New Year, New Job!

---

Blimey, it's the 17th already. Where does time go? I suppose thats what happens when you get older, me being the wrong side of 25 now. After 3 days in the multi storey, it was time for Gaz and I to find a proper place to stay. We blagged the carpark attendent saying we'd lost our ticket, and got off with paying a single days rate. Then we set about trying to find a hostel with parking, almost as difficult as finding a hostel for new year! Thus we came across Alfred Park hotel, located in the Surrey Hills just across from central station. At 22bucks a night, it was fairly resonable, and with 4 to a dorm (actually only me and Gaz in it) a fridge, TV, and sink, it almost passed as home.

After a couple of days squatting in the house, Jess, Julie, Joel and Ashley got themselves bus tickets back to Melbourne and we bid them fairwell. With Christmas and New Year behind us, we decided it would be a good opportunity to lay off the beer for a while and set about getting work.

The problem I now had, was with it not only being the christmas holidays but also the summer holidays too, rather than the standard two weeks off we have back home, aussies tend to have a lot longer. Therefore my efforts of trying to find aircraft work were hampered by a lack of anyone actually at work. Numerous times I phoned agencies to be greeted by a recorded message explaining that "so and so" would not be returning to work until (probably) the middle of next year. Great.

Still, being optimistic I thought I'd leave it maybe a week or three until everyone's back at work and resume my efforts then. As luck would have it, Karin and Jenny (two girls from our Swedish gang we hung around Adelaide with) were returning to Sydney for a week before their flight home. This gave Gary and me the perfect excuse to shirk our job hunting for a while, and spend a couple of days going to the beach and drinking, also conveniently forgetting about my dwindling funds for a while.

---