...New Home. New Job. New Life...

I've been travelling for four months today. The time has flown by and I've done so much since my memorable goodbye at Heathrow.

This week has been pretty eventful as I've moved into my new place and started two new jobs (you know me never one to do anything by half!).

For the next few months I'm going to be staying in a lovely house share on the borders of Surry Hills. I've got a whole room to myself (you'd be surprise how many people share) in a charming Victorian home. My housemates are three Aussie girls so hopefully I'll be able to get immersed into the culture and experience how life really is over here by staying with them instead of with backpackers. Anna's an Actress, Zilla's a Theatrical Agent and Vik does marketing for a charity.

Got to admit it's such a relief to finally have a nice place to set up camp especially now I've started working. On Friday I began two jobs; during the day an administration role and in the evening I did some waitressing at the ACER Arena.

I've decided that I'm going to carry on with the waitressing job for the time being as its far more sociable than the other place plus the admin position would have sent me crazy. It was far too easy and would have left me bored out of my brains. After travelling for four months I need something to stimulate the old grey matter. My brains been engaged with all these wonderful new things on my travels but I now need another form of stimulus and I wouldn't have got in the offices of the RailCorp Training Centre. And the place was so dull; old men, in bad suits telling lame jokes!

Also obtained my RSA (Responsible Service of Alcohol) certificate this week. Any trained chimp can get one but over here in Oz you need it if you're going to be working anywhere that requires you to serve alcohol - bars, waitressing, even bottle shops. They've got a very Americanised culture over here and when people have been getting up to misdemeanours or causing themselves damage when intoxicated rather than taking the responsibility they're claiming it's the premises fault for supplying them with the alcohol and sues them. So the company can't deny it's their fault through ignorance they make sure every employee goes through the most boring day of training and take the dollars off you for the privilege.

With the rest of my time this week I've been exploring Sydney, checking out areas like Glebe, which has a really cool vibe about it and wandering around Haymarket & Paddy's Market.

Photo: Sydney Opera House

[Next blog entry: Sydney Sunday October 28th 2007]