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Hello to all…if there is anyone left reading this!
I am in the comfort of my parents house in Pasadena,Tx after being away for 15 months. My last post mentioned going to Australia to be with Kathryn. It happened and I was there for 10months. We lived in Sydney, NSW in Chinatown, Surry Hills, Newtown, Ulitmo, and Erskinville. After leaving Oz we travelled to Thailand and visited Phuket-Pothong, Ko Samui, Ko Pang Yang, and Bangkok. Next we went to Kat’s homeland of England. We stayed at her parents house in a small seaside town in Northeast Yorkshire called Hornsea.
On September 13th we safely arrived in Houston to be met at the airport by my parents.
In Oz I maintained a full-time part time job as a massage therapist for a company called 3 Minute Angels. We did corporate, pubs, clubs, and festival massages. I did many different labor jobs including unloading 40ft containers, door to door sales for a phone company, laying floor mats in the Darling Harbour Convention Centre, working in a fabric warehouse for 4 months, working in a call centre calling Australians and offering a government funded money saving scheme, and finally I ended up at an envelope printing company called DLT Printing.
The massage work was great beacause the company was well known and they had weekly contracts at many corporate offices/banks, etc. When we would show up the employees would cheer because they were so excited about getting massages. I can’t say I don’t blame them!
While working at the fabric warehouse I met some great people from Brazil, Turkey, Russia, Iraq, and many Aussie locals. All great people. We manufactured curtains, pillow cases, and bed speads all to be shipped to Macau China for a big contract in building a Vegas type gambling city..the first of it’s kind. It located off a pennsula off the outer coast of China. Since China doesn’t allow gambling somehow the laws were ‘tweeked’ for this region to allow for it and to boost the economy.
I left the job in December due to their closing down for 3 weeks during the holiday season, so with the help of Kat I found work with her at a call centre. The company was called Green Homes Express. The government was paying for every house in Australia to have their home evaluated by professional assessors to determine what the homeowners can do around their homes that will ensure saving on their utility bills. It was at no cost to the homeowner and only took about an hour to do the assessment. Many of them qualified for free insulation as well as government rebates on rainwater tanks and solar panellin. We would typically make about 150-200 phone calls a day and sign up between 15-20 on average. It made for long days but the pay was good and I got to work with Kat. We would often eat lunch outside in the lawn and take our time. Our boss was a hyperactive, scatterbrained homosexual who often told us more about his personal life than we wished to hear. He was about 21 or 22 years old and aside from his stress and craziness he was an ok ’boss’. The job lasted until mid-February when management decided to move the call centre jobs to the Phillippeans. Unfortunately for them the govenment cut funding for the project and the whole company shut down. Our last few weeks of working there we moved into an apartment that was literally across the street from the company, so that was great for us as far as savings on public transportation and eating out costs! Our new flat was also next to Sydney park where we would run abotu 3 or 4 times a week. Or sometimes we would grab a beer and take a leisurely walk around the park (In Australia, as long as you have your beer in a small brown bag its legal to drink on the streets!).
After Green Homes closed down Kat was able to find another job quickly at another call centre that was only a 15min walk from our flat. On her first day of work I walked with her and on my way back I randomly walked into a warehouse and asked if they were hiring or needed extra help. I spoke with the owner, Peter, and he said that I can start the following Monday. My job there was a storeman in which I basically got all the jobs ready for shipping by pulling and delivering stock to the workers/machines, preping cargo by shrink wraping on pallets and putting on shipping dock. I organized the stock with an upright forklift. Unfortunately I had a small mis-hap and cause some damage to the bay door and left a significant dent…..so I named the door ‘Texas” so they would remember me, haha!! I enjoyed my job because the warehouse was a 3 min walk across the street and the people I worked with were great. I made a Filipino friend, a Thai friend, as well as more Aussie locals.
Australia was a fantastic journey full of new friends, new food and drinks, and many new experiences. I can honestly say that the Australian people are some of the nicest people I’ve ever been around. They are a happy and friendly bunch. Of course there are some assholes, but the majority are great people.
I would recommend to anyone who has the desire of opportunity to visit Australia, and if possible go for a year or two. The system is set up so that travellers can some and work for a year for two and when you leave the country you can file for your tax money as well as your “401K” money, and leave the country with a good amount of money for you next adventure.
More to come on Thailand and England, but at the moment I need a break from typing! Cheers Mate!
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