Hello fabulous people of the World Wide Web! I’ve whipped up
a blog post to recap the happenings of a (brie) cheesy Bogen in the land of
Bogans! I left marvelous Melbourne in a teary state of sleep-deprived delirium
and Anna and I found ourselves in beautiful Byron Bay. After a few blissful days exploring and realizing
we weren’t the only ones who wanted to work in paradise, we traveled north to the
amusingly tacky Surfer’s Paradise, home to theme park aficionados and people
whose hair prefers to stay classy in the front and party in the back (aka a mullet).
Anna and I were applying for jobs in other cities online while looking for jobs
on the Gold Coast and things kept leading us to Sydney. The adventure continued
onto another tarmac and we landed as two Wyoming women on a mission to get
employed! But before I became a penny-pinching cheapo, there was a lot of good
fun to be had in Melbourne!
Melbourne: Surviving The Great Ocean Road, The Heat Wave and Saying
Goodbye
Anna, our friend
Dagmar and I hit the road and went on a short trip down the Great Ocean Road
(GOR). All claims that I have questionable driving skills at times were
shattered by my effortless ability to drive on the other side and not kill
anything! The largest challenge: avoiding putting on the windshield wipers
instead of the turning signal. The drive was spectacular because the water was
so gorgeous and the road was so windy. Any trip, if possible, isn’t complete
without a stop to a cheese factory, so we enjoyed what could only be described as
good old midwestern fun! We felt like we had teleported to Wisconsin. Another
highlight was seeing a graceful pack of cockatoos flying above us. It sure beat
the only other wildlife we saw which was a dead kangaroo on the beach that Anna
creepily photographed much too enthusiastically haha It was a really great time
with the best of company: good girlfriends, good tunes and so much sun!
During a fierce week
of high temperatures in Melbourne, I spent a weird amount of time sitting in a
puddle of my own sweat and fantasizing about skinny-dipping in the arctic. Melbourne
was experiencing a major heat wave and the whole city was freaking out. Trains
couldn’t run, little ball kids at the Australian Open were passing out and I
was relaying much too greatly on popsicles as a coping mechanism. In our eyes,
the only logical way to spend the day was to lie around in a blow up pool we
filled in the back patio. I’d never felt such feelings of love for an
inanimate, heavily plastic-scented item.
Anna and I had
thought about leaving Melbourne to go to a beach town for a while but I never
knew how hard it would be to leave. For a bit in the beginning after Anna and I
had left I’d even wondered why I’d moved on at all. I missed the quirky little
city I’d called home and couldn’t stop thinking of what I’d left behind. I kept
hoping things would work out for Anna and I and it would all be worth it. In
hindsight it all did but there are still so many things I miss (among millions
of other things): hours spent in parks doing random things, beach days in St.
Kilda, watching unexpected fireworks, rooftop cider bars, volleyball sessions, sitting
in the flower cooler at my job and being surround by coldness and beauty, dodging
possums in the park, random Scottish dance parties, conversations in the
Nunnery kitchen while drinking tea, moonlight cinema, grooving down the streets
to Dutch dance tunes, walking through Federation Square at night, spending time
with our adopted Aussie family, alleyway cafes, laughing myself to the point that
it was a stomach workout with Team America, holidays at the Nunnery and most
importantly meeting so many incredible people who I greatly admired and even
loved. It was a really magical couple of months.
The Unemployed Life
Gone were the days of politely refusing to take the last
mini Nutella packet at the hostel so someone else could enjoy it. Being
unemployed made Anna and I have no shame in being ruthlessly assertive females.
We excelled at things such as being overly competitive in backpacker volleyball
to get a free beer or giving a menacing stink eye while scoping out something
equally appealing to someone else on the free food shelf at the hostel. Although
we’ve always been a fan of freebies, we had a new appreciation for anything
that we didn’t have to pay for. Take for example people watching. One time, I
enjoyed a particularly invigorating 30 minutes watching a wee ginger scare
pigeons. Or that other time when the Friday night streets of Surfer’s Paradise
turned into a feast for the eyes. We spent a good 2 hours on a bench with an
equally amused elderly German couple. The grand daddy of all free events,
however, was the Hurley Australian Open of Surfing where I came dangerously
close to giving myself whiplash on not one but 229 separate occasions from a
new hobby/possible life path I’ve found called “looking for hot surfer guys and
making crazy, indiscreet gestures of excitement when I see them”. Anna and I
decided that if you’re a surfer it’s also impossible to be an ugly person. The
sport doesn’t allow it. And if you’re ugly and you’re surfing you will be eaten
by a shark. Sorry but that’s the world we live in.
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| Surfer's Paradise |
Unemployment also lead to many creative schemes to make
money that we unfortunately decided weren’t quite right for us. Such brilliant
ideas included: donating eggs (sadly, I posses the short person gene although
Anna and I think we can combine both of ours to create the world’s greatest
human being), setting up webcams of me eating for people with food fetishes
(this flies in Asia but hasn’t quite reached the Aussie market. Man, Asians are
always ahead of us in everything!), hurling ourselves in front of public
transport to sue the city (sacrificing limbs is not worth it), sugar daddy
(still looking. Let us know if you have any leads) and becoming street
performers (I can do some cool gymnastics tricks and Anna has some mad flute
skills, but we are uncomfortable with eyes burning into us. We don’t care for
the stare. Also, we would like to say we have some sweet dance moves but sadly
we are Macarena sort of people :/).
The Employed Life
Thankfully I found a job, and a great one at that! This time
around I’ll be working full time at the front desk of Sydney Harbour YHA, a really nice hostel
right near Circular Quay in The Rocks, one of the most popular tourist areas of
Sydney. It’s also an upscale business district so I spend my time commuting with
a sea of suited up city folk. Thankfully I have experience working in the hotel
industry so I’m not a complete idiot at the desk but there’s still a lot to
learn. I love my coworkers. They are patient and funny and the atmosphere is so
nice. As an added bonus, my odd dream to speak over a PA system has been
granted because I get to advertise hostel events throughout the whole complex with
my booming, God-like voice! The occasional manly tones that my pesky vocal
chords produce really shine when put on the spot. As well, I’ll be taught to be
a barista. I’m looking forward to making wild little milk creatures on top of
people’s coffee!
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| Sydney Harbour YHA |
Final Thoughts….
I believe there’s a little nook in my heart especially for
keeping the memory of all the incredible people and places I’ve known in this
wandering life of mine. Melbourne found its way there, as many have before and
many will. I found myself alone swimming in the waves here in Sydney and felt
some of the purest joy I’ve know. I couldn’t keep the smile off my face or the
giggles from toppling out. The ocean makes me so happy and I’m really excited
to be here in Sydney where a beautiful city full of opportunity happens to be
fringed by spectacular beaches. I’ll always have the memory of Melbourne and
now I’ll have another one of Sydney. Things always seem to have a way of
working themselves out. Can life always be like this? I sure hope so because
it’s what I live for. Unreal moments that turn into the realest feelings and
unexpected circumstances that become instances in which the heart can only
expect to be one way: happy :)
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| Beach walk in Sydney! |
