One negative thing about being in
Australia at the moment. FIFA WORLD CUP!!! As much as I want to watch
it, it's close to impossible. 2am, 5am, 7am.. ?? While not having
exactly my own apartment and tv or amazing internet connection, and
having to work starting from early early in the morning, it is not
really an option. I miss watching the games and going nuts over the
tension. I wish I'd be in Brazil right now, it was a plan once upon a
time, but plans change. In four years it'll be in Russia, not exactly
like the carnival in Rio, but an option!
There is a joke about: a wife listening
to radio and hearing that a guy is driving on the wrong side of the
road, weaving, trying not to hit other cars. Knowing, her husband is
driving home, she calls her: “Honey, be careful, there is a lunatic
driving on the wrong side of the road!”
Husband replies: “Oh honey, there is
not just one, there are hundreds of them!”
Witnessed a similar situation while
driving from Brisbane to Sydney. It was around 9 pm on a monday night
and the roads were pretty empty, suddenly a car is coming towards us,
on a motorway, on our side of the road. We didn't get too close
before it realized, hit the breaks, made a u-turn and disappeared the
right direction.. hopefully to have a rest!!!
I was car-sharing with Jens from
Germany and Jarmo from Finland. Jarmo took a year off work and is on
world travels. Asia, now Australia and soon South-America. Jens went
to Uni in Brisbane and has lived in Oz for years. Was a fun trip,
with lots of coffee-stops and travel-discussions, apart from the
night, when we decided that all 3 of us will fit to sleep in a
regular small car. No room and no air! Just parked in the woods next
to someones house, left before the first light in the morning,
couldn't really sleep anyway.
While in Sydney crashed at a friend of
a friends place for a night to meet with Matt and Jihye the next
day.
Anna had the weirdest neighbor, a guy who just knocks on the
door and invites himself in for a chat. And he loves to gossip, knows
everything and more about everybody in their apartment building probably.
Sydney weather sucks! Cold, windy,
rainy – I guess it is winter, but still! Was raining for two days
straight, onwards luckily just occasional showers, even managed to
catch some sun and warmth.
Being in Sydney was as lovely as I
remembered. All the little pubs and bars. Concerts and events.
Went to rock'n'roll bingo again at
Darlie Laundromatic – laundry-looking bar. Got the applause-worthy
half-bingo for 60's and 70's both and an actual full bingo for 80's
music at the same time with one other team, so me and another girl
had a bingo-off (first one to name an artist and a title of a song
wins). We either did or didn't know the same songs, for example
“Friends” theme-song, we could both sing it, just couldn't spit
out the name of the band (The Rembrandts!!!) In the end it took 4
rounds to clear the winner.
For a time, we were proper tourists,
walking around with Jihye and her family, as they hadn't been to
Sydney before. The Rocks, Darling harbour, Opera House, contemporary
art museum (love love love this place!)
Brunch at the famous "Pancakes on the Rocks". Voted as number 1 place to go for brunch in Sydney.
There was a light and music festival in Sydney. Every day from 6pm certain buildings were lighted up.
Discovered Bondi area more and made it
to Kings Cross for the first time. There are hidden gems in each
area.
Was super lovely to meet new people and
catch up with old friends. Walked around with Hassan and caught a
concert with Olivia and her friends. We missed the main performers
but the whole event was good! Shout out to DJ Kristy Lee.
Two new musical discoveries: “Sons of
the East” and “Deep Sea Arcade”. More indie-rock! Both worth
checking out and great in live!
There were live house-bands or acoustic
performers in most bars, most evenings, even the cheap
backpacker-bars.
Scubar – impossible to find as the
address and the location on google maps don't fit (forget the map,
just go to Rawson place!) but worth visiting once found. Free pool
from 3pm to 7pm and live performers in the evenings.
Bar Century, worth going for 3 dollar
house spirits and sunday chillout sessions. I swear the guy singing
on the 8th of june had a copy of my playlist. People
usually don't tend to really listen to the performers in such bars
and take it as background entertainment, Bar Century proved this
theory wrong and made the performer sincerely happy. After his set,
whole bar was yelling “one more song” in unison.
My favorite live comes from tuesday
night at Sidebar – another backpacker bar under Wake Up hostel.
Went there to play trivia, which was harder than I thought but heaps
of fun with all the international people.
What is the main color on muslim flags?
Which country has the highest number of
catholics?
Can you form 4 anagrams of NAMELESS?
Who sings the original of “Hallelujah”?
Where and what is the deepest point in
the world?
Etc.
After trivia a lovely duo with great
rock vocals started to play. Really was impressed by their voices!
And we won every game of pool we played that night. Bring it on!
Got a super cheap flight with Tiger
Airways from Sydney to Brisbane. (39$) From there, took a Greyhound
bus towards Toowoomba. Apparently it is necessary to have a booking
before, as the bus doesn't come to domestic airport when nobody has
booked it, got a booking on the phone 20 minutes before the bus was
supposed to leave from the airport and found a right place thanks to
an extremely sweet and helpful lady who worked at the info booth.
“Are you comfortable taking an
escalator?”
I had to ask three times before I
understood she was sincerely concerned of me being afraid of
escalators.
Asked the bus-driver if it would be ok
to let me out of the bus at Helidon Spa which was on the way but 18
km before the city. He wasn't too happy but agreed, Chris picked me
up from aside the road and after a long day I was at Chris' and
Katie's place.
They are friends of Carly, Keiu has
been staying with them the previous week, as our future-ex-boss at
Helidon spa hotel turned out to be a jerk, offered the same job for
too many people and was dodgy in every other way.
Chris, Katie and their children: a very
intelligent 2.5 year-old Max and adorable 3-months-old Gracie! They
also have an adorable happy-bouncing dog Coco and the friendliest,
coolest cat Van Wilder.
Trying to eat our wires was every-night-favorite.
Went to play Bowling!
A city called Helidon. 2 km from Helidon spa.
Drum-roll please. We found a job! (The previous one fell through.)On my
birthday actually. PS! Thank you all for the kind wishes, had a
lovely birthday and have definitely enough happiness for the whole
coming year!
The work is hard but pays very well due to extremely long hours. Usually around 6.30am – 5.30pm.
Basically, we work for a company that
washes all kinds of machines. Cars that go to mines, bobcats,
excavators, trailers, trucks... you name it, with power guns. (I'm
pretty sure I'm becoming great at shooting, as aiming these pressure
guns to all kinds of small holes and cracks to get the mud out,
should be a good enough training.
The huge excavators take around 20 hours or more to clean.
We also help out the family who owns
the company with chores. They have 3 small kids who we babysit,
sometimes help out with cleaning and other housework.
Baked muffins for the kids.
We are the only girls (apart from our
boss) working in the company, with a bunch of guys. It is definitely
an experience, has its fun parts, but is physically hard, being
constantly wet and muddy and working 11 hours a day, starting in the
cold mornings, when temperatures can be -2 degrees Celsius. Days are mostly warm and
sunny, by the time we're finishing work, sun is going down again. In
the evenings even cooking dinner is a challenge. After that, just
laying down, moving as less as possible and watching series sounds
tempting (and manageable.. kinda).
We live at our work place, in a trailer
kinda thingy. Looks dodgy outside, but is decent-ish inside, has
carpets, heater and comfy beds. Wish it would have some closets or
any sorts of shelves or storing space at least. And, we were promised
a tv.. which we really couldn't care less about, but they themselves
started talking about, that they had to take it out of the room for
some expo and are returning it immediately.. well they haven't, and
just out of curiosity peeked into another trailer one day, which is
empty, no-one using it, and has a fine lcd flat screen in there.
Also, they told us to definitely not leave the heater in for the
night, our “house” has walls made of metal, when it is -2 C at
night, the heat we may have inside lasts for 10 minutes max, then it
is back to ice-cold, we tried it for a couple of nights, after our
noses started freezing off, we decided to keep it on and have the
room nice and cosy to live and sleep in. The owners should have that little extra to pay the
electricity-bill.
Actual kitchen:
And our version of a kitchen:
Home sweet home:
Our bosses are quite something.. AGAIN!
Talking from experience, most of the bosses in Australia in jobs
where backpackers are considered, are sneaky and take advantage of
cheap work force. The wife is quite a character and at least
more-or-less cool as a person (not as a boss!!), the husband (or
soon-to be ex-husband) is a total jerk. All he talks is in numbers.
“Don't scratch the stickers off the trucks with your pressure guns,
or if you have 1500 dollars, please do, somebody has to pay for it.”
“Don't leave your machines working for more than 20 seconds if
you're not using them, they cost 9000 dollars!!!” “If you do
laundry, just do it with cold water, or it breaks, and I have to pay
for it, you europeans who do laundry with hot water...” to be
continued to infinity and beyond.
Had one day off to discover Dalby and
basically just enjoy sleep and doing nothing and letting our wounds
heal. Hitchhiked to town with an elderly couple. “I didn't know if to stop or not.
From away I thought there is a horse about to step on the road, but
coming closer I see two people!”
A lovely couple, who have done their
fair bits of traveling and were even familiar with Estonia. That is
always a sweet surprise when people far away know about our tiny
country.
Going back home in the evening we had
our groceries with us and were hoping we don't have to walk these 4
km-s. Got a car quickly and also discovered we were hitchhiking the
wrong way. I guess we were not paying enough attention before.
Started talking with the driver and he said he knows another vehicle
inspection site nearby that employs a lot of backpackers, but that
was in an opposite direction. Came out he also was a family-friend of
our boss, so after some laughs he turned the car around and dropped
us safely to the right place!
Something has gone terribly wrong with these princesses...
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