Good Week

It's been a good week and has gone by really quickly, I can't believe it's Friday already. I started working at my new job at Terrace Café Sunday but I have today off so that's nice. Tuesday night I went to X-Wray Café for tea with about 10 girls from church for Penny's birthday. It was great to just hang out on the picnic tables on the open front porch, listen to open piano night and talk to friends. All the girls are so nice and friendly, always making plans to go out for lunch or dinner around Fremantle. Then Wednesday night we had a Johnno and Hannah over for dinner, Sarah cooked a curry and couscous, we sat around drinking wine and eating cheese for hours. It is so much fun to have lots of housemates and a big house where people can hang out. Everyone lounged on our big beat up miss matched couches and bar stools in the kitchen, talking about sailing and camping adventures.I came home last night after work to find the boys mesmerized by all the sales in the Quokka (a newspaper that has everything in the world for sale and come out every Thursday). We did the dishes then walked to the Norfolk pub for some drinks and dinner. The Norfolk is a really cool place with stone walls and dim outdoor seating, it looks like an old English castle and has a really cool vibe. Plus it is only about a ten minute walk from our house. So Tim, Carter and I had pizza and I finally opted for wine instead of beer. I had a Amberleigh Sauvignon Blanc Semillon from Margaret River which was good but a little more acidic than I like, I also had a JR Jones Pinot Noir from Mournington Peninsula that was awesome and a Grenache from Geographe West Aus, also nice. Del and Laura came a little later and hung out for awhile. My housemates are awesome and I have had so much fun with them so far, I'm really looking forward to the next couple months. Unfortunately the King William Street crew must move though, our landlord want to move into our house so we only have a couple weeks to move out before the contract ends. Del, Carter and I went to look at a house a couple blocks away yesterday though and it's cool so we are going to take it, easy. Of course it doesn't really matter much to me where we live since I wont be here long but it is a cool house with a big secret garden like backyard, perfect for concerts and barbeques. It only has three bedrooms though so I think Del is going to live in the shed haha, pretty sure he is excited about it. It is a nice house with high ceilings and thick moldings about a third of the way up the walls, huge kitchen and attached living room. I think it will be a fun place to live but it is going to be a pain to help move everything, there is so much crap at this house.I think we have to be out of this house by the 27th but can't get into the other house until the 30th so hopefully that can be worked out. Anyway, today I am just hanging out and going to lunch with my friend Kaitlyn in about half an hour. Maybe I'll take a walk later, it is a sunny day but a little windy and cool, feels like a perfect fall day even though it's winter here. I'm working the next two mornings and probably going sailing Sunday afternoon, should be a pretty cruisy weekend.

Friday afternoon I went down to the beach with Carter and listened to him play guitar for awhile, watching the dogs chase each other around the grass lawn as the sun set over the marina. We hear a couple people playing guitar on the way to the beach and Carter said he was going to knock on their door on the way back to see if he could jam with them, I knew he was serious too. I had actually seen the couple who lives there play a concert at the market a few weeks ago and they are quite good. So as we were walking home Carter stuck his head in their door and told them how much he wanted people to play guitar with. Scott is a British guy with massive blond sideburns that collide into bear stubble and Gabrielle is soft spoken skinny girl with wavy brown hair and a slightly French accent. They were super nice and said they would give him some contact information for open mic nights and gigs around town, they were in the middle of recording a demo for a music rep they would see that night. They invited us to their concert that night at X-Wray Café so we said goodbye and left them to their recording. So Carter and I grabbed a burger and pint at Rosie O'Gradys Irish pub then headed to X-Wray for some music. A Scottish guy named Stewart played first, finger picking his acoustic guitar to the melancholy lyrics of life and love. He was good and I liked his lyrics especially, I think it takes an amazing talent to write music and meaningful lyrics and be able to perform it well. Scott and Gabrielle were on next around 9:00 and I was excited to see them again since I really liked the pieces of the concert I picked up as I wandered around the market. They sat side by side on the little blue stage five feet away from our table, hands strumming in perfect synchronization, telling stories of their travels and romances, Gabrielle singing with her eyes closed blending in perfect harmony with Scott's mellow tone. I was mesmerized. It was a really great performance and I hoped to hear them practice and play more, knowing Carter they would probably be hanging out at our house in no time. I talked to Gabrielle on the couch next to our table for a few minutes after the performance, found out a little about her life and told her how much I enjoyed the concert. Another band was setting up with a cello, base guitar, acoustic guitar and one of those percussion boxes you sit on. They started playing this powerful folky music, the fusion of cello and basewas so cool. They were very energetic and loud although it was difficult to understand the lyrics. I really liked them though, just a very unique sound compared to the other folk musicians I've heard here so far. I don't know what the name of their band was though but it would be fun to see them again, I'm sure they will be around. All the musicians hear to a circuit playing in all the Fremantle Cafes and at a couple bars down in Margaret River. So itwill be cool if I get to hang out with some good musicians, possibly tonight since Carter apparently called Scott today.

I have never felt more stress before 11am than I did today, I wasn't stressed necessarily but the café was pulsing with negative energy. I was greeted not with goodmorning but with "the first half hour between 6:30 and 7 is crucial and you have to be moving nonstop because if you waste a second things wont get set up before customers start coming in at seven and I've talked to you about your energy levels and you really need to work on it or I will have to find someone else to do this" ok yep I said. I don't care what she says really because I know I am fast and work hard especially in restaurant jobs, I am a pro at bussing tables and running food and if she actually paid attention she would see that and also see that her other employees are very hard workers as well. Now that I think about it, I don't think I have ever worked in a restaurant with more motivated servers, every girl I have worked with has been awesome but somehow she thinks they are all slackers. Today she was running around frantically after about 3 coffees, talking 90 to nothing like we just sat 100 tables when there were only about 15 in the restaurant. I think it is the owner/manager's job to encourage and motivate instead of stress the servers out to the point of confusion and chaos. She is always saying things like "I am very fussy about things being clean and organized, I hate messy and laziness is one of my pet hates, I will not tolerate it" well that's good because I agree but maybe you should say good job every once in awhile because it is a pretty freaking clean restaurant and it would be much more motivating that being accused of not having everything perfect at every second. I really have to calm way down when I talk to the tables though because she makes me so jittery that I think she is going to come by and tell me to stop talking and start mopping or something. The manager is just as stressy and was complaining so much the other day about laziness that she kept missing tickets for coffee and was taking like 15 minutes to make them while the tables waited then she blamed me for not telling her. She even told me that they hired me to replace the morning girl because she was annoying her so she wants to fire her as soon as I learn how things work. She was talking to customers about staff problems too which I think is very unprofessional. I can't seem to get lucky with my jobs in Australia, I usually always love my jobs so I don't know what the deal is here, maybe I just need to stop working for female managers, yes that is horrible to say but I must. Anyway I seriously don't care, if she fires me I will just work at the grocery store, I'll only be here another month and a half or so, I can tolerate it for that long hopefully. Another early morning tomorrow, hopefully she wont be there and I can just enjoy my work.