Adventures of Laurie and Matt

G'day!

Our first month in Brisbane now, have done a lot of sight seeing but only around Brisbane at the moment and have met some really great characters too, especially in the hostel we were staying at.

On our first day it was very hot! Coming from Gatwick wearing jeans, jumpers and anything warm to coming to Brisbane Airport in 38 degree heat wearing that was not such a good idea then, we were very grateful when we finally got to our hostel and was able to change into shorts and t-shirt :D.

We had an explore around the West End the area that we were staying in which is very cultural, jazzy, unsual and unique. We started looking for jobs more or less straight away since hearing off some people that we met at the hostel told us that work was pretty hard to find arond at the moment.
We handed out alot of c.v's out and I mean a lot, we handed loads out at shops in the City and jobs off the internet but did not hear for a long while.

One of Matt's friend from uni is currently living in Brisbane too and met up with him on Saturday night in the city for some drinks and he told us that it is really hard to find work in the city being so competative with backpackers, students and australians and that we were more likely to get work in the suburbs. He has a car too and said he would take us out to where he works and hopefully we could have a better chance of finding work there!

We printed off about 10 c.v's each to take with us to Jindalee to hand out and once we handed them out we hoped for the best. Matt got in very well in one of the shops after the manager there found out that she has the same surname as him. We then went to the next suburb's shopping centre in Mt Ommeney and handed out c.v's there and we also then tried another shopping centre in Indooroopilly too. I applied to this pet shop in Mt Ommeney which I am keeping my fingers crossed for!
Matt had an interview working in an office but was not sure what the job entailed until he got there, which was selling vaccum cleaners and sounded a bit dodgy so turned the job down, he had another interview for working for a company with different charities but it envolved travelling to different cities which was not really our intentions, he then had another interview for working in a finacial company in the city which he got! It is not the most exciting job in the world ringing people all day but it was money and Friday was something to look forward to having dominoes pizza and beer which made me very jealous when I was probably having pasta or noodles at the hostel :(.

A couple of days later Matt had heard from the JeanWest shop in Jindalee which was good news since that was a better preference for him and he then had an interview for, Matt at the minute is getting all the work where as I had heard from nowhere, which was rubbish. Matt's friend from uni, Alex had been doing some labouring on this house and asked Matt if he wanted a day's work as they needed an extra hand which was also the same day as his interview but he said that they did'nt mind if he left for the interview, they were very laid back. So basically Matt had a day's labouring and interview the same day and started his new job in the City the next day, so Matt was being the working man which to be honest I did not mind so much but was getting slightly inpatience in not hearing off any jobs, I think Matt needed to share some of the work he had been getting!

I still have not heard off anywhere yet, so Matt says that my full time job should be looking for a job, which I did when he was at work and had not much to do on my own and stayed down the library for hours, they have free internet so have been taking advantage of it! I rang the pet shop again hoping that I would have a better chance if I aimed for Animal Care jobs instead and rand hoping they may have work going, one of the pet shops I rang said they didn't have anything going at the minute but advised me about another pet shop of theirs in a different shopping centre had were hiring, which by luck was one of the pet shops that I went into and handed my c.v to. I spoke to a girl on the phone there who was very nice and she took my name too tell her manager, I then rang rang a couple days later when she said the manager would be in to make sure she recieved it and asked again to make sure that they were hiring and hopefully I managed to get into her good books since working in a pet shop before too. So I am praying so hard that I will hear off them very soon, I'm getting a little fed up of looking for work and would love to be working somewhere which I liked and new I was good at and had a good knowledge for!

I am being house wife at the moment instead while Matt is working, making sure he has his dinner on the table when he gets home haha, it is never anything much special with my expertise in cooking, it is usually omelettes or pasta with vegetables :D.

We have met some really cool people here and also some strange people too, there are a lot of French people especially in our hostel. And surprise surprise most of the English people we have met are usually just here to drink, but we did meet a really nice English couple who were staying in our room for a couple of night and stayed up late one night drinking wine when they had to be up early to go to Fiji the next day, oopps!

At the moment we have made really good friends with a French couple that we met at 'The Music Kafe' down the road from the hostel where they do free food on a Sunday, which we could not refuse! Then we found out that they were staying at the same hostel as us and from then we have dinner with them nearly every night since at the hostel. They had some French friends coming up from Sydney for the Easter weekend which took them over 14 hours to drive :S, we had a good time with them taking them to places in the West End, but some of them wanted to go into the City and others did not so half of them disappeared to the city while the rest of us stayed to watch a band at 'The Music Kafe', it was a good night, also a good night for seeing some cute possums which I have taken photos of.

Not to far from the hostel about a 20-30 minute walk we can go to the lagoon, or we can catch the hostel bus down to South Bank. The man made beach is so nice and very well kept being free, the whole parkland is amazing where you can also use there BBQ's, we took a picnic down there with our new French friend Anais and Thibault and watched the fruit bats come out at dusk and there were hundreds of them going out to find their meals. We also here them alot near the hostel swimming-pool fighting in the palm trees trying to be the first to get to the fruit.

The weather has been really good here at the moment too, we have had a fair few terencial down pours though and it is cloudy most of the days now since going into Autumn, but it is still very warm. I think the only time we have worn jeans since we arrived was one night when we went out and it was a bit chilly.

Brisane city is very cool, with lots of different shops to go too and restaurants, they have markets on at the weekend next to the very big casino. The city itself is modern but has a fair few historical building which we have visited. Near south bank is apparently the cheapest cinema in Queensland, there is also Brisbane AirShow down at South Bank at the moment where they show films on a big blown up television where you sit outside on deck chairs or towels, but it is a little bit expensive for us.

One day me and Matt also visited a place called Mt Coot-Tha which was amazing for views of the city, there was also some different walks which you could go on. We went on a walk called Aboriginal Art Trail and past a water fall called Slaughter Falls us thinking it was going to be a huge waterfall but when arriving to it, there was only a trickle of water coming from it. But the walk itself was a good hike, not a very good dicisions on wearing sandles for it though. We had seen a lot of spiders and then got told that there are also snakes which hang in the trees and jump onto you, when we were told this I was then very happy once we managed to get out of the forest.

We have found a house share to live in not to far from the city about 10 minutes from it which is good for Matt get to work, it is in a place called Auchenflower. It is very in the bush, so there a lot of spiders maybe we will see a lot of possums visting too at night. It is also very hilly around that area so we will be getting very fit having to walk to the house.

Tonight is our last night in the hostel as we will be moving into our new flat share on Tuesday morning. We have been sitting down by the pool for most of the day and later on the boys are going to play football so Anais and me are going to go an watch. We are also having a BBQ with them tonight so needing to go to the supermarket to prepare!

The barbie was yummy! Looking forward to our next one!
We have moved in our new house share now, really nice big house. We have our own bathroom and large bedroom. It is a bit strange having out own room and bathroom now and not having to share with four other people. The people are cool who live here, they are around the same age as us which is a bonus. There are also 3 pet rats here called Caramel, Snowy and Ninja!

That's rounded up about what we have done, but will have missed our a few things more than likely and if we have will put it in next post,

Will update you guys soon!

Love Laurie and Matt