The Hostel Shuffle

If finding a job wasn't hard enough, finding a place to live is almost harder! When I first arrived to Queenstown I booked in the cutest hostel ever. It had everything I needed, the people were so friendly, and I made myself at home immediately. Unfortunately, this place only has a two week maximum, so after I had gotten cosy, it was time to get out! It's hard to leave a place where you made friends and then start all over at another hostel, well, it's not hard but it's annoying.

Off recommendation, I went to another hostel right in town, and conveniently a two-second walk from my new work establishment. This place isn't quite as nice as the last one, but the people here are amazing. The only down fall is that with Queenstown being in it's busiest, the hostel book up extremely fast. So I constantly have to move rooms every few days, and some days it's totally full and I might have to switch hostels for a day. In order to avoid having to move around so much, and the longing to just unpack my suitcase and not look at it for another few months, I've been looking for an apartment or house to call my own.

But damn, it's not easy. Everyone wants to be downtown, so it's really hard to find that. Otherwise everything is advertised for an area about a 30 minute walk away. Today me and a few other girls thought we had hit gold by finding an ad for a shared room that was 100 per person per week. This is really cheap for Queenstown so we thought it was too good to be true. We called the woman up anyway just to view it. Turns out it was a complete hole and there were way too many random people living in it for my liking. As in, worse than the college ghetto. So that was a dud, but the apartment quest shall continue! Dreaming of the day I can have my own room and decorating it however I wish!

Happy Monday :)

Feeling a little inspired today!

QT Baby!

View out my window!

Well I have been a terrible blogger. I pretty much failed at updating at all on Asia, but rest assured, I had an amazing experience! I spent three months traveling all around Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos, and I encountered some of the most interesting people. Since I failed at updating on Asia, I feel that I should make it up by posting about my experiences in New Zealand.

I didn't know where I wanted to settle so I decided to go to the biggest city, Aucland. I'd give it a week and if it wasn't my cup o' tea then I'd try somewhere else. After arriving in the evening, I came to the conclusion that Kiwi people are very friendly, but that Auckland was not the city for me. I just felt like it had no character and that I could have been anywhee in the world. After a week of feeling a bit lonely and I decided that I would go to either Wellington or Queenstown. Welly is meant to be a bit more funky, but still a bigger city, while Queenstown is a party ski town. Naturally, everyone told me to go to Queenstown and I ended up heading that way!

Celebrating Xmas in June with new
hostel friends!

Since it's in the south island of New Zealand, it's much much colder here! The scenery is breathtaking, with mountains out my window and beautiful trees lining the parks. Everyone is very chilled out and most people are here for the winter ski season.

I managed to find myself a job as a waitress at an American diner opening up in a few days, so I'm really excited to start working again. When you don't work for several months you start to feel a bit useless. So I'm pumped to feel like I have some purpose now! And especially pumped to get a paycheck. Accidentally spent a lot of my savings in Asia, whoops! In the next few days I'll begin working and have more money to explore the mountains and do some of the extreme activities around Queenstown. Keep you posted on how it's going!

Walk Off the Earth

This was introduced to me by a good friend. I think I like it better than the orig.
 Walk Off the Earth - Somebody That I Used To Know

Australia is Done, Now What?

Adios Australia

So to catch you up, I spent my last few months in Oz working like a slave. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed it. My co-workers were awesome, the venue was fun, we got to dress up sometimes - all in all it was a good experience! My roommates and I had decided that we were going to spend New Year in Sydney, which was perfect for me because my flight back to the States was scheduled just a few days after, so I needed to end up in Sydney soon anyway. My last day working at Barkly was Xmas Eve then a few days later me and four other girls packed up everything we owned and shoved it into a tiny baby blue car and drove 10 hours to Sydney. Talk about a good time!

Impressive, huh?

Three of us stayed at a friends house while others dispersed with friends they knew around Sydney and we all just met up for outtings throughout the week. Sydney was so much fun, it was really refreshing just getting out of Melbourne and going to beautiful beaches and not having to worry about work. Shortly after New Year my friends who were staying at the same house as me had to fly to Perth to start their farmwork. This was pretty depressing because A)I didn't know when I would ever see them again, and they had become really great friends of mine, and  B) this meant I had to spend the next week on my own :(. I didn't think I knew how to be alone with myself anymore without feeling awkward?? But it ended up being totally fine. It was actually a really good time to reflect on everything and just spend some time with myself. The past year I hadn't gone more than a day of "me time." It also served to prep me for getting in the mind set of going home. It was definitely bittersweet, as is any ending/new beginning.  

Arriving home was just as good as I thought it would be. You forget how much you miss the comforts of home until you are in it's presence again. Familiar faces, smells, driving...everything is refreshing! But I was well aware, before I even left to come home, that after the honeymoon phase of being home I would get bored and get an itch to do something else. That's just how I am. I constantly need to introduce new things into my life otherwise I start to feel like I'm in a rut. That's why before I came home I made a plan to have one last adventure before I "settle down."

Thailand

While I was in Australia, I had met sooooo many people who had travelled SE Asia and couldn't stop ranting and raving about how it's a must do.  So I figured hey, I worked hard and saved money when I was in Oz, I might as well treat myself and go see SE Asia for myself. I deserve it. It's funny though, I realized that the longer I was home, the harder it was becoming in my head to get myself to leave again. It's really easy to get comfortable, and it's not so easy forcing yourself out of your comfort zone. So my remedy to fix this was to tell as many people as possible about my future Asia plans, that way I couldn't back out. I mean, how embarrassing would that be to tell everyone you were leaving again and then not do it? Sure enough that was the push I needed because a few days later I booked my ticket to Thailand and got all my vaccination shots. As of now my tentative plan is to leave March 5th, 2012 and arrive in Bangkok, Thailand. Travel Thailand for 1 month, then visit Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Bali (if I have the funds), then last but not least end my trip in New Zealand. I had always planned on seeing New Zealand when I was in Australia, but I just got caught up in working and figured I'd just see it after my visa ran out.

New Zealand is set up a lot like Australia visa-wise. You can do a one year or a 6-month visa and work while you're there. So I decided that when I get there I'm going to attempt to do something that is career-oriented for work. This way I can build my resume while I'm away and gain a little more experience in the professional world. I hope this works out as planned. I'll do that for a few months, then travel NZ, then head home! For the sake of my family's sanity, hopefully I will be ready to settle down by that point. As of now I don't think I will stay there an entire year, but we will see. You never know what's going to happen, which is the joy of life.  

Adios Australia, you'll forever have a very special place in my heart.

Sorry I Fail at Blogging - Melbourne

I know, I know, I haven't written in months. It's easy to get side-tracked with life when you haven't been doing anything as exciting as travelling around every two seconds. I'll try and catch you up on everything in a nutshell that's happened in the last six months.

Before the Saints and Sinners Party

According to my last post, I was on my way to Magnetic Island. To be honest, this place was pretty fun, but there really wasn't much to do there besides party. So I spent a night there then headed to Cairns the next morning. Cairns was where it was at! I spent a week skydiving, white-water rafting and partying! At the hostel I was staying at there was a Sinners and Saints party, which apparently is the biggest party of the year in Cairns. They had live tattooing, a dominatrix person doing a show, porn-esque photo shoots, face painting, glow sticks, famous dj's, pub crawls... EVERYTHING you could think of. So me and my friends dressed up and partook in the activities! Two days later I did a skydive which was one of the most amazing experiences. I really thought I would freak out but I surprisingly stayed calm all the way up until they opened the airplane door and I watched the first person being sucked out like a vacuum. There wasn't any turning back since they whipped everyone out of that plane so quick. But once you are soaring in the air there is a moment of realization of how awesome your life is. To my left I was falling 14,000 feet above the great barrier reef, to my right was a rainforest and you land on a strip of the beach. Utterly amazing, I would suggest it to anyone!

The next day we went white-water rafting which I was a bit nervous about since I'm not the strongest of swimmers, but this ended up being one of the funniest trips of them all. Everyone was falling out left and right, it was so much fun.



The A-Team!

After rafting, me and some friends decided to stay in Cairns for a few more days then head down to Melbourne. This was more of a task than it appeared! We went to Flight Centre but everything was $400+. Ridiculous. For a one-way! So the lady at the desk said we could get a flight for $170 through this airline called Tiger Airways, but they weren't reliable and known for cancelling flights all the time. Since we are cheap backpackers we decided to chance it. Bad call.
We woke up at about 4:30am to head to the airport and upon arrival they broke the news that (of course) the flight had been cancelled. I'm usually a calm person in situations like this, but everyone around me was FREAKING OUT because it was ruining all their travelling plans if they didn't get to Melbourne on time. So that was beginning to rub off on me and stress me out. Luckily one of the lads I was travelling with lived in Canberra, which isn't too far from Melbourne. It's kind of in between Sydney and Melbs so he suggested we fly to Sydney, then take a bus to Canberra and then I could stay at his for a few days then fly to Melbourne. So that's what we did! It was actually pretty fun unexpectedly hanging out in Canberra for 4 days rent-free.

A few friends from the hostel I lived
in for 2 months!

Now that I was low on money and needed to get to Melbourne and find a job, it was time to get a move on! I flew into Melbourne and was so excited to finally be there. I had heard nothing but great things from everyone all throughout my travels. I had a friend staying at a hostel in St. Kilda so I decided to go check in there and hope that all the rest would come together.

I got there and spent about 2 solid weeks making friends and partying then decided to go find a job. I spent a day handing out resumes to restaurants in hopes of getting something quick. In Australia they make you do a trial before they decide if they are going to hire you or not. So I ended up getting a trial at this little Irish restaurant/pub. I really enjoyed it and was offered the job but the next day when I called to ask how much the pay was, it wasn't much. They were only offering $13.50 an hour, which might seem like a lot, but that's not even minimum wage here.  And it was cash in hand so I wouldn't get any tax money back. And they couldn't promise me a lot of shifts, so I reluctantly had to say never-mind because that just wasn't livable, let alone savable.

When I first got to Melbourne it was the middle of winter, which was actually really cold and really rainy. So I stayed in the hostel for a few days and ended up meeting a guy while I was eating breakfast who offered me a job! He asked what I was going to be doing for the rest of the day and I mentioned I needed to go out and look for a job and he told me he was a manager at a restaurant not too far away if I wanted to come in for a trial. "Ummm Okay!!" The place was called Mini Bites, and I didn't know it at the time but this would end up being one of the best decisions.

I showed up at 4 o'clock for the trial and met another English girl there who was doing a trial that day as well. The place was brand new, had only been open for a week, and as I looked around I noticed something I definitely didn't expect. This place was a full-on Jewish restaurant. I'm talking seriously Jews, with the curls on the sides, the little hats, big beards, the works. And the night I was working there happened to be a party of all men celebrating something and they were chanting and singing throughout the whole night. I have nothing against Jews, but at the time I just didn't understand the whole thing because I grew up in Bible Belt, America. I hadn't really met many in my life and if I had they weren't really that religious. So needless to say me and the other girl doing the trial were a little freaked out. We kind of looked at each other and told each other that we would stick through this job together for only 2 weeks or so just to get some cash then peace out and find another job. And that decision wasn't just because it was a Jewish restaurant, it was mainly because during our first shift, it was so busy and noone really took the time to explain the till or what anything was and the whole night was just really stressful and confusing.

Mini Bites family on my Birthday.
Having drinks by the beach!

The staff was somehow impressed with us that night so they decided to put us on the roster and gave us some more shifts. The money here was much better so I figured I would keep going in. Day two ran much more smoothly and by the end of the day I had a pretty good grasp of how everything worked and what all the food was. Our secret plot of two weeks turned into a month then two months and so on and so fourth. I ended up working there for about 5 months and I'm so glad I gave it a chance. I made the best of friends through that job, it was so laid back, I had tons of hours, and best of all I had a blast working there.

During my stint at Mini Bites I also ended up landing a bar job without even really looking for it. So for about three months I was working two jobs, which was actually pretty exhausting. I ended up meeting one of the managers of Hotel Barkly and while we were chatting he asked if I had any bar experience. Since I had bartended in the Outback I said yea and he asked if I would come in for a trial on that Friday. I went in and did a shift, but let me tell you, this bar was nothing like the pub I worked at in the Outback. This place was fancy. Everyone was beautiful, rich and ordered vodka lime and sodas. Much different than a Bundy and Coke from clientelle who had half their teeth missing.



Pub Golf Night!



This bar was also much more fast-paced. But I pulled through and adapted quickly so at the end of the shift the manager offered me more shifts and put me on the roster. Best of all, this place paid even more than Mini Bites so I decided to take it on as a weekend job. I loved Mini Bites and still hang out with my friends from there, but about 3 weeks ago we had a staff meeting at the bar and the owner told us that pretty much everyday throughout the month of December there were going to be Christmas parties so they could give us full time work if we wanted it. I decided that it would be wise to just work one job there full-time rather than splitting two jobs, so that's what I've been doing! It's been pretty exciting at Barkly as well! The other night David Beckham came in, got to talk to him for a few minutes and snapped a group photo (seen below), and Snoop Dogg is coming in on New Year! Sadly I'm going to miss Snoop because my last shift at Barkly is going to be Christmas night.



Who is that to the left of me? Oh it's just David Beckham! (He's got his arm around me, Watch out Posh!)



Some friends and I decided it would be fun to go to Sydney for New Year so we are leaving on the 27th and my flight home is on the 6th of Jan. I can't believe my Australian adventure is almost over. It's quite bitter-sweet. Although it's the end of this chapter, it's going to be the beginning of another one. As a traveller you'll notice that you never really end up sticking to your plan exactly as you planned it. You meet others and they tell you their stories and give you more ideas and you find yourself wanting to do it all. So I've decided that I'm going home for a month or two then I'm going to meet some friends who I met in Australia in Thailand and we are going to travel all of South East Asia. So starting in Thailand then doing Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Bali. Then after that I want to go to New Zealand. Since I've been in Melbourne I've managed to save up a small fortune, so that money will go towards those trips and hopefully last me so I won't have to work for a few months. Well that's been my life in a nutshell the past 6 or so months! I'll be sure to update soon with Christmas and New Year blogs!

And now for a few memories that can't go without being mentioned...



Finishing up the East Coast

Well it's been a long, strange journey but the coast has finally come to an end! Let me catch you up...

After leaving the town of 1770 where I did the Scooteroo tour, I headed to a cattle ranch about 4 hours north for the night. This is a stop which is included on the OzExperience bus, but it's optional. I had heard it was pretty worth it so I decided I should head out there. When we arrived the staff was wearing full on cowboy attire and lunch was waiting for us. Good thing, because I was starving by this point! We all received a cowboy hat and bandana upon check-in and were given the choice of going horseback riding or 4-wheeling. Obviously all the girls chose riding horses and the boys chose 4-wheeling.

The horse riding was actually pretty fun and a bit different than your normal horse tour. We got to round up goats! So it was fun because we weren't just aimlessly following around a tour guide, we were actually doing something. After riding around for a few hours my butt was killing me and it was time to head back to the camping grounds. We had dinner and started drinking something called "giggly juice." It was basically a fizzy wine. But hey, 2 or 3 bottles and we were all getting pretty comfortable and ready to ride the mechanical bull! Let me tell you this, riding a mechanical bull is not as easy as it seems. A handful of people went before I did and fell off pretty much immediately. Then when it was my turn I flew off in about 2 reps. That shit hurts! But was hilarious... After everyone got a few turns on the bull we all sat around and started playing drinking games. What better way to get to know a group of strangers than by playing a little game of Never Have I Ever? A few hours of drinking games ensued then people started dwindling off to bed since we had an early morning ahead of us. We had to be up by 6am, have some brekky, hit the road and drive for 11 hours to Airlie Beach! After the Cattle Ranch pretty much everybody was best friends so the rest of my coast travels were a sinch!

Up next, Airlie Beach/Whitsundays....

The Marina

After a long bus journey we arrived in cozy little place town called Airlie Beach. Airlie was amazing! This is where I did the 2 day, 2 night boat trip around the Whitsunday Islands. The town is composed of a main strip sprinkled with bars, cafes, restaurants and clubs, then there's a lagoon just down the street where everyone lays around to soak up the rays. Since everyone was excited to finally be in a party town we decided to go all out. Thunda, our bus driver, informed us that if we met him for dinner at the hostel bar he would give us a bunch of free beer. Count me in! Everyone checked in and got settled then went down for dinner around 7:30. We partied at the bar for awhile then decided to head to a club called Mama Africa. Jesus Christ this place did me in.



Getting bandaged up



After a few drinks here I was pretty drunk and my all time favorite dance song came on, "Party Rock" by LMFAO. I'm not sure if this song has hit the States yet, but if you haven't heard of it and are between the ages of 18-27, YouTube that shit. Anyway, me and all my new bestfriends are dancing away on the dance floor and I'm doing the party shuffle and all the sudden I feel a sharp stab to my foot. I stopped and looked down to find BLOOD flooding out of my foot! I took off my flip flop and hobbled over to sit down and get a good look at the damage and basically a huge shard of glass had gone through my shoe and right inbetween two of my toes. It's a good thing I was drunk because I think this would have really hurt had I been sober. The amount of blood pouring out freaked everybody out and I heard some guy in the distance yell out, "Ew, some chick had her period on the dance floor!" Oh geez...

Anyway, a few moments later someone from staff rushed over and told me to go into the office. My new friend came with me for moral support while the guy bandaged me up. I sat there cracking up because I found it hilarious that this would happen to me the day before I go on a boat trip. Oy Vey. I'll be lucky if I make it home with both my feet.

Ready for my first dive!

Okay, so the next day was my date to departure Airlie and sail around the Whitsundays! For those of you who don't know, the Whitsundays are basically just a cluster of like 70-something (I think) Islands and you go scuba diving, snorkeling and go to Whitehaven beach, which is ranked one of the top 5 beaches in the world. Are you impressed yet? It's two days and two nights and everyone rants and raves about how awesome it is, so needless to say I was PUMPED UP for it! That morning I checked in to let them know I was still coming and the girl gave me a map of where I needed to walk to in the marina to find the boat. Oh great, it's all the way on the other side of town...sweet, that was fun considering I had a gimp foot at this point. I stopped at the Chemist (drug store) on the way to get some bandaids and sure enough on my walk to the boat my foot started bleeding again. At this point I was carrying all my stuff for the trip, a box of goon, it was hot and my hair was everywhere and my foot was bleeding. I'm sure when I rocked up they thought I was a crazy person. Needless to say, the staff on the boat remembered my name right away since I came with a good story about the night before.

That day we went scuba diving/snorkeling! No, I didn't see any sharks...bummer. As much as I'm petrified of sharks and the unknown monsters that live in the water, I have a guilty urge to really see some in real life, not in an aquarium. That night we all got on the goon then woke up early the next day to head to Whitehaven beach. Exciting right? Wrong. We woke up to it pissing down rain. How am I supposed to worship the sun and be a bronzed babe with this shit weather?! Sure enough they made us get off the boat and go to the beach. Pretty much no one wanted to go, it was cold and raining. We all had to wear wetsuits to keep warm. Such a bummer too because we were on one of the most amazing beaches in the world and couldn't even enjoy it. We went back to the boat after a few hours of sitting in the rain and they made us nachos! I miss Mexican food so much. I haven't had it since I've been in Australia so that was my first taste of Mexi since I've been here! It was pretty good. After everyone showered and had dinner we all gathered round to watch the pictures they had been snapping of us the past few days. Cool slideshow but I opted out of buying it. During the slideshow me and a few others heard a bunch of splashing going on on the back of the boat so we went to scope it out. Guess what it was?! Dolphins!!!! 3 Big ones and a baby. They were just swimming around there for like an hour showing off for us. We never got close enough to touch them but they were all around. It was so cool. Then the staff put on Pirates of the Caribbean-how appropriate. Everyone watched that then pretty much passed out. Next morning we woke up and had an early morning snorkel and dive then headed back to Airlie! While I had a blast on the boat, I was looking forward to getting back on dry land. I just hate being around so much damp stuff for extended periods of time. Ew.

When we got back to Airlie Beach I had 2 free nights at a different hostel so went and checked into there. I went and met up with some of the Scottish guys I had met on the bus and they introduced me to a few American girls they had met on their boat. For the next few days we hung out but the night before our OzExperience bus lef we found out it was leaving at like 7:15 or something. I wasn't even going to go out but then got talked into going to the girls' room and having a few quiet drinks. This turned into me blacking out, losing my phone and missing my bus the next morning! Noooo. Even the Scotts had managed to get up and  make the bus. I spent the day getting my life back together and tracing my steps. I asked around everywhere for my phone but no one had seen it. After accepting that I wouldn't get my phone back I went to the nearest convenient store and bought another one. They are only like $50 but then you have to put credit on it so I bought $30 worth for that then headed back to my hostel. I got on facebook and had a friend request from someone random, accompanied with a message saying that he had my phone and if I wanted it back I'd have to meet up in the next few hours. Seriously? Fiiiiine.

If you know me, you know I lose a phone about once every 3 months. They usually have a way of finding their way back to me so I guess I'll just have this backup phone for the next time I lose this one for good. I even thought ahead and put everyone's numbers in the new one so that whenever I do use it I won't get texts and calls from people and have to do the whole awkward, "Sorry, but I lost all my numbers, who is this??" After sorting out my phone I had to reschedule my bus pickup for the next day. The guy wasn't happy that my excuse was that I over-slept. He gave me a full-on lecture and told me I wouldn't be charged this time because it was my free-bee, but if I miss another bus then I'd have to be a $50 fine. Alriiiight, whatever dude I just need to be on tomorrow's bus. Needless to say I was super early at the bus stop the following morning! Off to Magnetic Island.... :)