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Erin and Lenny got home from their honeymoon today. I picked them up in my favourite dress that i bought in Granada in Spain because i think that you should always look nice at airports. I wanted to get there early and hang around but i ended up walking straight into them as i looked for the arrivals gate. We ate some breakfast at cafe ludo just up the road from their place. They had been awake since 1am our time and it felt like lunch time to them.
Later i had a little siesta because i've done shift work before and i know that around 10pm you start getting tired and the next 2 hours drags on forever. It was raining when i arrived at work and i sat in the dining room and had a coffee with a lady called Sharen (not ShaRON, the manager lady). She's working as a dishpig with a French guy called Thibault who looks at me every time I speak with bewilderment. I think his English is as good as my french. Or maybe i just have a strong accent like most aussies. Sharen lives in the glasshouse mountains with her daughter and drives 40 minutes to get to work. I wonder why people are here and when i ask her, she says 'for the money'. Hmm, interesting concept.
Erica, one of the cooks who runs the kitchen is mexican. I talk to her a bit in Spanish. I find it strange at my first few days in a new place because i am quiet and this is not really my true personality. I think to myself that maybe, in this situation i've been in a thousand times before, it would be easier if i was a bit loud and over the top. And then i realise that the way i am always works for me. I think people are a bit wary of people who are loud and garish as soon as they step into a new work place. You sort of have to slot in and slowly get your personality out there bit by bit as you work. This is a downfall when you're only working with people for a few days or a week. It's not enough time. But, in my experience, Six weeks is enough time to slot in.
An Italian man sitting at a table introduces himself as Luciano. He asks if i will be with them for the whole time, and i say 'yes, while you're in Brisbane'. I think he might be the father of some of the performers, with crazy painted faces. Everyone seems to sit in their little groups. Usually by country. The Italians and Spaniards with the Italians and the Spaniards. The Ukrainians with the Ukrainians, The Chinese with the Chinese. Later Luciano, comes back in and i greet him in Italian. 'You speak Italian'. 'A little' I reply, in Italian. Then we work out that he speaks both Italian and Spanish. In Spanish, I tell him that I learnt Italian in high school but recently I learnt Spanish when i was in Spain and that now it confuses me to use Italian. So we converse in Spanish from now on, with the odd bit of italian.
Later in the evening, a guy gets my attention and with a face that says 'what the $#%@ is going on here', he lifts up two empty coffee pots. I go over and go to refil it only to discover that the water has stopped. Sharen tells me that in the brief moments that she was left alone in the kitchen, she broke something in the sink and water was going all over the place. They had to turn all the water off. 'Serves you right, arrogant cretin', I say under my breath with a smirk, after being treated like 'the help'. Sometimes i catch myself being spiteful and wonder where it comes from!
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