Cairns Day 9

I've been in Cairns a little over a week. I spent my first couple of days going out and seeing the 'sites'. The fact is there are no sites except a giant swimming pool called the lagoon. Cairns is basically a portal for those who want to go diving or snorkling on the reef, sky diving or head further north to Cape Tribulation (a rainforest). The city center itself is nice but quite small, boasting only a few shops, restaurants and bars. There is also a mall but it, as well, is tiny. Outside the city, though, it's quite dumpy with building that look dirty and have peeling paint.

My plan once I reached Cairns was to go snorkling on the reef then head noth to Cape Tribulation and continue onto the city of Darwin (top of Australia), then cut down the center to Alice Springs and Ayers Rock (largest rock int eh world - I think). Unfortunately, I dont have enough money at the moment to accomplish all that and since I"m not ready to leave this beautiful country yet (sorry to dissapoint anyone, haha) I've decided to look for work in Cairns. After looking for a few days it was getting hopeless. There were no jobs available anywhere. I got a few 'We're not looking at the moment' or 'we might have something' followed by 'but if you want to leave us your resume we'll file it for you and get back to you'. Translation: but if you leeave us your resume I'll be sure to throw it out when you leave my store'.

I met this Englih girl Tina on the oz bus and she introduced me to Claire and Jenny, two Scottish girls who are also planning on staying here in Cairns and work. They are really nice people and have been helping me by giving me a few application forms from hotels and suggesting to try applying to hotels as well since they are huge organizations that own restaurants and whatnot. So with their advice I hit all the hotels and filled out 20 applications. Still no luck.

I was tempted to drop everything and go work on a farm fruit picking. At first I was excited about the idea but while hanging out with Claire and Jenny at the Lagoon after coming up with the idea, I was sweating bullets just lying on the grass. This turned me off completely since Id be working about 60 hours a week in the sun and making about 350$

Finally, yesturday I decided to venture an hour up north to the Northern Beaches area. I stopped at the most northern beach, Palm Cove. Palm Cove is 100% cleaner than Cairns and is known more as a resort area. All there is are hotels and a beach. The bus ride took about 1 hour and I hit a few restaurants. I got 2 'Yes we are looking and will get back to you' but I kept looking and reached an Italian restaurant called Vivo. I spoke to the owner Ivo and after a nice talk he offered me a job as a kitchenhand since they were in dire need for one. They had just opened up 6 weeks ago and their 2 kitchenhands left - 1 moved on with his travels and the other was a 15 year old who decided to stop coming to work without letting anyone know. I accepted his offer to try out in the kitchen that night and hopped on a bus back into the city, changed into my dishwashing clothes and jumped back on the bus to the restaurant.

The kitchen is huge and has up to date cleaning equipment making the job SUPER easy. When I was a kitchenhand in Melbourne I had to load the dishwasher with soap all the time and make sure the water was clean. I also had to wash everything by hand prior to putting it in the dishwasher. Plus, my workspace was so small I just stood in the smae place most the time. IN this kitchen it's all different. The dishweasher is automatic - I just lift the door, put in the tray, close the door and it turns on and washed without me even needing ot push a button. Instead of needing to wash all the plates, all that i"m required to do is hose the down with thee kitchen sink/hose thingy and they're ready to go!

I picked everything up quickly but since i"m not used to everything yet, I got really tired by the end. I have o confirm with Ivo my hours and what is expected of me but the head chef, Ashley, told me that my days will most likely be 3pm to 11pm involving prep first and then doshwashing during the dinner rush.

I'm hoping to be able to handle it for the next 3 months and then travel again. Until then I'm hoping to make a group of friends out here and hopefully find my own place to live. I hear there is a university enear Palm Cove so I may fit right in, haha.

Side Note 1: Today is Friday the 13th, I'm staying in room 13 in the hostel and I'm using computer 13 at the internet cafe...

Side Note 2: While looking at this blog to see what I last wrote about, I noticed a button on the top right that says Next Blog. Upon clicking o nit, it sends you to the next random blog. So I was cruisnig for abotu 15 minutes to see what kind of blogs people are writing. Some were journals like mine, one was a man looking for a wife, another was bulletin board on the topic of horses. What freaked me out was how I randonmly found 2 of them that were written by 2 girls in their 20's who seemed depressed/suicidal and were openly writing about it on the internet and that was from just reading the first few lines on eaither website. This is from a database of hundreds if not thousands of blogs.