It's been a few weeks since I posted on this thing so here's a little recap of what's going on in Oz.
On March 9th, I started working as a Data Entry Analyst and/or Project Coordinator for IBM Australia. I think the latter sounds more official so I'm going to stick with that. It's a mindless job and I hate it. However, I'm getting paid $30/hr (about $21/hr after taxes, expensive country) and work a 37.5 hr week. It's a 6 week contract of which I'm about to round out week #3 so after that I'll be unemployed and can go back to being a full-time surf bum until about mid-June. If anything, I'll make a few contacts out of it and potential clients if I get into consulting over here, which is the loose plan for mid-June. Everyone I work with is awesome and it's cool to see how a business in a different industry operates. Not having to deal with Earned Value and manpower planning is pretty nice too (sorry former-Lockheed co-workers :P). To top it all off, I can still get about an hour or so worth of surfing in before the sun sets. Sydney 1, Orlando 0.
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| IBM building from the street |
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| View from my desk, Opera House is next to that bridge |
And now onto the semi-more interesting stuff. One of these past weekends, my roommate had free tickets to a NRL (rugby) game at ANZ Stadium in the city so we started pre-gaming around noon, as is the custom, at the apartment. A case of beer and a shot or two of whiskey later we hopped a bus and train to the stadium. Unfortunately, our booze brains didn't exactly calculate how long it would take use to get there so we only saw about 25 minutes of actual play. That was okay though because I could barely see the field both due to my near-sightedness and being about 14 drinks in. After the game, we met up with my roommate's friend and went out in Parramatta. Went to a place called PJs where we continued to get shit-faced. The crowd was, eh, diverse to put it politely. You had people my age and then the washed up old hags sprinkled around here and there. A guy was getting thrown out by 4 bouncers as we were walking in so we knew it was going to be a fun night. Worst hangover I've had in Oz so far but it was all worth it!
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| "Man we're all out of beer. You guys wanna do shots of whiskey?" |
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| ANZ Stadium |
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| A fellow American, my brother's friend, Colin, and I at the NRL game. Ignore the shaka. Like I said before, 14 drinks. |
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| NRL Game |
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| A glimpse of what PJs in Parramatta was like. Vision was likely as blurry as this picture ;) |
This next part will only excite you if you're into surfing and wish to own an old school style board. Went out last weekend in the search for a step-up board for a trip to Bali I'm taking in June. Came across this shop that had the sickest old school fishes and single fins. If I have an extra $700 lying around, I definitely know where I'll be spending it.
In the coming weeks/months...
- Uncle Thomas and my cousins visiting from Mar 31 - Apr 9th, hopefully making a trip up to Forster with them.
- Trip up to the Gold Coast in mid-May to do some surfing at Snapper Rocks, Kirra, etc and see what QLD has to offer
- Trip to Cairns from May 29th - 31st to dive the Great Barrier Reef
- Surf/Leisure trip to Bali, Indonesia from Jun 3rd - 8th (another post to come on how I booked two rooms for five nights at a 5 star Hyatt for FREE)
That's all for now, stay tuned!
