Living in Sydney - the things you'll do for money

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By the time the west coast campervan trip was over, I was pretty certain I had to start working straight away. Australia was far more expensive than the 3 and a half months I had spent in South East Asia and was beginning to bleed my funds quickly. I wanted to be in a position of covering all my costs and saving some would be a bonus. I began to work in a small Cafe (or kiosk as they say in Aus) which was a 20 min walk down to the nearest beach from Clairvaux house. Extremely convenient and with great views of the beach. Clairvaux, if I haven't already mentioned, is a large house in a very wealthy suburb in Sydney and was home to Romana for several months before I arrived in Australia. She introduced me to the house manager and having stayed there a couple of weeks before we ventured off on our trip, I was able to move in our return. It's quite an old house but the rent is very cheap and the area is wealthey (which means there is some pull - and the pull is the panoramic views over Sydney harbour bridge and opera house). Added to this, because there are 17 rooms, you move in with 16 instant friends!

I had previously planned to work a month or 2 and then move onto somewhere else in Australia to work, but I felt settled and content that I wanted to stay in Sydney for my whole 6 months and make myself a 'base' I know this sounds stupid, but I was actually really glad to be in one place and unpack. I was tired of living out of my rucksack and moving on every couple of days. I also wanted to be able to cook a meal for myself; exactly what I wanted to eat instead of having to choose from a menu (ah the simple things!) Sitting in the living room in Clairvaux watching a film and relaxing was just what I needed after months of not having a home. So, a large house brings with it many different charachters and also in this case nationalities. I lived with people from Japan, France, Poland, Luxembourg, Holland, Germany, America and also a few Australians. It was always such a social house so there were a fair few parties but also we made communal dinners and chilled out for a pretty regular saturday morning brunch in the garden. There was always someone to talk to but when you wanted to be alone, there always seemed to be a place where you could do that. (we all had our own bedrooms anyway)

So the Cafe job didn't work out....the boss there was not particularly nice and I just didn't feel like I was having fun like I had expected to. Luckily for me, Romana had introduced me to the boss of her promotional job before she left so I was working a night or two in an RSL club doing promotional work, and then I picked up a job working for the Cirque Du Soleil that was to be in Sydney for 3 months. I worked in the merchandise department and had so much fun. I made a lot of really nice friends and enjoyed many a social event. I became a really good seller of some of the expensive items such as handmade masks and fine prints. I managed to sell 2 fine prints (worth about $5000) and won myself 4 VIP tickets to the show which made for a fantastic night out for my birthday weekend in October. We had free flowing drinks and food along with some of the best seats for the show for myself and 3 of my friends. After a few weeks, the shifts at Cirque started to dwindle due to attendance numbers for the shows. I decided I would need to get a 'day' job to substitute the evenings and weekends I was already working. I applied for a casual promotional job spraying perfume in department stores. My first 'assignment' was for a new launch from Juicy Couture called 'Dirty English' which was a mens fragrance and warranted me being in a mens department store dressed up as a ballerina!!!! They wanted me to say to the customers (mostly men) "do you want to get dirty?" but I found this quite uncomfortable, especially the attention I was already getting in my outfit. I did actually find it great fun at first but then I just got too bored standing in one place and saying the same thing over and over again, so this job only lasted a few weeks. In amoungst all this, I was still working my promotional job in the RSL club and ended up doing a special 'lucky 8' promotion on the 8/8/08 and got dressed up as cats (we had a chinese theme for the benefit of the olympics) I also began working a regular friday night there called 'funtastic fridays' which involved dressing up in 70's gear (including skin tight flares!)

It wasn't all work though...there were many parties at the house or social events surrounding Cirque. We had an 80's themed party at the house which was great fun - dressing up in the worst outfits we could find and dancing to the cheesiest 80's music that we had between us. We also had a sushi/cocktail party which involved everyone helping to make lots of sushi and blend up some amazing cocktails to accompany it. There was a huge pub crawl organised through Cirque where we had to wear green or yellow (for Austrlain colours) and abide by many a drinking rule. My friend Triona came to visit for a few days (whom I had met and travelled with in Thailand) and she really wanted to go to Palm beach which is at the very northern end of Sydney (about a 2 hour public bus ride) and is the location for the Australian TV soap 'Home and Away' which we both grew up watching. It is know fictionally in the soap as 'Summer Bay' instead of Palm Beach. It is a very beautiful beach and we saw many of the scenes from the show, including the notorious surf club with Alf Stewarts name on the sign (a character in the show). We also went to the top of the Sydney sky tower which gives amazing views over the whole of Sydney and really lets you get a perspective of where everything is in relation to one another. These were great trips out but I probably wouldn't have done them if it wasn't for Triona - I had got so comfortable in my life there that I felt that I was living there and not a tourist as such.

One of my best memories of my life in Sydney was my birthday weekend. I went to see the Dralion show at Cirque with VIP tickets, I went shopping and chilled out drinking with my friends. I didn't work on the Saturday, Sunday or Monday (Monday was my birthday and very conveniently a public holiday in Australia!) I woke up on my birthday to the sound of Stevie Wonders "Isn't she lovely" and my housemates outside my room singing. We then had a HUGE brunch with everyone pitching in and then the highlight of the day; we all made our way down to Milk Beach (a tiny beach very close to our house which boasts views over the harbour) and we had a beach party (with the beach to ourselves). The weather was changable but generally lovely and I had so much fun with some of my best friends in Australia. Once the sun was setting and the weather was turning we all made our way back to our house where a house party ensued. This day (and the whole weekend) was one of the best birthdays I can remember, despite being away from family and friends back home.

Cirque finished soon after my birthday and I was really sad to say goodbye to everyone I had worked with - some moved on with the show to Canberra. At this stage I was back down to my one job at the RSL club 2 nights a week, but luckily for me one of my housemates said that the place she was working at needed someone. It was based in Bondi just a 5 min bus ride or a 30 min walk and was really good money. It was also a 2 month contract that would take me up to 2 days before I left Australia so it fitted in perfectly to my time. The catch was that it involved Telemarketing but as I'd never experienced it, I thought it was worth a go. The company was called Teambeat - a small African drumming business that was run from their home. Our job was to call schools and try and get them to book a performance with us for 2009. It was a strange set up with two children in the house and a Nanny, and then myself, Lara and Ali in separate rooms of the house making phone calls. We got to go and watch a performance in in a school to see what we were selling which made things a little easier. Sometimes it was bearable, but most of the time I was bored senseless with the speech we would have to do over and over again. Telemarketing is not really my thing!!! But the work was convenient and the money was coming in and I had a goal to look forward to my 3 months travelling at the end of it! Towards the end of my time there, they decided they wanted to stage a wedding so that they could get some promotional shots for their brochure and branch out into Wedding entertainment.....and guess who the lucky bride to be was? Yes, you guessed it, me!!!! So we had to go and find a dress....first time I've tried a wedding dress on in my life, and we found one in Vinnies (charity shop) for $50 and it fitted me perfectly!!! We had the afternoon with some friends that we'd persuaded to come and be 'guests' drinking wine overlooking sydney harbour and pretending to be married! It was hilarious.

Anyway, so if you're still reading this then thanks, I know it's a long one but somewhat difficult to sum up 6 months in one blog. So I really enjoyed my life in Sydney - I made some friends for life and I did some interesting jobs, I would definitely go back if I get the chance, Sydney is such a beautiful city. Thanks to all my friends there for some truly amazing times and fond memories....It's not goodbye, it's a 'see ya later!'

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Comments

[Mum]

Welcome back!
Great to have your blogs again, I've really missed them! Can't believe it's only a few weeks til you're home! lol xx