It's Christmas time? Really?

I'm getting a bit annoyed with my job because they keep changing and cancelling my shifts all the time. The thing is, I'm staying in Brisbane only because of my job, but if I don't even get many hours a week and especially if I don't get my salary on time (it was supposed to be in my bank account two days ago but it hasn't come), I think it would be better to go somewhere else and find another job. I don't want to start looking for a job again but there's no other choise if I want to go somewhere else and if I want money.

My Australian bank account looks pretty much empty at the moment and I've spent a huge amount of money in past few weeks.... I knew I'd spend a lot of money when travelling in Australia but it  still scares me! Where does that money actually go? Living in hostels takes the most of my money, and food of course. But I don't understand how some people can go partying every night and spend so much money for alcohol, how can they afford it? If I bought loads of drinks in bars every night, I wouldn't have much money anymore at all...

So what to do next? I have no idea. I said to the people at my work that I'm going to stay in Brisbane for a few months. Yeah right... I didn't even plan to stay here for too long but that's the thing you have to say if you want to find a job especially in restaurants or cafes. They just don't want to hire people for a few weeks, they want people to work for them at least for a couple of months, usually even more. 

But backpackers always change their plans, make quick decisions and travel from place to place. So never trust backpackers. But does it really matter if I leave my job here because they can't even give me reliable shifts? 

I like that place though, and I'd like to learn to use the coffee machine properly. I mean the huge special coffee machine that makes all those different types of coffees.

I wonder why I get bored with one place so fast. I mean I've only been here for over 2 weeks and I already feel like I should see other places and go somewhere else. Maybe it's because nearly all backpackers are here only for a couple of days and then they're moving on somewhere else, some coast places or Outback or wherever. Brisbane isn't really the most traditional or interesting Australian place, and I'd like to see as many beautiful and amazing places as possible, with great landscapes or coast views etc.
Now I regret a little bit that I didn't decide to spend Christmas in some of those beautiful coast towns as everyone seems to be going there.

Last night I spoke to an Irish girl who had worked in Darwin and she said it's a very nice little town and it's easy to find a job there and the salary is good. So I might consider going to Darwin sometimes. There are a few types of jobs I'd really like to try in Australia: It'd be good to work in a pub/hotel where I'd get accommodation and food for free and then I'd also get salary but I could save the most of that money because I wouldn't spend it for hostels and food so much. 

The other thing is farm work, which would be an interesting experience. Many backpackers go and work at farms and it's pretty easy (?) to find that kind of jobs in some places here. And one thing is working in Outback. I don't know if it'd be the right thing for me but definitely it'd be an experience... 

So many options but I'm still "stuck" in Brisbane at the moment :D 

One day I went to Ikea with a Finnish girl Elina, who lives in the hostel where I stayed the first 2 weeks. I know it's quite "boring" to go to Ikea in Australia as I can do that in Finland too, but we wanted to buy some gingerbread biscuits and glögi just because it'd make us feel more like "home" here at Christmas time. Well, it didn't... They were too expensive and didn't taste right. And Australians had decided to sell some fish and chips and squid in the Ikea restaurant, which I'm pretty sure they don't sell in Finland and Sweden. It was nice to eat some swedish meatballs though. But maybe I should stop spending my money on useless things such as "going to Ikea to buy food that I can buy in Finland but which is too expensive here". 

Well, it's only a couple of days until christmas and I'm sat in a sun chair at the sun deck and it's veeery hot. Could it feel any less like Christmas? But I don't really mind if I don't get Christmas feeling here because I'm on the other side of the world and I didn't come here to spend a traditional Christmas.

Last Christmas wasn't traditional to me either but it felt like Christmas because I spent it in England with my lovely host family, which was very nice. 

It's always good to do something different and spending Christmas in hostel with random people in Australia is definitely different... I don't know if it's the best thing to do but I'm here now and I'll see how it goes. Merry Christmas.

New place, new life

Right, it has been quite a while (again) since I wrote last time, sorry. Days are just flying past when you are travelling and earlier it felt like I don't have time to write in this blog because I moved from place to another all the time. Then I thought I can't be bothered to write anymore but I would be very disappointed with myself if I stopped writing in this blog. So.... It has been over 2 weeks (!!) since I moved to Brisbane and now it's like I'm settled here and nothing exciting is happening anymore. That's a bit worrying....

Let's try to remember what happened during the few weeks I didn't write anything here. We spent 3 days in Surfers Paradise with Pauliina, it was quite a nice place. High buildings, a long beach next to the city centre, many shops, a beautiful weather... It felt like being in a small Los Angeles. I've never been to Los Angeles though so maybe I'm wrong...

One day we went to the beach for the whole day and hired a body board which was a great fun. The waves were big, maybe not as good as in Byron Bay though... I still didn't try surfing because I realised I'd have to take some lessons if I really want to do something else than just swim with the surfboard. And the lessons are expensive anyway. So body boarding was good for now.

Then we came to Brisbane, to our "final destination". It was a bit different to come to a big city after those coast places because there is no beach in Brisbane and no beautiful ladscapes etc. Brisbane is a nice city though, and very easy-going and not as busy and hectic as Sydney was. 

We decided to book a trip to Australian Zoo soon after we had arrived in Brisbane. I'm glad we went to the zoo, it was a brilliant place. I've never been to a zoo like that, actually I think those "normal" zoos with bears and monkeys and random birds are a bit boring. But Australian Zoo is nothing like boring, it's a very very huge area and it easily takes a whole day to go through all the different areas there and see all the animals and everything. We spent there maybe 6 or 7 hours and it wasn't too much at all.

The tickets were expensive but I think it was worth it. There's no many other places where I can see and touch kangaroos and koalas, see crocodiles, Tasmanian devils (I thought it was just a character in Disney films but they actually exist, haha), dingos, wombats and many other cute or exciting or amazing animals. There was a crocodile show, a koala show, African area where we saw giraffes and rhinos and other African things and also an Asian area with some elephants and tigers. But the whole Australian area was definitely the best one, with all those hundreds of Australian animals. And I was positively surprised how the kangaroos were just runnign free in their area, and they weren't scared of people at all! We went to touch them and took some pictures with them, they're quite funny animals... But I decided I want to be a koala, they're maybe the coolest (and cutest!!) animals I've seen. Sleeping nearly all day in a tree, eating, chlling out, playing with other koalas. Can I be a koala, please?

After that day it felt like we've walked at least 100 km in just one day. Other days we just walked around Brisbane, moved to another hostel (which was very weird. Reminded me of a hippie commune or something... Maybe because it just was a bit different place than other hostels I've been to) and after that place moved to another place AGAIN. I think we stayed in 7 or 8 different hostels altogether! Well, it's good to see many different places so there's nothing wrong with that. Especially because after that I stayed in one place for 2 weeks which is the longest time I've stayed in one hostel. Pauliina went back to Finland and left me "alone" in huge Australia, which meant I had to start looking for a job. 

I hate looking for a job but since I have a working hoiday visa it means I should do the working part too, not only the holiday part of it. AND of course because I've spent a HUGE amount of money here and I realised that yeah, my money actually is running out if I don't find a job somewhere, I started looking for a job in Brisbane.

I sent some applications online but also went to some random places to give them my CV and to my surprise in one place the man started talking to me in Finnish. He said he's from Estonia and has learnt to speak Finnish and now he's living in Brisbane. So the next day they called me from that place and asked me to go and do a Trial, which means I had to work there for a couple of hours so they saw if I can handle it or if I'm totally crap. Apparently I did it alright because they said I'll get that job. 

So that place is a small restaurant (yeah, I still didn't get myself to some different job... I'd like to do something else but for some reason I always find myself working in restaurants??!), it's like a burger restaurant, quite an expensive place and very nice burgers and good salads. The place is in a popular and nice area in Brisbane centre, next to the river and other restaurants.

I was glad to get a job but it's not full time, only casual, meaning that I don't always get many hours a week. 

First I worked in the kitchen for a couple of days and then I got to work in the other side too, taking orders and serving customers etc. It's not very different from what I've done in Finland, the biggest difference is that here I have to speak English of course but it's not any difficult to speak to customers in English. 

Sometimes I speak Finnish with the Estonian guy. 

I'll write more about life in Brisbane hopefully soon, this post is getting too long because I have so many things to say, so I'll try to write more often than once a month!