So the day had come, myself and Carly had sold our souls and blagged ourselves an interview at what we thought was a call centre. Desperate times. We got ourselves dressed up and the boys dropped us off before checking into the apartment that we had booked for the week.

We entered the Church like building and climbed the stairs towards the sound of a nightclub. We looked at each other, confused before pushing open the door and plastering on our smiles. First impressions count, right? We were given forms to fill out asking us to detail what our asperations were from working in a business by the glum faced, almost deaf receptionist. Whilst completing the forms and trying to avoid tempation to write, "we're just desperate" we were distracted by the door swinging open and filled with a glamourous twenty something woman with what I can only describe as the biggest boobs i have ever seen. She was loud, real loud. After a 10 minute presentation on how successful she was, Gemma invited us, in turn to describe why we thought we would make good sales women. Come on, we teach the subjects that most kids try to get out of, we are born saleswomen! We were offered a second interview on the spot which was in the form of observing a day in the life of a salesman for the next day. That was easy...too easy?

9am the next day and we arrived back to the church like building ready for our second interview. This time, instead of pumping techno tunes, it was the sound of motivational shouts and whooping that we were greeted by. It was also at this point that we discovered that our call centre jobs where no one could see our shame had turned out to be in fact door to door sales. You know, the people you hide from in your own homes when they knock your door? Jamie, and English traveller who had come to Australia to 'find himself' was to be our guide for the day. He had been in Brisbane for a month and was already a team leader/ promoter for the cult, sorry company. We followed Jamie outside and jumped into a car owned by another new recruit, Emma, a talkitive Australian hairdresser who was a complete natural. She had made over $900 the day before. In 36 degree heat we followed Jamie around the suburb we had been sent to and watched him do his thing inbetween listening to his properganda such as 'every no is closer to a yes!" Please just take a moment to imagine the look on Carlys face... Throughout the morning, Jamie made 6 sales and over $300- it looked simple! Over lunch we were offered the job to begin the next day. We agreed and left with scripts in our hands and dreaming of how we were going to spend our imminent fortune.

Wednesday 23rd January, our first day as glamourous saleswomen, selling car services to the needy for just $169- bargain! After our very own motivational speech from Booby Gemma, and a quick role play activity with the other super sales people and more cultish tales of how rich we were going to be, we set off to what we now know as being one of the poorest subburbs of Brisbane. We were pumped.

So it was the second day of being over 35 degrees and we were on our own. Smart black dresses on and grasping our folders. After 30 minutes my face had melted onto my dress and Carlys chest had begun to bubble. The beads of sweat were running down our backs. By lunchtime we had been given, 2 bottles of water,2 cans of pop, a lychee juice, and an orange juice handed to Carly on a tray. No sales yet. With dented egos we headed back to the doors with Carlys voice of "we can do it" ringing in our ears. By 3 pm we had earnt hundreds of sympathetic smiles, countless door slams, 1 dog bite and a threat of an attack from a woman with a German Sheppard.

By 4.30pm We quit.

In our 8 hour day we had made $0. We found 'find myself Jamie' to break the news that we would no longer be carrying on and headed back to the city. If there was ever a need for wine, this was it.

We spent the rest of the week enjoying Brisbane, the amazing weather, and eating far too much frozen yoghurt. The city beach is weird but definitely worth a visit. On Thursday evening we enjoyed a meal out, a rarity these days with Karen and Matt, a couple we had met during our trip to Halong Bay in Vietnam, Dave our English firend who clearly we cant get rid of joined us too :)

We had saved the best of Brisbane until my birthday, not that I knew this as Carly had planned the day down to a T as a surprise. We spent saturday visiting the Koala Sanctuary, Lone Pine and getting way too excited about feeding the kangaroos. The best spend of the day was the $16 to hold and have our photographs taken with Koko, a gorgeous female Koala, and ignoring the cries of Katie, a native Australian who we had met in Cambodia and just couldnt understand why we were so excited by a Koala. We headed back to the appartment to get ready for our evening celebrations. I was called downstairs as the taxi was imminent to be greeted by a gorgeous pink disney princess cake and the gang singing Happy Birthday to me. Amazing :) Carly had organised a very sophisicated cocktail party complete with a tailor made cocktail list and party nibbles. Not only did I thouroughly enjoy tasting all of the cocktails ( I had to try at least every one off the menu) but Carly was definitely in her element mixing and bannishing everyone out from the kitchen whilst she did her thing. We then ventured out into the City to see what nightlife Brisbane had to offer... definitely a birthday to remember!