Fingers crossed...

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So, Ellie and I are still in Brisbane and have just finished our second and final period of exam invigilating and are now looking for some more work. We have applied to work at the EKKA Festival in Brisbane (a giant food festival) which runs for 10 days between the 10th and 20th of August, so hopefully we will be offered something there. There are plenty of jobs available, including: cash counting, sales staff and catering assistants.

Since the last blog update we have been down to the Gold Coast and stayed with my relatives Steve and Sue for a long weekend. They have such an amazing apartment with a spectacular view across Labrador Bay. It was worth staying there just for a few days for the amazing view! The Gold Coast is quite a tourist-y hot spot for Aussies and you don’t seem to get many backpackers staying in the area. On one day, we went to Surfers Paradise (which is around a 15 minute drive from Labrador) which has a really great beach for...erm...surfing but apart from that, Ellie and I actually found it quite ‘tacky’. It was like being in a really English Spanish region on the Costa Del Scouse with ‘all day breakfasts’ advertised and plenty of gift shops dotted around. It was pleasant enough but we just felt as though it didn’t seem to have much identity and was purely centred for tourism.

Saying that, we enjoyed our stay on the Gold Coast and will definitely be heading down there again for another lazy weekend at Steve and Sue’s as when you are out of the tourist hit spots, it is lovely and peaceful. The Gold Coast has recently received a lot of bad press relating to its constant increase in gun crime, gang violence and drug warfare so we will make sure we avoid those areas too...

On our final day in the Gold Coast, we went to a Greek Festival which was held in a giant area of parkland just outside of Surfers. The festival itself was absolutely heaving with people and was mainly centred around Greek Dancing and a celebration of Greek food. Ellie and I stocked up on plenty of baklava and I think Ellie felt quite nostalgic when eating the Greek food as it reminded her of North London so much! We had a really great afternoon there and spent the majority of the afternoon feasting on sweet foods and enjoying plenty of Greek dancing.

Since arriving back from the Gold Coast and between our final lot of exam invigilating, we have stayed at a backpackers in Brisbane and been trying to see what the job scene there is like. There are plenty of sales jobs available (door knocking, cold-calling, etc) and paid charity street-work (‘chuggers’) going but we will have to see. We have both been interviewed by a half-decent recruitment agency that seems quite keen on placing us somewhere for a few months so fingers crossed something comes up from that avenue.

At the moment as we don’t have much else on, we are debating whether to go to Fraser Island and do our 3 day/2 night’s trip there. It is already paid for and we just need to give the tour company 48 hours notice that we want to do it so we may well end up doing that whilst we wait on the job front. It is gradually getting warmer here (it has actually been fairly chilly) and so we think that heading up to Fraser Island very soon and camping there won’t be too bad of an idea.

Anyway, that’s about all of what has happened since the last blog update. Oh, we have also managed to see another Brisbane Broncos game against the Gold Coast Titans (Broncos won 30-10) so that was good fun. Broncos had all their State of Origin players back including Darren Lockyer so we were treated to some fabulous rugby at times. I would like to go to an Aussie Rules game next (Brisbane Lions or the Gold Coast Suns) so we may even do that in the coming weeks before the season is out.
I’ll update again soon, anyway. Peace.

***BREAKING NEWS***

Ellie has just started full-time work as a barmaid this evening (they gave her one hour notice before her first shift started!) at City Backpackers Hostel in Brisbane. I have an interview tomorrow morning for a charity street-worker position so things are on the up...

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