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I packed up all my belongs, said goodbye to the girls I had met in my room who I can say are now friends and headed down to the bus depot. My bags thrown on to the bus and I was off to New Norcia. My friend Jo who I worked with in Southern Cross has been out in NN since January and had told me about the job. By 11:30am I was being dropped off at the roadhouse in NN. Rick, my new boss was there to pick me up and drove me around the tiny town before we drove up to the Hotel where I would be working.
I threw my bags in the staff "Cottage" and headed into the bar to see Jo. We last saw each other back in January as I was leaving Perth to go to Melbourne and she was on her way out here. We got all caught up and I had some lunch before I headed down to the Museum to go on the Town tour. A tour guide met me and a small group of other people outside the museum.
He took us on a walk around town and explained
some of the history of the town and what was in each building. We did get to go inside most of the buildings. The first was the Monastery building. You can actually stay the night here in this building. Upstairs we went into two small chapels. Afterwards we walked over to the main chapel. The walls have been painted with the stations of the cross. The tomb of the monk who founded the town is in this chapel as well. There is also a massive organ in the church as well.
Back in the early days there was 2 colleges here at New Norcia. A boy's college and a girls college. We got to go inside both colleges and each one has a chapel inside as well. The acoustics inside the chapels are meant to be some of the best and several artists and groups have recorded some projects in the chapels. It was a good introduction to the town. The museum has artifacts from over the years of the Benadictine town. The museum also has a small gift shop. Besides those buildings I just spoke about, the roadhouse and the hotel there is nothing else in this town.
The hotel is beautiful inside and has the spanish architecture on the outside. It was built in 1921 and was originally used to house the parents visiting their children in the boarding schools here. The colleges are no longer running but are still used for many different functions. It's now mainly a tourist town and the monks own and operate everything in the town. Rick, my boss, is just running the hotel for the monks.
My job will be to work in the kitchen as a kitchen hand and running out plates of food to the guests and on weekends I have to waitress in the dining room. Should be an interesting experience! Wish me luck!
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