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Published: January 18th 2012
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G’Day and Happy New Year all!
I know that James and I have been very naughty and neglected our blogging duties – and we were going so well in South America!
However, this all seems like a lifetime ago now – can’t believe it is almost a year since we did the Inca Trail! Crazy!
How was everybody’s Christmas? It was our second away from home and thankfully this year proved to be a lot more festive than last! Luckily for us Ellie and Iain came over from New Zealand and stayed for 10 days. We spent the obligatory backpacker’s Christmas day on Bondi Beach (turkey & stuffing sarnies) and spent all day on New Year’s Eve in the Botanical Gardens next to the Opera House in order to get prime position for the Sydney Harbour Fireworks which were amazing! Definitely the best fireworks display I have ever seen and it was great to finally be there to see them! The days in between were spent drinking mulled wine, going to an expat Christmas on Boxing Day and sampling Sydney’s different beaches – so a good time was had by all! Still
not very used to Christmas in the sunshine though.
So, a bit of a recap of the last 8 months. Since leaving beautiful Fiji and landing in Australia it has been all go go go. We decided not to board our connecting flight to Cairns and to stay in Sydney and start job hunting as our funds were slightly depleted – sky diving, glacier hiking, white water rafting, bungee jumping, 6 weeks camper van hire ….. you get the drift – they all add up to a scary amount of money! However they were all amazing experiences and we would do them all again (James is probably not keen to bungee any time soon – I’m sure you have all seen THAT photo! It still makes me laugh now!) But the main thing is that we have ticked many items off of the ‘Bucket List’.
We both had 1 year Working Holiday visas and were planning on working casually for a while and moving around Australia. However, whilst we were in New Zealand James was put in touch with a couple of recruitment companies and had been having a few interviews over Skype. Upon
arrival, James met up with both recruiters and was lucky enough to be offered 2 full time jobs within our first week here in Sydney. He decided to work for a company called Progressive (a sister company or Real, who he worked for back in the UK), specialising in recruiting workers for the Oil and Gas sector.
I had previously got in touch with News Ltd (Oz version of News International) whilst I was still in London and after a couple of temping jobs, I managed to secure a job as an Account Coordinator working across News Ltd’s major advertising accounts.
James has now been sponsored by his company which means that we have an extended visa and are eligible to remain and work in Australia until 15
th September 2015 (when we’ll be 29!!! Eeeek). We are both happy and settled within our jobs and for the past 7 months have been living in a shared flat above a pub/hotel. We’re quite lucky to have found this apartment as it is very central (I can walk to work) and is also only a 15 minute bus ride to our beloved Bondi Beach. We are
also on the corner of one of Sydney's biggest parks, which houses the football stadium, cricket ground, concert venue and various restaurant and a cinema. It also has a huge outdoor deck (great for sunbathing and drinks) and the rent is pretty reasonable when compared to other places in the area.
Since the weather has now warmed up, we spend most of our weekend's either at the beach, or at one of the harbour's (it's a hard life) or if we are being really lazy - just reading in our hammock on the deck. James has set up an informal football team using gumtree and now he has gained quite a few players, so he plays with them every Saturday morning.
So that’s a brief overview of what has been going on since we got to Sydney. We have temporarily hung up our backpacks and were surprised at how quickly we have slid back into working life (not to mention how great it is to have shoes that are not 'multi-purpose'😉. We do want to travel around Australia, so far we have been to Brisbane to visit my friend Maxine, and we are off
to the Gold Coast next week for a long weekend with Ellie, Iain, Maxine and Tom – where we will go to Wet n Wild! We are also keen to visit Melbourne (James has family there too) and of course to go to the Whitsundays and Great Barrier Reef. However, these will have to be done using annual leave from work.
Fear not though – we are coming home! We have some flights booked for the 30
th March to fly back to London for 2 weeks over Easter, returning to Sydney on the 15
th April. Pencil it in to your diary as it would be lovely to see you all at some point over the fortnight.
Also – if any of you are thinking of coming to Sydney – we have a sofa bed with your name on it!
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Jane and James
Jane and James travel the world!!
It never gets old!
Enjoy!