Life in the Big City (Sydney, Australia)

Ahhhh... to write again. How nice. I appologize for not keeping this up to date (like you care). Anyway, I hope you enjoy it, sorry, but I don't have too many exciting stories or adventures to tell.

Livin' Large

So, I've been living in Sydney now for about 3 months. People think that living in a big city is really glamrous and its like paradise. Well, let me tell you! Sure, it has its perks to see the Sydney Opera House every day on your way to work, and sure you get to experience the exciting nightlife. The thing is, to see a show at the Opera house costs about $75 - $150. To have a great night out will cost you a day's wages. I guess its worth it, but when you're trying to pay rent and save money to go travelling, the big city just turns out to be a big hassle.

Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful to be living in the world famous SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA. I must admit, to get a life set up here, an appartment, a job, friends, a car (well, I used to have a car), its quite an accomplishment. How many people can say the same?

However, I think that people get this illusion that coming here though is a dream. Its winter right now, I realize at home in Canada I'm used to -20C weather, but either way, its cold here! And really, I'm not doing much different stuff here than home, everything is basically the same from home, just a different setting. I guess at home I wouldn't be able to hang out with a bunch of foreigners, but we're all stressed about making money and paying expensive bills. 'Welcome to the real world', I suppose.


CustomCall

Hi, my name's Dean, I'm a customer relations manager calling from Customcall on behalf of Westpac. How are you? I just need to let you the know the phone call is being recorded. And the reason for my call today is to discuss the information that was sent out to you in the mail a while ago call "FUTURE COVER".

These are the words that haunt me each day and many other backpackers day in and out for 8hrs a day, 5 days a week, for 3 LONG months. However, for some of us the hopeful 3 months of being paid $17+ per hour only turns out to be 2 days, 2 weeks, 2 months, etc. The following is a list of people that all started the same day as I did(we all trained together), in order of departure dates. I've only got 3 weeks left for myself!!! How time flies!

We all started April 19, 2004

1) May 4th - Stacey, a sweet Canadian girl with braids, hardly got any sales and found a waitressing job.

2) May 13th - Scot Macdonald, the Scotsman who found a labouring job.

3) May 14th - Cheryl, also Scottish, the first girl Jeremy and I ever talked to and still do, she's currently working at another call center, but selling teddy bears for charity, much better. She'll be leaving Aus soon :-(

4) May 14th - Travis, our gay friend we met from Cochrane, Alberta. The job really got him down and persuaded to go home to Canada early. Ahhh... good ol' Calgary.

5) May 14th - Craig, English. He preferred to leave and do fruitpicking instead!

6) May 17th - Liz, a dear friend we met from Ireland. (You'll see her other half Erica further down the list). After being bombarded with too much 'coaching' from various figures and being transferred to sell Accidental Death instead of Future Cover, she just stood up and said "I QUIT!!!!".

7) May 28th - Vicki, English. She just didn't come back one day. I bumped into her at a bar, she found a better job!

8) June 1st - Jeremy Garcia (this would be the Jeremy you know). After much, much stress and continued effort of just trying to stay alive, he found another job working at a different call center where he basically got laid off after 3 days. But now after a 2 week rest, he's back in the swing of things at an inbound call center where he gets about 1 call every 10 minutes.

9) June 4th - Jen, my old partner in crime from England who used to sit beside me and play Bingo, Hangman and gossip about all the bastards and bitches we spoke to on the phone. After waiting for her Birthday to arrive, she couldn't hack any more housewives yelling at her on the phone. Last I spoke to her, she was sitting on a beach somewhere North of Sydney.

10) June 4th - Erica, Liz's partner (also Irish), who, after Liz left, felt really stressed out and pressured to sell, sell, sell! She ended up getting a sore tooth and required a root canal. Too Expensive! So her and Liz left for Thailand for a couple weeks and then home. Hope you two are enjoying the comforts of Ireland.

11) June 25th - Leslie, a Scottish friend who despises trying Filippino food but insists we eat some Haggis. After being threatened to be fired by her team leader due to lack of sales, she was able to get 3 interviews and 2 new jobs in a matter of a few days. As we speak, she probably sitting in a calling center selling... INSURANCE over the phone!!! But at least her job's not in danger.

12 - 15) Mike, Thomas, Jocelyn, and ME! We're all still here. Thomas is a permanent resident, who will be here for much longer than us, good luck to him. Not to mention, good luck to me... please?


Belated Birthday

GUILT TRIP:

No, I'm not saying Happy Belated Birthday to you. This is what you should be writing in my comment book. My birthday was May 16th. Don't worry, I'm not too fussed about it. Thanks to those of you who actually sent me an email and a card and stuff. Karen - you were the only one to actually send one on the actual day, Thanks!

Anyway, it was a weekend. A bunch of us from my work went out to a free Jazz club, the drinks were pretty expensive though. The band found out if was my birthday and the guy incorporated my name into his song. That was cool. Afterwards, we went to a drag queen show and did a bit of dancing. Fun.

I got a couple presents and cards from people here. Jeremy got a bunch of my film from Asia developed and some slippers. I went for a nice Filippino dinner at my Aunt's house and ate quite well.

Jenny

About 4 weeks ago, my best friend Jenny arrived from Canada. How exciting was that to see her! Too bad, she arrived a couple days earlier than I was expecting and I couldn't be at the airport when she landed. My mobile phone kept ringing at 7am in the morning, but no one was on the line when I answered. I kept thinking that it might be Jeremy or his work, because he was supposed to work at 7am. Anyway, at 7:30am, Jenny finally got through to me, "It's Jenny! Why aren't you at the airport??". Turned out she mistook the dates on her itinerary and came on June 2nd, not June '04.

We've been having a lot of fun on the weekends, going out and partying. Its been great just to hang with old friends (Jeremy included). We spent 3 days in a row at Darling Harbour and watched the Jazz Festival. Back home, each year we always try to go to the Jazzfest, but never get around to it. Here it was FREE, that doesn't happen often. It was cool, because people sit around the dock with blankets and wine and watch the bands playing on this stage that's on the water.

Jenny's now gotten settled into Sydney as well and working at a shoe shop. We all can't wait to start traveling up the East coast. Damn work!

Speaking of old friends, I was able to hook up again with Nicklas, my friend from Sweden that I met in Cambodia. Its good to know that the friends I've met around the world are keeping in touch.

Cambodia Update

Just a quick word about this. Laura, my friend that I worked at the orphanage with and who was really dedicated, has kept in touch with me as well. She told me a while ago that the orphanage, after lots and lots of turmoil, has been disbanded. Good news is, most of the children are being re-united with their families (most of the kids' parent(s) are still alive, but had to give the kids to the orphanage due to circumstances). I just hope that all is well. I'm saddened by the fact that I may not see most of them again, when I go back to Phnom Penh, but that's just me being selfish. I still think of them quite often.

D.J.Catering

D.J. = David Jay
J = Jenny
D = Dean
J = Jeremy

Anyway... DJ, is my little 7 month old nephew. Son of my cousin Rowena. He was baptised 4 weeks ago, on the Sunday after Jenny first arrived. Rowena wanted all 3 of us to be at her house at 9am to help out with the Christening. Foolish us went out the night before and didn't get home till 4am. We had to get up at 7:45am! Ouch. Well, we left home late, and didn't get to Rowena's house till about 10:45 because the train system wasn't running and we had to take a bus and a different train. Well, when we got to her house, it turned out she didn't really need us there that early. Anyway, we were all walking to the church and then Rowena's Mother in law drove up and Rowena said, "Oh, instead of going with me to the church can you just go the hall and make sure no one takes anthing." No problem, we don't mind helping out, even though we don't get to see the ceremony.

Next thing we know, the Mother in law starts telling us to cook this and cut that, put chairs here, put this there. Whoa, that came out of no where. We really didn't mind, but we had no idea that we were going to be catering and setting up the reception hall. All 3 of us really enjoy doing it though. It reminded us of planning our friend Lillian's wedding shower.

At first we thought that there was WAY too much food, typical Filippino party. Then when church let out, there was only like 15 people there. Thoughts went through my mind that this was a huge waste of food. Well, I was wrong, there was probably about 100-125 people that came in total. The food was flying off the table and we couldn't keep up! In the end, all mouths were fed and there was enough leftovers for the 3 of us, we didn't have to cook for a week!

My Plans:

After CustomCall, I'll look for work for another 6 weeks. Then the 3 of us are going to travel up the East Coast on a bus tour. Then off to New Zealand for about 2-3 weeks. Then back into Asia. Jenny will depart from Jeremy and I after Thailand, beginnning of November. There J and I will go to Cambodia, Philippines (Christmas with family), Vietnam and Laos. I'll be home in Feb or March. Take care. WRITE ME!!