Journey Down South

Right when I arrived another nanny I met told me she was going to Margaret River on the first weekend of April and invited me, so I booked into the same hostel as her, and I was good to go for my first out of Perth adventure. I drove the van (yes, in addition to the giant SUV I cannot drive, my lovely host family also has an even bigger vehicle, that, you guessed it, I cannot drive) up to Bunburry where American Leandra lives and she took it from there in her convenient little car.

The weekend itself was perfect, I didn’t’ realize how good a weekend “away” would feel. This is starting to feel like home, and the everyday vacation feeling is slowly evaporating so away time was perfect. In a nutshell though, mainly we spent our weekend going out and being social, and maybe having a beverage. Or several.

The Good: 

– The Hostel, Margaret Rive Lodge– dirt cheap, met so many people, got a private room without paying for one , and the owner was super nice. We checked out WAY late on Sunday and he didn’t charge us or anything. As an essentially poor person, that’s much appreciated.

– People– Met SO many great people from everywhere. I love meeting new people, I could talk to strangers for hours. And got to spend the whole weekend with my fellow north american au pair, which is always fun!

The Bad:

People– I’ve mainly only met really nice people here so far, then there was the mouthiest girl at the hostel, and guess what!? She was CANADIAN! I assume any Canadian I meet here will be my BFF, cause, hello, were in one of the most isolated places on earth, and were both from Canada! That should be enough to forge a lovely, forced friendship. This girl however.. not so much.

Packing-  I HATE packing. It stresses me out. What if I pack too much? Too little ? What if it rains? Nude heels? Black heels!? Thus I took an obscene amount of stuff. I promise I used/wore at least half of it.

Ill pack my runners cause of course ill work out while im there. Idiot.

– Showers- OK the one thing I couldn’t hack about hostel living was the questionable, luke warm showers. What if I saw a spider in there? I’d never recover. I basically stuck my feet in then ran out as fast as humanly possible, then lived on dry shampoo all wknd. I am a suck, what can I say?

 

And The Loser Tourist Moments:

– Lemon Tree’s,  I’ve never seen a lemon tree!! I took one off the tree and put it in my water bottle of diet coke and vodka and it was perfection! I hope you can just pop lemons off those tree’s and use them, and they’re not some sort of protected species or anything…?

 

– The Jewel Cave,  This was our token tourist activity for the weekend, and I loved it! Other then some unfortunate folks who smelled very questionable (think dark, cramped cave tour, close quarters..not good) , the tour was great! The lady who ran the tour was so into it and made it fun and interesting. Worth the $25 bucks.

– Cowtown..? On the way home we put “home” into the nav and basically zoned out until… we found ourselves in a town full of cow statues! Then we realized we definitely were taking the scenic route but oh well. I can’t remember what this little town was called but something with the word “Cow” in it, thus, they’ve decorated the town with cow statues! Have to put “Cowtown” on my tourist town to do list…

 

 

school holidays…

So it appears aussie schools love giving the kiddies loads (or should I say “heaps”!) Of time off , with a break after every term, even in elementary school. Why does this matter to me you ask? Well  that this means I go from working 3 hrs a day to working 12 hours a day, fun! Not. Its sick to say but im now used to have a weird amount of free time and actually working is killing me already (its only day 2 of school break..). My days are all jumbly, and I feel off and disoreinted (maybe even a teeny tiney bit grumpy). Anyways,  legitimately working all day is consuming me thus I have nothing good to post but in the past few wks I have..

1. Gotten a second job at a restaurant (the hospitality industry here is still confusing me to death)

2. Did my first little wknd trip to Margaret River (caves, surfing, weird, scary hostel showers, oh my!)

3. We went to the zoo today, this is big for me. I LOVE the zoo and I love aqariums. Two life loves .

Many updates to come.. if I ever get my unnecessary,  ridiculous , amount of free time back.

what I wish I knew before I came

Any time you go anywhere there’s almost always something you wish you knew beforehand and of course coming to the other side of the world was no exception …

1. Clothing sizes are different . My first week here I shopped a bit , k alot, and was feeling mildly disturbed by how much weight I’d apparently gained in a week since all of a sudden size 8 was skin tight or couldn’t even get over my ass . The first clue here should’ve been that there was no size seven, but I thought no big deal, 8 should accommodate for my vacay weight gain! Alas I Googled Australian sizes/North American sizes and bam! Confidence restored ! I didn’t magically go up 4 sizes, the sizing is different!!

2. Spray deodorant, Mio, and Crystal Lite : 3 things I’m seriously missing. All the deodorant here is an aerosol spray. I hear you can find “normal” solid deodorant if you look hard enough but seeing as I live in a pool of sweat everyday now, I wish packed endless deodorant.  I also can’t find Mio or Crystal Lite , two huge staples in my life (if you can’t mix your vodka with Crystal Lite what could you possibly mix it with..?). Bit heartbroken about it.

3. Its HOT: About that pool of sweat… literately the first two days here I thought “maybe I can’t do this”.  I was that hot. At home we get hot summers but it’s a humid kind of, 25C-35C kind of summer. Not 40C on an average summer almost autumn day. I’ve also found most people here don’t crank the A/C like we do in N. America either. Every night here, before bedtime, my host family SHUTS OFF THE A/C. Madness!!! I guess you’d have an insane power bill if you pumped the air constantly. But night time!? Come on! That’s the time you need the air the most! I think I’ve adjusted a bit since those first few days, but still gets me sometimes.

4. That damn left side of the road: Ok, part of me not getting excited to come here until I was safely here included zero Australian research, clearly. On the flight it occurred to me that “heeeey maybe they drive on the wrong side of the road maybe? Naaah. ” Wrong I was . Once I got here and realized I mainly decided “oh well no driving for you” (no soup for you!). But host dad took me out once for a test drive then that was it, I was on my own in the big SUV (I drive a tiny car at home).  I’ve been left hand driving ever since ! With minimal issues.. mostly minimal anyhow.

5. Restaurants & Tipping : Tipping is not a big thing here. I’m not sure if that’s all of Aus or just Perth, but from what I can gather tipping’s not really expected. That being said, service is not really expected either. Most places I’ve gone, you go in, wait for a server to wander past you at some point (theres never a hostess waiting to greet you) ,maybe they’ll seat you or point at a table you can go to, then you order your drinks from the bar/counter whatever, grab a stick w/ a number on it, and then your drinks/food will be brought to your table number. A server will drop your stuff, and that’s basically the last time you’ll see them. I’ve gone to a few restaurants where you sort of actually have a server, but still INCREDIBLY different then what I’m used to. You’re also not allowed to split bills here, the whole table has to be paid as one. My server friends at home would LOVE this (no bill organizing! No seat numbers actually mattering for billing! How nice would that be for big parties!?).

This goes to show, maybe some mild preparation before a large, life changing trip is a good idea. Oh well.

 

making it to aus

I am a perpetul worrier , lots of people asked how excited I was prior to leaving and my response was ” not yet,” I cannot be fully excited till im in Perth,  in one piece, with my luggage and once I see that my host family aren’t murderers or selling me into white slavery. Once all of those are check marked then yes im excited .

all in all my trip over was flawless, the worrier in me is still shocked over this. I even ended up with an empty seat beside me for the biggest chunk of my flight from LAX to Melbourne. Not to mention that flight was perfect, Virgin Australia has amazing customer service and people working for them. Then getting into Perth my luggage WAS THERE. It made it through 4 airports and all the way to the other side of the world ! I fully accepted when I packed those 2 suitcases that I’d never see them again. Getting through both American and Australian customs was a breeze and Tara, the nanny before me,  and little M were both waiting for me at the airport upon arrival and my host family turned out to be the normal, awesome family I was lead to believe they were! NOW I can be excited.

au revoir

When I decided to come to aus ( I don’t understand why people spell it “Oz”, it’s AUStralia. Oz makes me think Wizard of Oz..) and leave my lovely little Canadian life , I decided this only about a month before I actually left. I told my boss about two weeks before I left, my parents about two wks and 2 days before and my best friend/room mate about two wks and a day before I left . Most people I didn’t tell at all. Thats what Facebook and gossip is for riiight? Right. I find goodbyes unnecessary at best. Texting, skype, and the Internet keep people so connected I feel like it doesn’t matter all that much weather or not I’m in the same country as everyone, you can always stay connected. I refused any sort of going away party thing despite my lovely friends trying to name our last night of drinking just that. My mom lured me into a “last supper” by buying me a  a DQ ice cream cake (I have a mad love for DQ cakes).

I hate telling people I’m leaving despite the fact I rarely stay still for more then six months, I still hate telling everyone when I leave . I sweat, I panic, I stumble my words. Exactly why I prefer to just sneak away, but I don’t think my parents, job, friends etc. would appreciate  that all too much.

I made myself a list of people to tell, work, parents, roomie, and slowly checked them off. I also kept a running list of “things to do before I’m allowed to be excited”. The bulk of that was telling all the key people in my life, booking my ticket, actually seeing if I could afford this, successfully flying across the world, and last but not least meeting my host family. I booked my one way ticket one week prior to leaving and did absolutely no organizing what so ever in that week, cause hey, what if it doesn’t work out for some reason….maybe it does! Maybe it doesn’t! Stay tuned….