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.

Cairns Day 3

After Magnetic Island we travelled further north with a few stops for food breaks and to take pictures of funny signs. Far North Queensland is the home of the Castlereigh. It's this bird the size of an Emu, bigger then an ostridge and has a an axe shaped horn on it's head made of keratine and a a super sharp claw on each feet (click HERE for picture). It's an endanged bird so they have signs all over the highway to be careful not to kill it and of course the bus driver stopped to let us take pictures of one of the many funny signs.
Afterwards we stopped at a crocodile farm. It was quite interesting. Tons of crocodiles and the owner was a bit excentric. His farm is the home of the second largest croc in captivity and he just opens the gate and sat on it's back so we could all take photos! This, coming from a man who slipped in one fo the pools he was cleaning and got 2 of his fingers eatent hen recovered them and ended up getting them surgically re-attached to his hand! When he offered all of us the opportunity for work, I was actually interested but he admitted he was only joking. At least I spared my mom from having a heart attack.

I even got a chance to hold a baby croc and a snake. I pissed off the croc when I made a joke lke I was going to eat it... It started to try and run away.

After the farm we made our way to a bungy jump site for all the thrill seekers. My thrill seeking was to see if I could get away with eating 3 sausages (hot dogs) at the free barbeque when we were only promised 2. Thats enough thrill for me in one day.

By 6pm we made it to Cairns! I checked into my hostel, Hostel 89 which is righ along the water (no beach thought but another Lagoon i.e. public swimming pool) and for now I have the 3 bed room all to myself.

I went for dinner to ther Wool Shed which is a big backpacker bar similar to Cheeky Monkeys in Byron Bay. I had a good time and even bumped into Marius this guy I met while in Byron Bay.

The next day I started settling in by buying tons of grocceries to last me the week and bumped into 2 of my favorite people I met during my travels up teh east coast - Eric and Tom. I met them in Byron Bay (through them I met Marius) and we just hit it off and had a real good time hanging out. Great guys to hang out with and I'm excited I got a chance to catch up with them again, so we ended up going out to the Wool Shed.

Today I'm going to start getting my CV set up for job hunting and the front desk of my hostel was nice enough to point me in the right direction on where to go looking. Hopefully by the of the week I'll be employed! Wish me luck!

Magnetic Island Day 1

I have a LOT to talk about but have only 15 minutes left on the internet before my money runs out so heres the abridged version of what I've been up to the past week:

I left Hervey Bay on the Oz Experience bus and ended up in Bagara for a night. We stayed in a really nice hostel/resort. The next morning we made our way to Dingo and stayed on a 46,000 acre cattle station. It was great! The new Oz Experience owners are not havign Dingo as a stop anymnore so I was one of the last few people to stay there. We stayed there along with the southbound bus and had drinking games and tug of war against them. I saw a few peopel I knew from before and we all had a blast. There was a chest filled with clothes and the locals promoted us to dress up. Men were women, women were men, people were cowboys, pimps, hos and mecanics. Yes, I dressed up as a girl and i had a bra on. We partied late and even did some line dancing!

The next morning we had a little tour of the station and a bit of a talk on how it is runa dn what goes on. The guy giving the tour, Richie, was HILARIOUS. After the tour her showed us 2 guns, a rifle and a shotgun, and explained how they use it to fend of predetors of their cattle (dingos, feral pigs, etc). He let a girl shoot the rifle and she went flying and missed her target. We also had a go at a whip, but unfortunatley I wasn't able to break the sound barrier (thats hwat happens when you crack a whip correctly).

After Dingo I arrived into Arlie Beach. Or as everyone calls it Arlie No-Beach, for there is no real beach btu a fake "lagoon" which was just a swimming pool.

I stayed there 2 days and then went on a 3 day/2 night boat cruise on a tall ship called the DEFENDER. I wish I had time to go into details but it was the MOST relaxing trip I've ever been on. We sailed around the Whitsundays, went for walks, swimming, saw the stunning White Haven Beach (PURE WHITE sand, CLEAR BLUE water), slept under the stars on the deck of the boat (Saw the WHOLE Milky Way and the Southern Cross amongst other stars) and went snorkling with the fishies! There were so many fish and a huge one thats famous for the boat compagnies and they've dubbed it Elvis.

I'm currently in Magnetic Island known so because when Captain Cooke discovered it his compass went haywire and thought it was due to the magnetic field of the island. Tomorrow I'll be in Cairns and thus ends my Oz Experience trip. I'm planning on staying in Cairns for 2-3 months and work somewhere to make money so I can travel some more!

Hervey Bay Day 4

I just returned this afternoon from Fraser Island. What an experience the past 3 days have been! The island is just BOOMING with things to do.

My group ended up being myself and 8 brits - Toni, Barry, Jamie, Katie, Layla, Karen, Louise and Maria (note: 6 of them are girls, haha). They were a great group. We all got along, no complaints.

Barry was the main driver and since he used to be in the military he was also the most experienced. The island basically had tiny dirt roads literraly between trees when driving through the island and the east coast beach was basically like the highway. Barry knew what he was doing so well he got us from A to B in no time and due to that we got to see a LOT of things.

Here's what I've been up to:

Day 1 - We all got up early and packed our gear onto the roof of the 4x4 vehicle. We were then brought to the car hire place for a brifing on the dos and don'ts. Then we were off to the ferry. After a long ferry ride across the water we reached the island! Our first stop was at Lake Wabby. It was just like the sand patch in Noosa except there was a lake next to it. Great view too. After a quick dip in the lake, t started to drizzle so we moved onto stop number two: Eli Creek. Well we almost fell IN the creek. Maria was driving and we were shooting down the beach and al of a sudden there is this 1 foot drop with water. The creek runs perpendicular to the beach and we were told to drive closer to the water when we reach it to cross it but it came out of nowhere and we dove straight over it! Freaky but must have been damn cool! Once we got our bearing back we parked the car and walked along the creek and waded through it back to the car. We next reached The Mahona Shipwreck. The Mahona was a war ship that was to be scrapped in Japan back in 1935. however, on the way to Japan, the ship got pushed onto the beach from a bad storm and since then has been rotting on Fraser Island. Most of it is destroyed but the shell was still there to get an idea of the size of the thing and it aint small!After the shipwreck our last destination for the day was The Pinnacles/coloured sands. They looked like jagged peaks sticking out of the ground with different colours of white/brown/tan sands. We then made it to our base camp and set up tent. Dinner for the evening was sausages and hamburgers cooked by yours truley. The girls made a wicked salad and dinner was done. Was also had wine and played Ring of Fire (a drinking game). I called it a night at 10:30pm.

Day 2 - Got up around 8am and had left over sausages, cereal and eggs for breaky. Once in the car we made our way to Indian Head. It was a small climb to this cliff where I had an amazing view of the surroundings. I just sat on a rock and took it in for about 20 minutes, listenign to the ocean. So GREAT! After Indian Head was The Champagne Pools. They were this little rock pool just inside the beach and gets its name due to the foam that happens when the water from the ocean wades inside it. It was a nice little spot to get wet. On our way to our next destination we all took turns driving along the flat beach. Barry helped me with the stick shift and i got a chance at driving a manual car on the left side of the road (for about 5 minutes but nonetheless!). Our last stop was a long way through a really bumpy track but well worth it. We ended up at Lake Allom which is the home of Krefft's Turtles. I got to swim with turtles! We were told when you clap your hands lightly in the water the come to you and one got up to a foot away from me! After a quick swim it was off to camp for dinner which was pasta. After dinner we were all nackered and I went to bed early.

Day 3 - On our last day we took apart our tents, packed everything up and went to two lakes - Lake Birrabeen and Lake Mackenzie. Lake Birrabeen was lake with a white beach and clear water. Lake Mackenzie was like Birrabeen but 100% better. The water was SO clear and the sand was SO white. It was like swimming in a chlorinated swimming pool. We only had 1 hour to spend there but it was the BEST thing on the island!

I'm now back at Beaches and about to have dinner. Tomorrow I"m back on the bus and headed for Arlie beach with a stop in Bagara and also Dingo.

Hervey Bay Day 1

I am in Hervey Bay! Hooray!
Got up this mornign and hopped on the Oz Experience Bus. I met these two Swedish Guys who were in my room and chatted with them a while. I also met this girl from England, Maria, who I remembered seeing on my bus trip from Brisbane to Noosa. Turns out she chose the same company as me for the Fraser Island trip, Beaches, and we're actually int he same room at the Hostel (where I am now). A little backgroaund of Fraser Island and what I'll be doing:
Fraser Island is the biggest sand island int he world. I was told that it was made by the particles that eroded down the east coast of Australia and got swept away to this spot byt he sea currents eventually building up to an island. It's not completely just sand anymore, apperently there are forests and fresh water lakes on it but it's supposed to have more sand than the Sahara Desert! What I'll be doing tomorrow until tuesday is roaming around it with 8 other people in a 4 by 4 all terrain vehicle. We are given a map and free to roam on our own! There is also a base camp located on the island where we return to cool dinner, shower and meet other people, etc. After checking into the hostel I got to meet my group which includes Maria (and 5 other chicks :) ). I think I'm going to get along with everyoen just fine. I was then deligated as one of the two people to go shopping for food (Maria was the other one). I'm glad I got to go shopping since it's now officially Passover and I'm not supposed to eat any bread for the next 8 days (or anything with yeast in it - this includes beer). I don't know if it's COMPLETELY kosher but I convinced the group to buy tortilla wraps since they are flat and have no yeast. Hopefully it's all good (Lorne am I wrong??). Well if not, no actual BREAD is as far as I'll get. I asked the supermarket if they had Matzah and the woman suggested I try looking in Brisbane (about 5 hours south of here by car...). Tonight I'm going ot pack everything and have to get up tomorrow mornign for my adventure. I'll write about my trip when I return on thursday so keep posted!

Noosa Day 4

Yesturday I returned from my 3 day 2 night canoe trip in the Everglades of Noosa. Wow it was something!

DAY 1 - Got up early and jumped into a bus for a 30 minute drive to a lake whose name I can't remember. I then met my group: An English guy named John, 4 guys from Scotland (Kev, Ian, Steve and Elliot), 2 couples from England and a couple from Israel.A the lake we loaded our gear onto a boat and went accross it to a Rangers Station. There we got briefed on what the trip is all about and was theb left on our own! I shared a canoe with John and the whole group went down this tiny creek called Kin Kin Creek. The surroundings were beautiful and it was a really nice day. I got to see a few interesting birds as well. We canoed down for about an hour until we saw this bridge and then turned back. John is 29 and a big guy so he took the back and the canoe kept veering left a bit. On the way back, we just BARELY hit this branch sticking out of the water but missed it and got stuck int he underwater tree. Everythign was ounder control and we pried ourselves free. Ten mnutes later though, I managed to navigate us DEAD ON into another branch. We hit it with such an impact that John went flying out of his seat smacking his knees against the seat in the middle of the canoe. I don't HOW i did it because the branch was about 2 inches thick and sticking out of the water about a foot. After the 'accident' we continued back to the ranger station and got all our gear on our canoes. We canoed north for about another hour until Harry's Hut. There is no hut or Harry it;s just the name of the camp ground. We unloaded our stuff and pitched our tents. I juped into the lake for a swim and the water was funky. Due to all the tea trees whose roots are in the water, the water was actually really dark and when I put my head under water it was just pitch black. The only thing I could see was my hands and arms and they were this golden orange color lke maple syrup. Afterwards it was basically eating dinner and drinking in the dark. We played this game Look-a-likes where you choose someone and name allt eh famous people you think they look like. All the usual ones were choesen for me: Egon (Ghostbusters), Skreech (Saved By The Bell), Weird Al Yankovick, Shaggy (Scooby Doo). We were all nackered and I ended up going to bed at like 9pm.

DAY 2 - Got up early, had breakfast and then we were off! We canoed for 6 km and tghen hiked up a hill for another 6km to reach The Sand Patch. Imagine a moutain with snow on the top of it but replace mountain with hill and snow with sand! It was like a forest with a desert in the middle. It was well worthe the treck. The view was phenominal and the sand dunes were really cool. After chilling up there for an hour it was time to head back. On the way back the new group who were arriving to start their day 1 passed us and apperently they missed Harry's Hut and canoed down for like 3 hours to where we were! We left them behind and went back to our camp site. Back at the site we had the pleasure of being invaded by 3 giant lizards aka Goanas. They were huge but very cool to look at. We then cooked dinner as it got dark and chilled before bed. Once I was in bed it started to down pour and ended up raining all night.

Day 3 - It stopped raining but it was time to go. Two nights out in the woods was plenty. It was a struggle to get back to the Rangers Cabin since the wind was against us. We finally made it back, jumped on the boat and headed back to land. I got back to the hostel by 1pm. John, the four Scots and I decided to go out for dinner and have a REAL meal. John had a car so we drove down to Noosa Ville, the more rich area of Noosa. We went to this Indian restaurant and it was delicious! It was the first time I ate in an Indian restaurant. After dinner we headed back to the hostel adn they guys had rented The Princess Bride. I could hardly stay awake so after 20 minutes called it a night. I didn't get a chance to say goodbye to the guys because they were all sleeping but if you guys are reading this, good luck in your travels and have fun!

Today I went to the Australian Zoo - Home of the Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin. It was really big and great. I got to be up close with kangaroos and koalas. I also saw the lots of other animals including the tasmanian devil and dingos. I went into the venemous snakes hut and while taking a picture of the most venemous snake in the world it flinched! Thank got it was behind glass.

Tomorrow I head to Hervey Bay.

Noosa Day 1

I am in Noosa! Yesturday I left Brisbane north at a place called Mooloolaba (try saying that 5 times in a row). I'm sick with a cold so the trip was pretty much a blur but the hostel was nice and I relaxed watching the movie The Replacements with Keanu Reeves and eating a large pizza from Dominos for just 7$! (Although a large here is like a small in North America, I kid you not).
I slept quite well compared to the night before and am feeling better today. I checked into Dolphins at Sunshine Beach and it looks like a really chill place. I'm right now in Noosa Junction and am about to buy food and stuff needed for my canoe trip tomorrow which I keep hearing good things about!
Really excited and will let you all know how it was when I get back on Thursday.

Brisbane Day 5

Well this is my final day in Brisbane. Yesturday I went shopping at used book shops for a new book. I recently finished Blood of the Fold by Terry Goodkind, the third book in the Sword of Truth series. It was quite good but someone had given me a free copy of the first Discworld book by Terry Pratchet, The Color of Magic. That book was getting quite interesting and funny, a real easy read. But then I lost it. I think I left it back at the first hostel I was staying in. So I was tempted to buy a used version of the book butafter having read half of it I didn't really feel like shelling out 5$ so I decided to buy a book by another author. I just bought Fool's Errand by Robin Hobb. I've only read one chapter. So far so good but i realized now although it's the first book of her new series, I thin kit's based on character from her other trilogies so I dont' fully understand who all the characters are yet. Hopefully as I continue reading things will make more sense. I traded my old book for it and th eguy sold it to me for 5$. I realized after buying it the book was BRAND NEW and there wa a price tag for 20$ on the back form the book store it was originally purchased from. So I saved 15$! Not bad!
After buying the book I went to the Lagoon - man made beach in South Bank and hung out with Andy and Mark - 2 guys I met in Surfers Paradise at the hostel who also happen to be on the Oz Experience.
At ngiht I met up with Josh and Luke again and then Ross, this guy from my room, joined us adn we headed to a bar/club area called The Valley (think St. Laurent or Cresent/McKay/Bishop area) and ended up at the Elephant and Wheelbarrow. It was quite fun with a happening cover band.
Unfortunately I'm beat and now my throat hurts. NO MORE PARTYING!.... for a little while at least, haha!
Tomorrow I'm on the bus and heading to Moloolaba and then Noosa where I'll be partaking in a 3 day 2 night canoe trip which I hope will be fun.

Also I found out I'm in someone elses blog! Here's a post from Sophie's blog and what she has to say about me:

Allo allo!

Voici mes dernieres aventures: Hier, je suis allee rencontrer mon ami Josh Budman que j'ai rencontre a Melbourne lors de mes aventures precedentes. Ce joyeux gaillard vient de Montreal, mais ne parle pas tres bien francais...Le voila donc a BrisVegas pour quelques jours. En moins d'une journee,il a trouve un endroit qui vendait de la poutine, donc nous y avons fait halte pour le diner. Malheureusement, nous n'avions pas nos appareils photos...Nous sommes ensuite alles au Museum of Brisbane ou il y avait quelques trucs interressant. Apres cela, nous sommes alles nous perdre dans la ville, en essayant de trouver le pont pour traverser la riviere qui nous menerait a South Bank. Nous avons reussi apres un assez long detour.

Pour me recompenser de mon tour touristique, Josh m'a fait un stir fried au poulet pour souper AND HE IS THE BEST COOK IN THE WORLD! MUCH BETTER THAN TYLER. Nous sommes joyeusement alle boire de la biere apres ca au bar en dessous du Palace Backpacker et nous avons rencontre ses 2 amis d'angleterre.

Donc cest ca mes dernieres peripeties...aille aille aille! Vivement le depart:)

PLEASE NOTE: SOME OF THE ABOVE MAY HAVE BEEN ALTERED AND NOT ACTUALLY WRITTEN BY SOPHIE.....

Brisbane Day 3

Yesturday was a packed day! I moved into a new hostel called Palace Backpackers. SO much better than where I was before. Nice and clean. I also convinced 2 birtish guys to come with me, Luke and Josh. They are really cool guys. In the morning I hung out with them and for lunchI met up with my friend Sophie from Quebec. She's been in Brisbane for 7 months now and I met her in Melbourne. She gave me a real tour of the city ( a bit unintentionally since we got lost at one point). We started the day with POUTINE at New York Fries!!!! I went ecstatic when I found out they had a NYF in the city! It wasn't the best tasting food but did make my day. After lunch we headed to the Brisbane Museum which is in the city Hall. They had an exhibit on the making of the city hall and it was really detailed and interesting.
After the museum we went to an area called South Bank which was a nice walk. This was followed by a bridge back over the river and into the botanical gardens, and then back to my hostel. As payment for the tour of the city I cooked dinner for both of us (Tyler if you are reading this she told me it was the BEST MEAL SHE HAS EVER EATEN IN HER LIFE!... or she might have said it was OK for a backpacker meal I can't remember...assume the former!).
After dinner we went down to the Down Under bar in the basement of the hostel and met up with Luke and Josh. It was Superman night. If you wore undies on the outside of your pants you got cheap drinks. Yes I did it.

Brisbane Day 1

I'm in Brisbane! I havn't done much of anything yet. I arrived this mornign and have been at the internet shop for about 2 hours now. I checkedinto a hostel I got a free night in from when I worked for Peter Pan Travel but it looks really dodgy so I'm searchign this afternoon for a better place to stay the rest of my time in Brisbane. All in all it seems just like a big city just liek Toronto. I'm here a few days. I'm hoping to catch up with a friend who lives here and check out the city. I also plan on spending a day going up north to the Australian Zoo which is owned by the Crocodile Hunter himself, Mr. Steve Irvin.

Surfers Paradise Day 5

Friday day I met this great German named Tobias. We chated it up and then at night we went to a bar with the hostel called The Shack. I had a really good time and even bumped into 2 irish girls I met on my tour in Nimbim.

Saturday night I paid 25$ and ended up on a club crawl. We went to 3 club/bars : Melbas, Shooters and The Shack. It was an OK night but nothing great. I was hoping ot meet people on the crawl but no one involved really sociallized with anyone. I got a group photo and a keychain necklace, though, which is pretty cool.

Sunday I hung out at the beach and played some soccer with a bunch of guys from the hostel. I then took it easy sunday night.

Today I went to the beach with Tobias and hung out. The weather was finally nice and sunny, the rest of the time here it was rainy. In fact the weather was so good we went back to the beach again.

Tonight being my last night, I'm off to The Irish Pub and then Shooters for a free drink we get for staying at the hostel and hopefully some dancing.

Surfers Paradise Day 2

I left Byron Yesturday and ended up at Surfers a couple of hours later. It sounds like a popular surf place by the name but don't let that fool you. Surfers Paradise was a lot like Miami, LA and Florida mixed together. There is a beach thats 32km long but there are lots of tall high rises and residential buildings. About an hour or 2 away are 3 major theme parks (WB Movie World, Wet n Wild and Dreamworld) and there is also a Sea world somewhere accessible from Surfers Paradise. The only reason it's called that, I was told, is because the first residential building was called Surfers Paradise and as the area got built up they decided to just name the whole area that.

They are currently building the tallest apartment building complex in the world at over 100 floors or soemthing like that. Trust me it's tall!

I ended up walking around wit this girl from my room from England named Naomi to a mall complex called Pacific Fair. I pictured a big indoor mall but for the most part was an outdoor mall, like a maze of strip malls contained within a box. I bought new sunglasses that I desperatly needed. Now I look even more sexy when I strut my stuff in the streets.

Today the weather was a bit better and I ended upwalking along the beach from the city center back to my hostel.

Byron Bay Day 5

Last night at Cheeky Monkeys I bumped into two canadian guys from BC who I met in Melbourne. Turns out they were staying at my hostel. We went to the beach during the day and at night signed up for this game of pool called Killer. Everyone pays a dollar and we all take turns taking a shot. If you get the ball in you stay in teh game and then it's the next persons turn. If you miss, you lose a life. After 3 lives are lost, you're out of the game. The winner of the game collects everyones entry fee. I don't know how it happened but I won the game and ended up with 20$. Off to the bar I went to celebrate my final night in Byron Bay. At Cheeky Monkeys I bumped into these Israeli guys I saw the other day at the internet cafe and we started talking. They were really cool guys travelling across Australia after having finished their term in the army and were now having a vacation.
I ended up in another contest on stage where I had to play a didgeridoo. It sounded bad so I didn't win anything but I noticed a lot of people I reconized from my bus trip between Melbourne and Sydney. Most of them stayed in Sydney for a while and managed to catch up with me in Byron Bay that night.

Byron Bay Day 4

I ended up on a tour bus to Nimbim. Originally a place named for the spiritual rocks that the aboriginals would climb up to have cicumsisions done, it later became a dairy farm industry area but the industry collapsed. In the 60s there was supposed to be a big concert against the vietnam war but the was ended before they had the festival so they made it an environmental festival instead. most people who came for the show just never left.

It was a pretty far out place. They are really big on trying to legallize weed. The minute I got off the bus, I got asked if I wanted weed about 12 times. There was this funky 'museum' and accross the street was the Hemp Embassy where they are really trying to legalize the drunk as well as sell weed related items.

After Nimbim, we skipped swimming in a waterfall because it rained but ended up at a barbecue area and had a gigantic lunch. Then it was back to Byron.

Pictures!

Ok I have so many pictures and it's too nice a day to stay inside on the computer so here are a few pictures to wet your pallate:

Street Art in Melbourne
Pictures of the last two pieces I did in Melbourne: Bartman and Dead Pool

Suggan Buggan School House
A really old school that was used way back when.

Mt Kozciviszko
Pictures of my hike up the halfway on the tallest mountain in Australia. Includes Blue Lake.

NSW/Victoria Border
Pictures of me at the Victoria/New Douth Wales border.

Enjoy!

Byron Bay Day 3

Yesturday I met some really cool guys in the hostel, one from Switzerland and th eother from Italy and we ended up on the beach all day. I didn't realize how close my hostel was to the beach! Not even a 5 minute walk. The beach was beautiful and i decided to take a walk along it to a light house. On the way I ended up the most eastern point in Australia and even got to see a bunch of dolphins in the water.

At night I decided to take it easy instead and hung out with my new friends in the room 2 doors down and we played some card games and then snuck onto the beach before calling it a night.

Today I'm going to try and book a day trip to this very popular town nearby called Nimbim. It's supposed to be a really laid back place and worth the trip so I"m goign to try and make my way there.

My plans for the rest of the day are to go and chil on the beach and possibly join my new friends at a bar. Unfortunately the great people I met are all moving on tomorrow but hopefully I can meet up with them in the future.

Byron Bay Day 3

Yesturday I met some really cool guys in the hostel, one from Switzerland and th eother from Italy and we ended up on the beach all day. I didn't realize how close my hostel was to the beach! Not even a 5 minute walk. The beach was beautiful and i decided to take a walk along it to a light house. On the way I ended up the most eastern point in Australia and even got to see a bunch of dolphins in the water.

At night I decided to take it easy instead and hung out with my new friends in the room 2 doors down and we played some card games and then snuck onto the beach before calling it a night.

Today I'm going to try and book a day trip to this very popular town nearby called Nimbim. It's supposed to be a really laid back place and worth the trip so I"m goign to try and make my way there.

My plans for the rest of the day are to go and chil on the beach and possibly join my new friends at a bar. Unfortunately the great people I met are all moving on tomorrow but hopefully I can meet up with them in the future.

Sydney to Byron Bay Day 3

Despite it being a bar, I slept quite well.It was actually the best sleep I had all week. We left Bingara with a full day of driving ahead of us. We watched Starsky and Hutch on the bus to kill time. We stopped at Inverell for a quick break. It's actually a gayleck word for "meeting place" and is known to be a big scottish community hence it being a non-aboriganol name. We then drove through Glen Innes and went to Gibraltar National Park. This was followed by Grafton and then I got a chance to get a picture of the Giant Prawn in Ballma. Australia is known for having giant sculptures of things for restaurants and what not, like the giant apple that you see on the drive from Montreal to Toronto.
By late afternoon we stopped at Lennox Head to celebrate the birthday of 2 people on our bus. We had 14 bottle of champagne amonst 40 of us. Got a chance to see the pacific ocean again!

By 5pm I we got into Byron Bay! I checked into my hostel which was completely booked so I was very smart to book a couple of weeks in advance. The rooms are quite nice with a fridge, sink and proper bathroom. I'm sharing the room with 3 swedish guys. They seem like a lot of fun. After dinner I went to the msot popular backpacker bar in town called Cheeky Monkeys to meet up with my bus group. It was a crazy time there. For being part of the oz experience they got us involved with playing games on stage. I ended up in 2 games. The first one was to win some free beer or something and it involved my eating a meat pie, drinking a beer and then doing 20 pushups, situps and star jumps. I was so slow by the time i finished the beer, someone had beaten me and one the contest. The next one I was in was to win a free sky dive jump and involved choosing heads or tails. I was competing against others and when you got it wrong, you either had a choice to leave the game or remove a piece of clothing. Lets just say I gave it a good try and ended up in my undies butthen I ended up leaving the game. The winner ended up being a girl and she won because she decided to remove her top in order to have one more chance in the game.
After Cheeky Monkeys, I bumped into my bis driver Luke and we went to another bar right ebfore I called it quits.

Sydney to Byron Bay Day 2

The place I slept in last night was basically a giant cabin where we had dinner and a row of tiny bare rooms with a few bunk beds. The meal we had was delicious. For 8$ I got roast beef with potatoes and gravy. For dessert we I had sticky date and it was SO GOOD!

In the morning I got up and almost missed the bus. We went to the Warrumbungles National Park where we got to walk around for about an hour and saw lots of kangaroos and wallabies. We then had lunch in Narrabri and went to see the astonishing Sawn Rocks formation. Tres Cool. On the bus we watched Old School and finally made it to our hostel in Bingara. Everyone went horse back riding but I didnt really want to spend 38$ to sit ona horse so I stayed back and planned some more of my trip. The place we stayed in was actually a bar and there were giant dorm rooms in the back.

Sydney to Byron Bay Day 1

Last night I ended up at Jordons again and got to catch up with some other peopel I knew who worked there. I even had a nice chat with George my former manager and it was good talking to him again.

In the morning I woke up qutie early, checked out and made it over to the Oz Experience Bus Stop. A huge green bus pulls up and we all get on it. This time the bus was a giant coach and the group was about 40 people rather than 20 like on my last trip. I met a french canadian from Montreal and sat with her on the bus. First we stopped in a place called Bilpin for a quick bite at the bilpin Fruit Market. then we drove through the edge of the Blue Mountains until we hit a spot called Lithgow. We passed through Lithgow until Mudgee where we bought food and headed to the Poets Corner Vinyard where we had a picnic and then a small tour and some wine tasting. For 4$ I got 4 glasses of wine and a port, not bad. Three hours later we got to the Warrumbugles.

Sydney Reloaded

OK! Now that I updated what I did over my Melbourne to Sydney Trip (see comment in March 22nd post) I can tell you what I've been uip to since I've been in Sydney!

So I got into Sydney on Monday and spent the night at Footprints. Yesturday morning I made my way to IEP to say hi to the friendly staff and then jumped on a train to the Blue Mountains. The Blue Mountians is a really beautiful country area about 2 hours from Sydney. I went on a walk in the trails and it was AMAZING. The view is great! I got lots of pictures and will put them up soon. There is this famous rock formation there called the Three Sisters which is basically 3 giant points next to each other hanging out of the moutain cliff.

It was 5pm and I decided to walk along a path that sounded really cool called Giant Stairay. It was 900 steps down! After that I went along a trail and it started to get darek. I ended up meeting this Irish guy so we wlaked together which was nice since i was starting to get scared. Finally we made it to the end of the trail but then there were 900 steps UPWARDS! It got really dark, I was getting rteally tired and sweaty and couldn't see ANYTHING! I thought after a while I hallucinated the guy since he disappeared for about 20 minutes but he was just walking alot faster than I was. I was afraid I wouldn't make it out alive!

Now I am back in Sydney (Alive and Well) and am going to take tonigt easy, hopefully at Cohi Bar where I'll see some more Jordons friends. I won't be out too late for I have to get up super early tomorrow to hop on the bus where I'll be on a 3 day trip to Byron Bay.

I'll try to updat emy blog in Byron Bay and hopefully will have lots of photos ready by then!

Melbourne to Sydney Day 3

ot up early again and had breaky. I slept on the bus for a while until we hit Canbera, the capital city of Australia. It stands for Meeting Place in the Aboriginal language and is also home to legallized porn and marianna. There are a lot of museums and galleries in the city but we ended up at the House of Parliment. There are actually 2 of them - old and new. The new one is where I walked around, The old one is accross the street and is know a museum.
After lunc, we ended up at the War Memorial. Australia really likes to show that they care for all the soldiers they had participate in wars and peacekeeping incidents. They ave one in each state and I think Canbera's represents Australia as a whole. It was quite sad in there but the details they went into showing what happened witht their involvement in the wars was crazy. the had models and paintings and all sorts of things that were very interesting. The whole place was HUGE and I only got to see a little bit of it - mostly stuff on world war I and a bit on world war II.
Three hours later... SYDNEY! AGAIN! It felt like I never left. I checked in at my hostel, Footprints, dropped off my stuff and then ran to Jordons to see my friends. I saw a few people I recognized but there were a lot of new faces. I promised I'd try and go back on Wednesday before I leave for Byron bay on Thursday. I then made my way to my buddy Blair;s where we caught up for a bit but couldn't stay too long since i had to run to Scubar where I partied one last time with all the great people from my trip. It was awesome!

Melbourne to Sydney Day 2

oday I got up really early again. We all got up at 6am but in reality it was only 5am because we had to put the clocks back the night before to accomodate for it getting darker earlier. We left the hostel and on the drive spotted all kinds of wildlife - kangaroos, wallabies, emus, cows and even a rooster on the road! I got some really nice pictures of the snowy mountains (I promise to put them up in the future).
We passed by an area called Suggan Buggan where there was this really really old and tiny school.
Finally we reached out hostel in Lake Jindabyne. It was actually a motel/hotel and was by far the cleanest coziest place I have been to so far. We had out own fridge, tv and kettle in the room. There were 4 bunk beds and 1 double bed and we were only 6 people in the room so it was a nice. After lunch, we drove to Charlotes pass where lies Mt. Kozciviszko, Australia's tallest mountain at 228km! We ended up climbing up halfway to a lake known as Blue Lake. It was FREEZING and most of us, including me, had changed into shorts because it was so hot when we had lunch. The hike was 5km to the lake but a lot of fun because Luke, our TRES COOL guide, kept finding all sorts of bugs and anumals to look at. I saw a skink, alpine grasshopper and a millipede. I missed it but he also found a wolf spider.
After the hike, we went back to the motel/hotel where we played drinking games all night. The group I'm with is made up of really great people. I wasn't the only canadian this time. There was this guy from Calgary named Kyle who happened to go to high school with Stephanie, the girl I lived with for 3 months in Sydney. Small world eh? The othets were from England, Wales, Sweden and there was a guy from California.

Melbourne to Sydney Day 1

Today I got up at 5:30am and hoped onto the Adventure Tours bus. First we got to St. Kilda where I had to pay 60$ for the 2 nights accomadation, breakfast and park fees. 1 hour later we had breakfast in the tiny town of Yarragon. About 2 and half hours later we reached Barnsdale where we had lunch and finally after that reached Karoonda Park where we were going to stay the night. As part of the extra activities we could do, some did this thing called a flying fox, where you strap yourself to a cable and glide accross a tiny lake in the forest. I chose to do Rock climbing instead. Inside the hostel we were in was a gym type room with a ping pong table, volley ball net and a climbing wall. For 12$ I ended having a proper home cooked meal. It was SO good! I had some appetizers, soup, chicken and then chocolate cake for dessert.

Melbourne Day 66

[NOTE: I am currently on the move and it is difficult to update this weblog at the same rate I am doing things, and believe me I'm doing A LOT of things as of late. Therefore I have started writing my entires in a real journal and will recopy them onto this blog. I want to try and label the comments on the same days I actually wrote them down in the journal. Therefore, some post will appear all at once with several past dates. I hope this won't confuse anyone. Right now it is in fact March 30th and I am in Sydney but this post is about my last day in Melbourne on March 24th. Enjoy!]

Last night I went to Dallas with this canadian guy I met at the hostel named Graham. He was from Vancouver. Dallas is the all you can drink/kareoke bar I went to almost every thursday while in Melbourne. It was a lot of fun and it sadened me to leave it behind. Today I went and bought 2 CDs for to listen to on the upcoming trip - Queens of the Stonage's Lullibies to Paralyze and The Mars Volta's Fances the Mute. Both really good disks! I later met up with Nick a british guy I met through IEP and went to watch a comedy show I had tickets for. It was called Best of the Edinburgh Fest. the headliner weas actually from Calgary and asked if any other Canadians were present. I was the only one. Since I announced my attendance whenever he made a Canadian joke he'd always say "my Montreal friend knows what I'm talking about!". The whole show itself was a lot of fun.

Melbourne Day 66

So it finally paid off. Since I'm leaving saturday from the beautiful city of Melbourne I decided to squeeze in just one more street art painting (pictures to come in the near future I promise). This time I went all out and did a comic book super hero called Deadpool. It was so complicated because it was so detailed. After 3 hours I hardly got far so I called it quicks and returned the next day. Tuesday was a much better day I finished the other 2/3 of the picture within 4 hours. I also got to meet a lot of nice people. I would always mark that I'm from Canada near my money box so a few people who come and ask where in Canada I"m from and then tell me what part they are form and we'd chat about our travels and how we enjoy Melbourne, etc. In fact I met a lovely couple in their 50s from calgary who were originally from Montreal but moved away during the first referndum scare back in the 70s. The woman was from Cote St. Luc so of course she was Jewish and the couple insited on not only taking my picture but taking down my parents e-mail address and mailing them a photo and a short message on how they are travelling around australia and met this nice boy from Canada i.e. me. They insisted my parents are worried about me and thsi way they would know I"m still alive. It was the weirdest thing and I can't wait to hear my moms reaction when she gets this e-mail from strangers with my photo in it.
WhenI finally finished the picture, I packed my stuff up and ended up earning $9.20! That was the most ever! So being a tuesday I treated myself to a 5$ movie (Be Cool - it was an amusing movie btu I never saw Get Shorty so I didn't get a lot fo the inside jokes) and then headed to a bar (Birdie O'Reileys) that has kareoke and 4$ Guiness pints on tuesdays. I even got to hang out with some Melbournians! I finally meet some actual people from Melbourne but I'm just about to leave! I may meet up with them one more time. All in all it was a great night.

Melbourne Day 61

First off, I'd just like to apologize to everyone who received this invitation for some website called Hi5. All it is is basically a "friends network". You join the website and then get your friends to join and now I have a record of how many friends I have and through them I can meet other people. I recieved one of these e-mails and by accident pushed the wrong button and ended up sending aninvitation to everyone on myu hotmail address book. I have over 300 people on that address book so all of you who recieved this junk e-mail, I apologize.

In other news, I have been quite busy these last few days working out my next leg of my trip.
Here is a map of Australia!
What I have done so far is start in Sydney and live there for 3 months then I flew to Adelaide where I spent 1 night followed by a 3 day drive to Melbourne where I have been living for 2 months.
My plans are to leave Melbourne on March 28th and do a three day trip to Sydney where I will spend 1 night in a hostel. The following day I will make my way up to the Blue Mountains which are 2 hours away from the city. I'm staying there 1 night and then returning back to the hostel the next day. The following mornign I'm back on the bus for a 3 day trip to Byron Bay whcih I plan on staying there for 5 days. Once i'm done soaking up the sun it's off to Surfurs Paradise in the Gold Coast which is in Queensland. I havn't booked any hostels after Byron Bay but I'm planning on going to Brisbane. Working at Peter Pan, the travel agent, as a flyer guy paid off! I just exchanged the 205$ I earned for 20.5 hours of work for a 3 day canoe trip in this place called Noosa. It looks amazing! I also got 2 nights free in a hostel in Noosa and 1 night in Brisbane with the money I earned. I have a lot planned for after noosa but it's so far away I'll worry about it when I get there, besides I'l be really busy with what I'm already going to do that I won't even have time to think about it!
Here are a couple of maps to help you get a better idea of my trip:
New South Wales
Queensland

Melbourne Day 56

I'm extremely tired and hungry right now but I have to right this down so I won't forget it happened!
I got home at 3:30am last night from partying with my work friends and at about 7am I got woken up to "FIRE! FIRE!" *Bang on the door*. I was so out of it but we all got outside and then the firetrucks showed up. it ended up just being a small garbage fire but there wasn't even an alarm that informed everyone of the potential danger, only a smoke alarm in one room went off. Before we even knew it was ony a small fire, while standing outside, the owner opens her window and looks out at us all confused and we're all yelling at her to get out quick! After about 20 minutes we were all allowed to go back inside to which I slept another 5 hours. Lets hope in the next 2 weeks i"m still here this is the worse it gets.

Melbourne Day 54

no much has happened in the past week. The wether was cold at first but this weekend has really gotten beautiful. It's now around 30 degress celsius! Perfect timing shince this weekend is the Moomba (Water) Festival. It basically a lot of activities, live shows and a full carnival with rides and what not along the Yarra River. The Yarra River basically runs right along the outskirts of the major city center. I went by there on Friday, when they were first setting it up but there weren't that many people there because it was early. Monday, however is not only my day off work but it's also Labour Day. Thankfully I do have the day off since restaurants usually don't close on such holidays and mine definitely is still open. Also my friend Tyler who I met in Sydney and hung out with in Melbourne (who;s from Ontario) is coming back today into Melbourne so hopefuly he'll stick around a couple of days and we can hit up the fest together.

Other than that, I tried street painting again. I went to a completely different area this time and I loved it! The pavement was not as smooth so I was able to get really dark and thick colours out of my drawing. I went to an area usually dominated by this amazing artist. He/she had about 10 murals on along the sidewalk and they look like they would take hours to draw. Then I come along and I drew Bartman! It looked really awesome though. I took tons of pics of it and will put them online as soon as I get the chance. Hopefully sometime next week I'll get a chance to go back to the same spot and do another drawing.

Melbourne Day 47

I finally decided I had enough of Melbourne. Dont get me wrong, I love the city and have been having a great time out here but I still have so much more of Australia I want to see and time is flying by! Come March 26th, i'm be on a bus heading up the east coast.

Aside from that, today my hair has finally gotten long enough fo rme to start gelling it again.

And as promised - PHOTOS!:

Street Art - As I have mentioned before, I have a permit which allows me to draw on the street and make a little bit of cash. I havn't done it since my hat with money got stolen the last time but here are photos of the first two pictures I did (click on the highlighted words):
BUD - For my first drawing I tried a graffiti logo of the word BUD. For my first try, I quite like it. I earned 40 cents with it.
Charlie Brown and Snoopy - For my second picture I figured I'd draw something people would recognize. The colors are a bit off since I didn't have any black at the time. A lot of people enjoyed it and took pictures of it but I only earned 50 cents. It was a step up though!

Meet the Neighbours - These are pics from a special night I went to at a bar called The Elephant and the Wheel Barrow. Melbourne is home to a very famous prime time soap called Neighbours. The show revovles around the lives of people that live on a street called Ramsey St. The show is filmed in a studio in Melbourne but any scenes involving the outside of houses is actually shot on a REAL street in Melbourne (who's real name is not Ramsey). The show isn't that popular in Australia but is geared more for british people. Thatnight at the bar was a chance to meet 3 actors from the show. I went with my friends James and Fiona (the ones wearing the Neighbours T-shirts) who are die hard fans and having seen the show 3 times, I thought the night was ok, but they were going crazy! The whole bar was filled with brits so I felt kind of out of place. But now I have pictures with actors that no one knows! For the record I met the characters known as Tody, Izzie and Dr. Karl.

Royal Botanical Gardens - It's seems that every city has a Royal Botanical Gardens. The Melbourne one is quite beautiful and right in the middle is a huge Shrine of Remembrance for soldiers lost in past wars.

St Kilda Beach - Here are photos from the St Kilda Area in Melbourne. It's basically the beach area in Melbourne. Lots of bars and night life. I went there at night and got to see a penguin! The last pic is of a star fish someone caught on their fishing line.

St Kilda Festival - On Feburary 13th, all the major streets of St Kilda shut down and were filled with people for a huge festival. It was a lot of fun. The pic of people making out infront of a stage was the attempt to break the world record of most people kissing at once for 30 seconds. Malaysia held the current record of 12000 and according to officials Melbourne was just short a few thousand people. The other 2 pics of the stage are of a famous melbourne musician, Xavier Rudd. He plays all his insturments himself at once and his music is very similar to Jack Johnson.

Night with Carolin from Germany - Carolin was this nice German I met at the hostel we hung out a bit. These are pics from a night we went to a few bars for some live entertainment along Brunswick Street. First we listened to an irish folk jazz band and then we went to another bar and listened to a latino hip hop ensemble. They were really cool and the night was a lot of fun. Carolin has since returned to Germany btu we've been in contact since she has left her camera in my hostel room and I'm trying ot send it back to her. I lost her address, so the process is slow. Hopefully I won't lose her friendship either, hehe.

Phew! That took a long time to set up! I hope you enjoy all the pics. I'm bound to have tons more in the future!

Melbourne Day 44

As I promised - more photos!
I didn't have enough time to upload all of my latest pics but here are pics from Australia Day - Jan 26th!
Enjoy and I promise to put the rest up later this week.

Melbourne Day 43

Alright so In the past week I've actually done more sightseeing. I went back to the Center of the Moving Image, this time with this German guy I met named Greg, and saw more shirt animation films. Some are really great. Afterwards I ended up at the Kylie Minogue exhibit at the Art Center. It is filled with Kylie clothes, awards, records and videos. She is ONE TINY PERSON. She is the size of Gary Coleman. Following that I went to this Art Gallery that had an exhibit called Grotesque and had images from artists in the 1500's about their interpertation on stuff like Satan and mystical creatures, etc. It was quite good. Not bad for a full day of activities and all of them were free!

Today marked the first day of the Grand Prix. Being the 10th anniversary of it being in Melbourne, the city made today a free event and I went down to the race track which is built around a lake in a place called Albert Park with a bunch of friends from the hostel. We just hung out all day on the side lying on teh grasss and watching the cars go by. Just before I left because it was so sunny today and I felt I was int eh sun for too long, there was a race between a normal BMW, a Super V8 car (Nascar racing) and an F1 racer. They gave the BMW a 15 second headstart over the Super V8 and 27 seconds later of the super car left, the f1 caught up to follow. It was crazy, The second car caught up withthe BMW and then the F1 racer was right behind. In the end, the F1 car passed the V* and just barely won by like a fraction of a second!

Still plenty of more to come in Melbourne for the month of March. There is a comedy festival as well as a food and wine fest and other stuff. I'm planning on staying until April so hopefully I'll be able to check everything out.

Melbourne Day 39

Well I've been pretty busy the last few days. My boss at my job nformed me that the old dishwasher guy came back so now i have to share shifts with him and I'm only down for 3 maybe for shifts this week so I tried doing stuff to keep busy. Tuesay I went to the Melbourne Museuma nd saw an AMAZING exhibit on insects. They had boxs of household spiders on display and let me tell you they aren't tin like the ones back home. I really enjoyed th eexihibit because rather than just show pictures of movies of how, say, a colonie of ants behave, they had an ACTUAL colonie behind glass. It was really something. Then Tuesday night I got a call from my friend Matt V. who I worked with in Sydney at Jordans. He was in town so we got together to catch up on things. It was fun talking to him and learn about all the cool things he's been doing on his trip. I also me this American girl in my room named Laura and we ended up checking out this place called the Australian Centre of the Moving Image (I thin kthats the name) and it had a sction with movie screen where we watched a bunch of animation shorts made by people who go to an Australian Animation school or some sort. The movies were really fun to watch. Afterwards we made our way upstairs to this art exhibition. One floor was Aboriginal Art and the other was historical Australian art form the 19th century but then we got tired and left.
Today I started a new job as a... wait for it... FLYER HANDOUT GUY! I basically have to stand in fron t of this internet/travel agent place accross the street from my hostel and say "15 free minutes of internet with this voucher! 2$ per hour but if you book one of our wonderful trips you become a gold member and get 1$/hour internet!". I'm so tired form talking so much tonight I'm not going to talk at all! (I know that for me it's hard to believe but its the truth!) I'm not really getting paid cash but I'll make 10$/hour and get to redeem it for one of their trips which can be used up to 6 months so I"m bound to find somethign I want to do and save a couple of hundred bucks. Or if I opt out for money I'll get 8$/hour after tax which isn't great but I won't get any moeny until I finish my time here in April so at least it's going to be saved up a little no matter which option I choose.

Expect tons of pictures of things soon!

Melbourne Day 36

Wow! I've been here over a month.
Yesturday was the Bris (circumcision) of my little nephew Charles! The whole family was together in Toronto for it. I wish I could have been there but I'll get a chance to see my nephew when I return to Canada.

Today was a crazy day. I woke up to discover my shampoo and conditioner was gone. Either I left it in the shower or someone took it but either way I need to buy new bottles of both. Afterwards I decided since I had no work today to try the street painting again. The last tiemI did it I made 50 cents. This time I went all out and bout cheap washable black paint and did this huge graffiti picture of the word 'Melbourne'. A lot of people came by to comment on it while I was doing it and at first my hat was empty but then it filled up with change. I might have had about 3-4$! However, afer about spending 3 hours on the street, when I didn't notice, someone swipped my baseball cap with the money in it! The money is nothing, I don't care abour 3$ but I loved that hat! I had it for about 5 years and it had 2 kool pins I got - one from the billy talen concert I was at and on from when I saw Interpol. Things got better shorlty after though when this guy from Malaysia commented on my drawing and was talking to me about graffiti art. He showed me his portfollio he just 'happened' to have on him and it was amazing! Him and his 'crew' can do some really awesome grafitti stuff. He had picturesd of walls and other things he's designed like cd covers and t-shirts. He gave me his e-mail and said we should go for a beer sometime so maybe i"ll folow up the offer. Then I went back to finishing the picture. It came out REALLY AWESOME and even though my hat got stolen I'm happy with the result and got some really good photos of it which I'll post onteh website soon.
The only other thing to add to this crazy day was on the way home someone handed me a flyer and it happened to be for Jews For Jesus. I havn't met any Jews and now i"m seing Jews for Jesus! I thought that was really HILARIOUS!
Well I"m tired and starving so I"m off to make a giant meal of chicken stir fry of (if my food hasn't been stolen! haha)

Melbourne Day 26

Good news and bad news. Good news: I am now employed! I'm currently a professional dishwasher at an italian restaurant called Di Palma and a cafe called Royal Domain Cafe. I worked 55 - 60 hours this week and because of it comes the bad news: I'm sick (BOO!). So I got this weekend off work and am resting up in the hostel. I stocked up on cold remedy supplies - Kleenex, cough drops, cold medicine, orange juice, chicken soup, etc. and I slept a bit better last night so I'm feeling better but still need lots of rest. I'm not too sure what I'll do this weekend if anything but maybe anice walk will do me justice. It's not too hot right now (pants and sweater weather) so some fresh air might be great.

In other news, I present to you all CHARLES SIMON BUDMAN (YAY!):

Melbourne Day 20

We break from the regular scheduled program to bring you this important news update:

I"M AN UNCLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Last night my sister in law gave birth to CHARLES SIMON BUDMAN, the newest addition to the Budman clan weighing in at a whopping 8 pounds 9 ounces.

MAZOL TOV CONNIE AND MARK!

Melbourne Day 19

Wow time is flying! I'm in Australia almost 4 months!

Looking back now I realized I forgot to include pictures of one of the most talked about thing on the great ocean road: The Twelve Apostles. And THIS is what they look like. The picture is tough to really see them properly but they are fantastic. There aren't really 12 of them, there are only about 8 or 9 and 1 collapsed a few years ago, but basically it's just these tall skinnet rock formations in the water close to the shorline.

I don't have the time or energy to put up more pictures right now on the computer but I still have a lot of great stuff to show. You'll just have to wait until I get back to see the rest on this part of the trip (if I show everything now there won't be anything to talk about when I get back home, haha). I promise I'll have more pictures of OTHER things though in the near future.

So basically I made it to Melbourne and have been up to a lot fo stuff since I got here. I spent 1 week in a hostel called Hotel Bakpak and promised myself I wouldn't do any work and just have fun. And fun was had by all. I went to a tennis match in the Australian Open. I randomly bought a ticket and ended up seeing Federer (world #1) play against some guy Suzuki. I also discovered this bar called Dallas. For 8$ you can get free refills of you glass for 2 1 hour peeiods (9-10pm and 11pm-12am) AND there is free kareoke! I've been there three weeks in a row now and sang about 8 songs. They know me now by face and I'm becoming friendly with the bouncer (always good to have big strong friends). Also, on January 26th was Austrlia day. I went to watch the fireworks display they had and bot was it something!
For the past 2 weeks I've been looking for a job. After not hearing anything from anyone and almost giving up, I ended up getting 3 job offers at once. Right now I'm a dishwasher at a tiny italian restaurant called Di Palmas. It's nice and laid back there and the people I'm working with are all a lot of fun. I've only worked there for 2 shifts so far and already feel accepted in the group. I opened my big mouth when my boss told me to not work too hard and chance tiring out too fast and mentioned that I was a 'machine'. For the rest of the shift he just kept calling me 'his machine' and if someone was distracting me he'd say 'Don't break my machine!' haha! On monday I'm trrying out a day job as a kitchenhand in a tiny cafe and if I can handle them both I'll work at both places and make a few extra bucks. Speaking of that, I thought I figured a way to make a few extra dollars but was terribly wrong. I endedup applying for a free busking permit. I am now legally allowed to draw on the sidewalk on 2 streets in the city. I saw a guy doing it and asked him how he got to do it and where he got his supplies. For TWO dollars I bougth a giant bucket of street chalk and spent 2 hours drawing this graffiti type thing on the street. I figured I'd make a few bucks... I made 40 cents! It was cloudy though so maybe on a sunnier day I'll be able to make a few extra dollars.

I better get going, I need to get things done before work.

Melbourne Day 11

Since my last post I started getting settled in the city. I have moved hostels. I went from a large expensive one to a much smaller, quiter and cheaper hostel. Plus, I convinced the friends I made at the old place to come with me and on top of that, my british friends that I made in Sydney are also staying there until the end of this week. Also, I met these four canadian girls from Saskatoon who are also staying in the same room as my british friends.

Besides the move, I've spent all this past week looking for a job. I'll admit it hasn't been easy but finally today I got two interviews lined up for monday and tuesday. The jobs are to be a sandwich hand and a kitchen hand. Nothing exotic but it's something and both are not too far from the hostel. Also, January 26th was Australia day! I ended going to a busking competition and saw some real funny street performers and some talented magicians and jugglers. At night I saw a great fireworks display and took a free boat ride on the Yarra River.

Now back to the details of my trip!
By the end of the second day of the trip we made it to the beginning on of the great ocean road. It sure was great, with all these crazy rock formations and beautiful views of the ocean. Our first stop was at the Bay of Islands. It had this huge rock cliff face and all around were these 'island' formations. Next, we ended up at the Bay of Martyrs. We walked along the beach and found all kinds of things washed up on the beach. The waves were really cool and we just had a lot of fun goofing around. We even found a blow fish on the beach. At first it looked dead but then we noticed it was still breathing. Firie tried pushing it back in to the water but on the way back to the bus we saw it again on the sand but this time upside down. R.I.P fishy! After the Bay of Martyrs we went to check out London Bridge. The story behond the name is that up until 1990, it was just a long path with two archways underneath it but in 1990, the one closer more inland collapsed, leaving it as it looks today, hence the name London Bridge (London Bridge is falling down...). When it happened, everyone ran off before they were stuck on the rock except a couple that looked happy in love. Well, apperently, the news helicopters came and filmed them stuck on the rock and turns out that the man was having an affair and his wife saw him and his girlfriend on national television! Our next stop was the Archway followed by the Loch Ard Gorge. It was named so after a boat in 1878 crashed, killing 54 people. There were two survivors, a young woman and the first mate of the ship, who ended up at the Gorge. It's a wonder how they got out, the place is HUGE! There were helpful signs stating that you can balace on waves and that there are portals in the water!

I still got more to talk about but I'll stop here since I'm getting sleepy. I promise really soon more pictures!

Melbourne Day 5

That's right! I'm currently in Melbourne. WARNING: I have a LOT to say about what I've done in the past couple of weeks so this is going to be a LONG one. There are also lots and lots of PICTURES!!! Please note, I have to keep deleting old ones to put up newer ones so in the future, the links may not lead you to anywhere. Here goes:

I had my last shift at Jordon's on January 14th at 9am. It was a nice last shift. Not too busy and I got to enjoy myself one last time. After work, I went to the apartment to finish packing and then made my way to Cohi Bar to meet up with everyone from work for one last time. So many people came up to say goodbye, it was really something. Even George, one of my managers, made an effort to come and buy me a drink even though he still had work to do in the restaurant. He even gave me this super duper reference letter to help me find a job elsewhere in Australia!

The next morning, after having about 4 hours of sleep, I got up at 6:30am and made my way to the airport. After a 2 hour flight I landed in Adelaide. Adelaide is west of Sydney in the state of South Australia. I was only staying in Adelaide for one day so I just walked around for a bit. I ended up at the Adelaide Zoo. I quite liked it and got to see a lot of Australian animals as well as other anumals from around the world. You can see the pictures by clicking HERE!
After the zoo, I went to the hostel I was staying in called My Place. It was a nice little place and every guest was German except me.

The next morning I jumped on the tour I had payed for and started to make my way to Melbourne. It was a three day tour from Adelaide to Melbourne. I had originally booked with a company called Oz Experience, where youhop on a giant coach bus and travel with tons of other people. Well, it turns out there is not a big demands for a trip between Adelaide and Melbourne, so Oz Experience sold that leg of the journey to a smaller company called Adveture Tours Australia. We were on a smaller bus instead and the groups was only 13 people. The small group made it a lot of fun, actually. I was the only North American let alone Canadian. The others were from Switzerland, Belgium, England, Denmark, Germany and Holland. Two girls from Switzerland and one from Belgium happen to be french speaking so I spoke french with the for 3 days! I'm a little rusty but it was a lot of fun trying to practice my french.

In three days, I saw and did so much, it was just too much fun. I have a lot of photos to show so I'm going to change the format I normally have set up to see photos. For those of you who do not know, just click on the highlighted, underlined words and the photos will pop up (mom and dad I'm looking at you here).

The drivers nick name was Firie. He used to be a fireman and took a break from it to do these tours. Our first stop was a short one at Bordertown. Basically, it was a town halfway between Adelaide and the South Australi/Victoria border. We got off the bus to see a small jail cell that got converted into a bathroom stall. Also, the orginal police station was still around and it was so small that a large bakery was biult around it.

Afterwards, we stopped briefly at the Bordertown Wildlife Park and saw WHITE Kangaroos! Apperently in 1980 a guy found a white kangaroo in the wild. Kangaroos are normally not white so he took the kangaroo and sent it to his sister in Bordertown who owned an animal reserve. In 1984, they successfully breeded another white Kangaroo and now they have a whole park filled with them!

Next was a quick stop at Pink Lake. The water is pink because the lake is filled with the Alga plant that produced Keratine which leaves a film of pink on the surface of the lake. Really cool!


After a bit of a drive we finally came into view of The Grampians, a chain of jagged mountains. We then climbed up one of the mountains known as Hollow Mountain. The climb was well worth it because the views from the top were phenominal. Click HERE!

After a quick encounter of almost hitting a Kangaroo!!......sign.... we ended up at McKenzie Falls. This was followed by a trip to Reids Lookout where we got to see Wahtook Lake and then a short walk to a rock formation known as The Balconies. I also got to see a wallabie (small kangaroo) in the wild! The night ended by staying over in a tiny hostel in Hals Gap.

The second started early with another walk through mountains. We went through the Mt Williams Range where I got to see The Grand Canyon, Silent Street and at the top of the mountain, the Pinnacle. Click HERE! to see the view from the Pinnacle.

I still have a lot I want to say but it's a beatiful day outside and this is taking a lot longer then I had expected. I'll give all of you a while to sink all of this in and in my next post I'll write and show pictures about all the really awesome things I saw on the GREAT OCEAN ROAD!

Sydney Day 98

Only 4 more days in Sydney! Saturday morning I'll be on a plane to Adelaide. I already confirmed everything and I'm all set. Tonight is my second to last shift at work and I officially finish on friday. For my last week, it's been pretty relaxing. I only had to work Monday, Wednesday and Friday of this week and on Friday I have a mornign shift so I don't need ot work until midnight of anything.

Last night I went over for dinner at my relatives for one last time before I leave Sydney. They truley are great people and even though I called themon monday, they didn't think twice on inviting me out for dinner the very next day, no questions asked! I will miss them but I will be back in Sydney at least 2 more times before I go back home to Canada.

Last night after dinner, I went to my new temporary home and found a few cockroahces underneath my bundle of clothes so out of reaction, I vleaned off my bed and made sure there were none there and then went through ALL my clothes. Once I saw they were bug free, I packed everything back into my bag and then I moved aroundthe tingsin the room to find the hidden cockroches. I killed about 5 of them and 1 got away. I then took tape and paper towels and sealed any holes I found and this big grate in the wall. I even sealed the bottom of the door so none can come in from the hallway. Afterwards I was on my bed and saw the one I missed crawling on my sleeping bag! I made so much noise banging on the floor to kill them and moving th ebed that I woke up the person sleeping underneath me... oops! I did a double check before sleeping and the coast was clear. I put a trap under the bed and today I noticed some dead cockroches so it seems to be working since I think they hide under the bed. I've decided I"m going to skip the kitchen form now on and just eat out because yesturday when I bought some spray and used it in the kitchen, instead of killing the few I saw crawling on the sink, I ended up freaking them out and then tons of them started coming out from the walls and cracks and were just EVERYWHERE! Well at least I know what to avoid for when I'm looking for a place in the future. It's just terrible that the people who live there just don't care anymore and are not doing anythign about it. Thankfully I'm only there for 3 more days.

Sydney Day 96

Yesturday my lease at my apartment was up and I moved into my friends place. He lives on the adjacent street from my old place so the walk was short. As soon as I walked in, before I could even take off my bag, one of the guys hands me a beer and says "welcome!". After having the tour of the place, I learnt quite quickly that it's a typical student joint, similar to any place I've seen in the McGill Ghetto. Beer bottles on the floor, pizza boxes in the kitchen, novelty posters like "Crew Only Beyound This Point" located on the bathroom door, and of course, stolen street signs. The kitchen is pretty dirty but the room I'm staying in is extremely clean, big, and even has a patio. Last night I slept on teh couch but tonight i'll get the bed since, Mark, the guy who invited me to stay is going ot be in Tazmania for the rest of the week. Hey, at least I have a bed and I/m not paying alot of money for it. It's still only 5 minutes form work and thats what's great about it.

It's quite sad what has happened with the Tsunami and all that but it's great to hear that Australia is really helping out. Red Cross alone donated 64 million $'s and there must be over 100 million from all of Australian combined. Even though it wasn't my decision, I even donated some money to the Tsunami victims. As I mentioned ebfore, I had a great time on New Years eve, well, it turns out a lot of alcohol went missing form the bar at work that night and the genral manager decided to bust everyone who had a drink. I never knew the rule for staff drinks was 1 beer and having had 3 beers, I got in tourble for it, so as punishemnt, the general manager donated my tips, which must have been at LEAST 100$ to some charity. It sucks but things happen and at least in turn it's for a good cause. I hope everything works out in all those countries int eh coming months.

Finally, since my last post, I went to Many beacha nd tried surfing again. This time I was horrible. I didn't have my goggles because it was all last minute. The water seemed a bit more rough and instead of surfing I felt liek I just got beaten up by the surfboard.I had so many bruises and cuts. On top of that some girl in a bikini laughed at me for falling off my board. Don't worry though, it's not going to stop me from trying it again in the future.

As promised, more pics:

Christmas and New Years Eve

Pauls Final Night at Jordans

Sydney Day 89

Happy New Years Everyone!

Since my last post, I've basically been working and getting myself organized for whats to come. Oh yeah, and also having fun!

On New years eve I had to work. I ended up working until 2am but it was a lot of fun and I also got to see the Darling Harbour fireworks quite up close. Since all the customers got up to watch them, the managers didn't mind if we took a 10 minute break to watch as well. After work I ended up at a bar and two house parties. The last party, George, the most awesome manager I've ever had for a boss in a restaurant, even showed up even though he had to work at 12pm on New Years Day. By 6am I called it quits. New Years day itself, all I did was sleep in until 3pm, chatted with family back home on the phone and went to work at 5pm.

Thats basically all that I did for celebration. Aside from that, I booked a place in Melbourne to stay for the first week when I arrive. Also, I fixed my apartment problem and someone from work offered me a spare room in his apartment for the last week I'm in Sydney. It's comepletely bare but I know someoner else from work who will lend me an air matress so thats not too bad. it's better than paying 170$ to stay in a hostel and heeps better than the 240$ I'd have to pay if I stayed in my place that final week.

Speaking about my place, I'm glad that I'm getting out when I am because it's just getting too crazy in there. Currently we have THREE lorean girls in the living room bringing our total to 9 people in one place! One of them has to sleep on the floor!

Anyways, may everyone have a great year ahead of them. I'm going to put up more pictures very soon and even a movie of the fireworks I took with my camera.

Sydney Day 84

Wow 84 DAYS! It's been 8 days since my last post adn I"ve done so much! First off MERRY CHRISTMAS everyone! Being a jew, I'd have to say this years christmas experience was by far my weirdest! I was supposed to work on Christmas eve but then I recieved a call from someone and when I picked up they said "Budman!" and I was like "Yes...". "This is George from work. Have the night off!". So that was great. I had no plans though and since Steph was feeling homesick that day I decided to cook for both of us. I made a mean tuna pasta bake. Basically I mixed noodles, tune adn sauce in a baking pan and put grated cheese on top and slapped it into the oven. It came out great. Afterwards, I met up with some friends and went to a FOAM party. It was basically circle with garbage bags on the floor and a giant foam cannon splashing people. We had so much fun. It ended at 12am which was great since I had to work on christmas day at 9am. What do I care, I don't celebrate it and I got 40$ an hour! I worked from 9am until 5pm that day and afterwards the Chef suprized us with a giant meal! There was pasta, chicken, turkey, potatoes. You name it! I had 3 plates. After eating so much I got invited to my coworker's Blair's house party. Someone from work gave me a lift on her scooter. It' swas my frist time and I held on so tight my hands hurt. The party was small but great. I got to hang out with the locals, all great people and just talked about anything. The next day, boxing day, I decided I had enough of going out but it turned out it was this great guy who worked with me, Matt, his last night in Austrlia. We all got invited to this great club called Y.U. I loved it! It was just great music and dancing all night long. Everyone there was just having a good time. Finally, monday I took it easy and yesturday, my day off, I went to see Blade Trinity. It was a good movie, no tthe best, but good. I love Ryan Reynolds. He was Amazing in it!

I work the rest o9f this week, including New Years Eve and New Years day btu I"m sure that won't stop me from having fun and great stories to tell about.

Happy New years EVERYONE!

Sydney Day 76

Yesturday was a big exciting day for me. Being my day off, I spent the morning sleeping in and then ended up at another BBQ at Coogee Beach held by IEP. The weather was nicer and there were more people this time. After the beach I went to Bondi beach to visit my relatives for dinner. The whole family was there and we had a huge meal. They are was too kind. It was great. After dinner I got invited to see the movie SAW. So yes, I saw Saw (hehe). I was interesting. It is really kool and a bit graphic but it's not really scary or suspensful. The movie poster says "Best Suspencful Thriller since Seven (movie with Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman) but it just doesn't compare.

I just uploaded some new pics:
First Coogee Beach BBQ

Jordan's - The Restaurant I'm working At
(actually that's just pictures of one third of the restaurant!)

The Killers Concert (Best Seen if You Zoomd IN!)

Finally Pictures showing how much fun I am having with all my co-workers at various parties!
(and yes I'm doing that mouth thing again... I can't help it!)

Sydney Day 74

Saturday night I saw The Killers! For those of you who are unfamiliar with the band, they are the group who made that song "Somebody told me that you had a boyfriend who looked like a girlfriend that I had in february of last year...". The show was awesome but i would have liked if the band was just a bit more enrgetic on stage. They played really well and had a great set but they didn't sem too enthusiastic in what they were doing. I went to the show with the brits - Mark, Dan and James. Unfortunately because I bought my tickets at a different time then them, we were in different places of the auditorium. The place was set up as follows:

Ther was a street entrance into the theate known as the Enmore. Onc inside, is a foyer where they sold drinks and merchendise. Formt her were 2 doors that led into the theatre itself which was plit into a seated area and infront of that a dancefloor and then the stage.

The brits had tickets for the dancefloor and were up close. My ticket was for the FOYER! In between the 2 doors that lead into the theatre is a giant open window (basically a big whole in the wall) where I had to stand at to see the band. At first i was pissed off but then realized it wasn't that bad since I was level witht the stage in terms of seeing and I got to lean on the wall so my legs didn't hurt too much form standing for 2 hours.

After the show we headed to a bar called the Marlborough Hotel. It's owned by the same people who own Jordans so i was able to get a 10% discount on drinks for all my friends.

Last night I worked for 5 hours and then went to house party! It was the first official house party where it wasn't only people i knew form work and it was great to meet new people. Unfortunately it wasn't realy a lot of fun, so all the work people i knew and i headed out to the KIngs Cross. We eded up at the place called EMpire. it was a lot of fun. I stayed out pretty late that my buddy Blair from work lat me crash at his place. This morning we got up and he had to head to work so I walked back towards my house and then decided to come to IEP to check my e-mail and update this blog. I have to say that Blair is a real awesome guy and he is one of the few true Australians i have made friends with ebsides just other travellers. The first time i met him he didn't like me so much because he thought I was american but when I corrected him, we've become pretty good friends since.

I work almost evrday this week, including christmas day but I don't care because:
a)I'm Jewish
b)I'll get paid 40$ an hour
c) I only have to work during the day and I got the night off to do what I want.

Well Happy Holiday Everyone!

Sydney Day 70

It's only been 5 days since the last post but I feel like a lot of small things have happened:

The 2 Koreans I live with have both moved out and been replaced with, wait for it..., 2 more Koreans! we had a guy move in named Indy. He worked crazy hours and whenever he would be home during the day, e'd just fall asleep on the table, the floor, tanding up, etc. He only stayed 1 week and then ended up having to move to Perth suddenly for some reason. He is now replaced with the first female Korean we have by the name of Juni. The other Korean is this really hyper guy named Brian. When I introduced myself to him, it took him a while to get my name:

Josh - "Hi what was your name again?"
Brian - "Brian, what is yours?"
Josh - "Josh"
Brian - "Jashoo?"
Josh - "No, Josh"
Brian - "Oh! Jashoo!!"
Josh - " No.... Josh, Josh"
Brian (confused) - "Jashoo or Jorsha?"
Stephanie (from the kitchen) - "JOSH!"
Brian(still confused) - "Josh?"
Josh and Stephanie " YES!"

Last sunday I went out with people from work and we ende dup bar hopping. the end of the night I went to CHEERS! I was excited to find a Cheers in Australia, but unfortunatley it sucked! I got a kool picturre of the logo though so that was good.

I finally paid off the rest of my bus ticket, so here is my tentative plan:
Jan 14th Finish work
Jan 15th Fly to Adelaide
Jan 16th Hop on the Oz Experience Bus
Jan 16th - Jan 19th Take a tour along the Great Ocean Road to Melbourne
Jan 19th Get off the bus and livein Melbouire for a couple of months.

In other news, I've been working 3 double shifts in a row at work. I'm getting tired from it (right now 2 down and 1 more to go today). I'll total about 31 hours in 4 days, for me thats a lot. it all pays off though because tomorrow night is the Killers show! I can't wait!

Also, lastnight after work I went to Star City, the casino in Sydney. It was ok. I gambled 10$ and ended up with 12$! I won 2$!!!! I also did kareoke at a bar and sang "Everybody Needs Somebody" from the blues Brothers Soundtrack and it was great!

Last but not least, I bought another CD. the best of Groove Armada. It's aweseome! I had to buy it actually. The way my roomates made the christmas gift exchange was they all chose somethign that was valued 30$ and bought it themselves. then the other 3 of us were to pay for it by paying that person each 10$. However, if persons A,B and C pay D 10$ and B,C and D pay A 10$, and C,D and A pay B 10$, etc. then all we're doing is exchanging money. So in the long run, to be even everyone had to buy themselves a 30$ gift, but since the other 3 screwed up and BOUGHT me a 20$ gift I had to go out and spend 10 mor dollars to make it even. And since they paid for the 20$ gift I had to pay each of them back 6$! It makes absolutely no sense but it does...

Sydney Day 65

Wow I've been here about 2 months! ! more month to go in Sydney adn then I'm going to start travelling. I've almost made enough money to buy my bus ticket for the tour I want to take - Oz Experience.
Today I'm sick and I got the night off work to rest so I'll make this post short.
Havn't done much but work lately. it's chanukah, Happy Chanukah! My roomates got me a gift. They bought the sequal to the book I"m reading, Stone of Tears by Terry Goodkind. I'm currently reading Wizard's First Rule by him. It's an awesome book.

Next week I"m going to go see The Killers live in concert so excited for that.

Last week I was supposed to dress up as Santa Claus for a special breakfast work was hlding for it's associates but the owners hired a real life santa without telling my boss. This guy looked like santa but it was freaky. he had 2 hot women knwon as his 'little helpers'. I swear this guy looked like he'd come from a raunchy porno that would be titled "Debbie Does Santa" or something.

Also, I bought the 2 CD compilation of Pearl Jam's Greatest hits. If you like Pearl Jam then you MUST buy this! It's great. One Cd is all their fast stuff and one is all their slow stuff.

Last but not least, I found out today that the youngest child in a family is known as the 'treasure' for Koreans, haha.

Syney Day 59

I have finally had some time to relax a little after working so much. Last week I worked 40+ hours in 5 days and this week my schedule has been a bit more relaxing although now I need the money and want more hours. I'm not complaining though because it's going ot get really busy soona dn with a lot of people quiting to travel so close to christmas time it'll leave more shifts open for me to have. Next week I have to work at 7am for a special breakfast the restaurant it holding.
Yesturday I went to a BBQ at Coogee beach and met a whole bunch of kool people. The weather wasn't the best but I had a lot of fun. I had to leave early though for work where I got nailed a bit by my managers. First I got introubel for not shaving (it was only 1 day and I completely forgot! We all make mistakes!) and later on I got nailed for wearing black socks (my black socks were in the wash!) but it's ok I wasn't in too much trouble.
Today is my day off so I went with some friend to Maroubra beach. First day in a while I really got to relax. It was quite windy at the beach but I just lied down on the sand and relaxed and even slept a little. It felt SO GOOD! I've been to 7 different beaches so far! Tonight i"m meeting up with the brits again and we're going to check out an area called Newtown. It's basically the University ghetto so that should be fun to check out. I can't party too hard though since I need to get up for work tomorrow. I'm working all day. at 12pm until about 4pm and then I'm back at 6pm until about 10pm.
Well it's dinner time now so I better go home and cook.

Sydney Day 56

Ok after a few days of tinkering, I finally put up some new pics. Unfortunately I had to delete all the other photos. My website hols a max of 25megs and I exceeded the limit. So here is what is up now:

Bondi Beach and Sculptures By The Sea - pics of when I walked along the costal walkweay and saw all these magnificent sculptures being exhibited.

Shaved Head - pics of when I shaved my head to raise money for breast cancer. I liked the look so much, I'm now keeping my hear short. I even bought an electric razor to keep it short.

Surf Camp - pics of me surfing! Now you'll know why I was nicknamed goggles!

Miscellaneous - I got a few more miscellaneous pics to check out.

Enjoy!