would give us atleast $50, he said he didn't even have that until Jason did his evil scowly thing (which I recon looks alot like Wallace when he says "more cheese Grommit!", hee hee I'm going to get killed for saying that!) G eventually handed over a measly $5 then left with Andy saying they might be back on Monday. Jase and I sat in the car, which I didn't mention earlier was actually barely running from lack of petrol, we sat there just letting the situation sink in...
We felt so betrayed that they had left us, but then what else could they have done? We also felt annoyed with ourselves for letting our bank balance get to that stage. We also felt very overwhelmed with the whole situation; being stuck in such a huge city with just a $5 note (about 2 pounds!!) and a car with no petrol parked in an illegal parking space. (And I felt such a need for chocolate, have I mentioned how expensive chocolate is in Australia, its such a scandal!!). Both of us being quite proud and stubbon people we outright refused to ring home to ask for help so the only thing we could do would be to some how get a job. God knows how we were going to eat, where we would sleep or even where we could use the toilet, but we would cross those problems when we came to them.
Off we went job hunting spending our precious few cents on phonecalls. The first one we rang was for a traffic warden job but it turned out to be a hoax from someone who did not like the company and wanted to bombard them with phonecalls... great. The next was a telesales job which did not sound very good but we thought we'd give it a try, we arranged an interview for on Monday. We spent the rest of the day wandering around Paddy's Chinese markets looking for jobs but to no avail. We sneeked into the YHA with some food we'd found in the back of the car ( 27cent noodles and peppermint tea) and spent the rest of the day in there, eventually having to sleep in the car. The next 2 days before the interview were spent in the same way, sneeking into the YHA to use the toliet, eating noodles and embarrisingly sleeping in the car.
On the day of the interview we were in very low spirits, feeling smelly and tired we went in hoping for the best. The lady who interviewed us was called Nadia and it was more like us interviewing her! She is one of the most bubby people we have ever met, she walked in and started telling us how she dislikes her job, how she used to run her own business then once she found out we were backpackers she told us all about her travels in London. By the end of the conversation (in which she was the only person talking!) she had ignored all the questions, tests and roleplays she was supposed to have given us and got us a job there and then with the training starting on the Wednesday. Then after finding out we were sleeping in the car she had offered to let us sleep in an old office of hers, we couldn't believe how genorous and kind she was being to us!
Later that day she moved us into the office, no one was allowed to sleep in there so we had to be very descrite. The building was so shabby and dirty with a little rickety elevator which felt like any moment was going to break and make you plunge to your death. The office itself was one small whitewashed room with a horrible orange fake leather sofa (which was one of Nadia's prized possesions, and later we learned not to insult in under any circumstances) a desk piled high with computer equipment, a tiny tv which was only capable of receiving 1 channel (and very fuzzy at that), a single matress wedged in the corner and a very tiny walk-in safe which was like our very own kichen (it had a microwave and kettle).
The job paid pretty well- $17 an hour but with 29 % tax (theiving government!). I suppose it had to pay well for the horribility of the job (I think I just invented a word...) we were working for a company on behalf of one of Australia's biggest banks selling life insurance over the phone. We had a headset and a computer, everytime the headset beeped the computer would load up all the infomation on one of Westpac customers and we'd have to try and make them buy this future cover life insurance. If trying to sell somebody a very over priced product- which if they died probably wouldn't pay out anyway wasn't hard enough there were strict rules to follow too: we had to make sure the person had received the brochures- which most denied anyway thinking we were debt collectors or something, we had to tell them they were being recorded- which really spooks people out, we could not "give advice" so anything along the lines of personal opinions, statistics and basically deviating from details on the product, and finally we could not mention anything to do with cancelling the product unless asked. There was a whole group of people sat all day listening to calls sacking people if they made mistakes more than 3 times. The job was tough and very very boring, it was also pretty demeaning especially when you get people shouting at you saying "get a real job" and "f*ck off, stop f*cking calling me you f*cking a**hole". lovely stuff!!
We had to survive the first 8 days with no money before payday. We basically lived off 27 cent noodles (which are very famous in the backpacking world)(well famous by price but very discusting!) we ran out of money so couldn't afford to eat, I changed some British pounds for dollars to keep us going for a bit but with Jason's unhumanly appetite we ended up borrowing a bit of money from back home to keep us going- thank you sooooooo much Gilly!!! You are a star!! :) After the first payday we were back on our feet, hip hip hurreeey!!
We did about 2 months of work there altogether only getting through it with tight Tuesday cinema (Pirate's of the Carribean is awesome! So is Jonny Depp, hee hee!), going out with our room mate Leisa who was a bit emotionally troubled but a lovely lass and also going out every Friday with our mates from work. We also went away one weekend to the Blue Mountains, about 2 hours on the train from Sydney but about 10 degrees cooler. It was the first time we saw frost in Australia! We had a lovely time there going on bush walks and cable car rides over the mountains, we also went on the worlds steepest railway which was more like a rollercoaster.
The last few days in Sydeny were a bit hectic, we sold the car to one of my mates from work for $200, we had to do loads of stinky washing and had to help drive all the furniture from the office to Nadia's house. Which meant we had nothing in the room for a few nights except just a fridge and a matress and they had to go before our last night- we ended up sleeping on the floor! Our plans for the next few weeks were to fly to Whitsundays, go by bus to Cairns, fly to Brisbane, fly to Darwin, go by train to Adelaide (again!!!), go by train to Perth then fly from Perth to Bangkok. We were so excited!!!!
After the bad start in Sydney we did actually have a pretty good time and we do miss the people so much. Just please never ever ask us if we want noodles!
Jase & Rach
xxx
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