I spent the most incredible 7 months living in Brisbane.
I arrived here on 8 June 2013, stayed with a friend for my first week and did some touristy sightseeing! On my first day here I went to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary with a few other travelers, three of whom became some of my closest friends: Anna, Hagen and Patrick. That day I had my first encounter with a koala and got to feed some kangaroos! Later we had an awesome Aussie BBQ at Hagen's place. After one week I decided to look for a job in Brisbane (my original plan had been to do 3 months harvest work first but it seemed to be the wrong time of year to look for farm work in Queensland). So I researched some cafes in Brisbane, printed some resumes and went for a stroll! My first stop was to be a newly opened paleo cafe at the other side of the city. I walked across the city to get there and spoke to the manager who offered me a trial shift the very next day! Lucky me! I worked there for 2 weeks, really long busy days with no breaks. Then I started looking for a different job and as luck would have it I ended up taking to an English girl at my hostel one evening who worked for a solar company that was hiring that very week! I sent an email to the manager and was called for an interview the next day. I found the office thanks to the journey planner app and had a lovely coconut latte at the raw vegan cafe on the premises, things were looking up already! It was an informal group interview where we all introduced ourselves as we stood in a circle and then we were all given a random everyday item and divided into pairs to come up with a pitch to sell this item to the interviewers! I was paired with a French girl and we had to sell a lime which we decided to market as lime juice which could be used as a detox, and tooth whitener! It was fun! An hour later while en route to another interview I got a call offering me the job, and paid training would commence the next day! With a job sorted, next up was accommodation; so far I had spent 2 weeks at a friends place, a few nights at a hostel and now I was renting a room which was only available for a few weeks. I met my friend Hagen for coffee the next morning and he told me about his horrible experiences picking potatoes on a farm near NSW. He decided to come back to brisbane for work too, within a day he had found a job and a house! The sharehouse was near to my work and had a second room available so I moved in there too. The next 6 months passed by in a whirl of laughter, BBQs, parties, beach days and fun times at work and home! I briefly worked two jobs spending mornings as an au pair to a lovely young family, Anna moved into our house in September, I got promoted to team leader at BioSolar and had even more fun at work, we got another new housemate and awesome friend when Baraq moved in, I went skydiving at byron bay and scuba diving at the Great Barrier Reef for free thanks to my wonderful job, we spent a week living by the beach at coolangatta on a work trip, we had a dungeon themed halloween party in our friends 'castle' house, I fell in love with a German guy which ended as quickly as it began, we went on a VIP limo party night, had a hugely fun work christmas party, lots of BBQs and got used to waking up everyday to gorgeous sunny hot weather! Those 7 months in Brisbane were among the most incredibly amazing fun times of my life, I made some truly wonderful friends and the best memories.