We get into the swing of things pretty quickly in Oz. Within 4 weeks of arriving, we've explored the city, found a flat, started working, AND learned the lingo. For the last one, there's a simple tip: add an 'o' to the end of pretty much any word. e.g. Bottle shop becomes Bottle-o; Relative becomes Rello; and of course Richard becomes Dicko. Easy.
Our new flat is a big 'ole apartment in the sky. It's in Southbank, just a walk across the river into the city, and it has great views. How can we afford to live here without having worked for nine months you ask? Well, the flat comes complete with a Rachel, our new Scottish flatmate who is pretty cool - and believe me, it was hard work to find a cool flatmate. There's a lot of weirdos here!
Jobs were a bit harder to come by...Rich started off selling EFTPOS machines, walking the streets from business to business, trying to get owners to buy the little machines customers use to pay on card. Thankfully this commission-only job lasted just a couple of weeks. I too started in a commission-only role, phoning businesses and asking them to buy ad space in a charitable magazine. I managed two days.
Next, I interviewed for a real paying job and found that they were looking for more people and they liked to hire backpackers. Sweet! Rich was interviewed the next day. Not surprisingly, we both got the job, and after traveling together for the last 10 months, we end up working in the same company...sitting next to each other! People had better want to buy these stupid solar panels we're touting!
