Back to work

It's great to be back in the good old work routine. I started a new job on Monday the 13th and I have to say, the first week just flew. I was a bit worried I wouldn't be able to pick up on things easy enough (did not even know what the job was specifically about!) but there was no reason for that at all. Yes, there are things that I would not know, naturally, due to the nature of the business and its customers but otherwise, everything else makes sense and there is nothing complex about it. I am basically looking at old debts and trying to reconcile past payments and chase non payments on customer accounts. Kind of AR/credit role. Nothing too complicated and I feel like I could do much more already! At some stage I even felt like I knew more than the lady who's training me. She has more insight into specific accounts but I tell ya I beat everyone with SAP knowledge by far. Very proud of myself! Even showed her a few tricks how to do stuff more easily.
Everything is so messed up and there are a lot of changes happening in the organisation and it appears that all the contractors (that's what we are called) are reluctant to change. I guess they are stuck in their old habits and already got used to doing things in a specific way. The lady who trains me is a bit OCD - she doesn't seem to like anyone telling her what to do, nor touching her mouse or her phone or any of her stuff. Yeah, I noticed how she compulsively washes her hands in the toilet and constantly rubs her hands with sanitizer. Kind of funny how she won't let anyone touch her PC, even when something needs to be shown. Marju, she looks like your mum and she is pretty much same age too (exclude the ocd part though :))
Nevertheless, I am happy enough in my easy job. Now, I have to say it again. There are a lot of older people in the office again. Where the hell are all the young ones? Last office job in Melbourne was the same. Where are they all hiding? There are a good few Irish working with us - good old Dublin and Kerry accent. So funny to hear it all the way in Australia. My boss was laughing saying I am the Estonian with an Irish accent. Apparently, I sound Irish. I disagree.
I am on the apartment hunt again and starting to seriously consider renting a bed in a twin room in CBD (central business district, city centre) because it is so much cheaper. I don't really fancy paying almost half of my wages into weekly rent. Kind of deceives the purpose of saving. I'd rather save the money for travelling and if I find a nice apartment with a nice roommate then it can't be all that bad, can it? The rent usually for a double room is approx 300 AUD per week, some of them charge bills extra, some of them don't. The rent for a bed in a twin room could be somewhere between 150-180, bills included. Plus I have to pay for public transport to get to work unless I find a room with a walking distance to work. Highly unlikely! I know I said to myself I would never share a room but that seems to be the only option for now, unfortunately.

2013 NYE

So I've been in Sydney for a month now and everything has worked out very well. The idea initially was to try to get a job before Christmas which sort of worked out but the start date wasn't going to be before 13th of January. At least I got peace of mind that I was going to have a job once 2014 arrived!
I had decided not to stay in Sydney for NYE but agreed for a fun 5 nights camping trip with my Aussie friend Rach in Byron Bay. I flew into Gold Coast on the 28th and waited for Rach to pick me up from the airport as she was driving from Noosa which is North fo Gold Coast. Byron Bay would be around 50km South from Gold Coast. I didn't have to wait for long until the blondie arrived in her blonde ute  with all the camping gear with her. Fair play, I wouldn't have thought of all the things we were going to need!
I hadn't seen her since the end of October when I finished up my farm work in the outback, so it was great to be reunited and gossip about everything and everyone again. Had to catch up on all the chick news!
As soon as we arrived on our camp site we had to decide where to camp. So many options! We ended up picking a quiet corner and only days later realised we were in the family section and away from all the young party animals. Not sure if it was good or bad choice? We did not miss out on any fun though! Setting up the tent was not difficult but as you can expect we had to read the manual and decide which direction to face the "door". Obviously, two blondes had thought they knew where the "door" was, soon realising we were soooo wrong. Ah well, had to undo the pegs and move the tent. Glad there weren't any males watching and laughing at us! Out tent was like a mansion - not even sure how many people it was for but we could easily stand up in it and it looked like it had two bedrooms, so I guess it would easily fit six people. What a luxury to have it for two of us only.
As we arrived on Saturday, it was definite that we were going out in the evening so we grabbed a few drinks & Kenrol cocktails before heading into town to check out the local bars. That night was particularly busy and we ended up queuing for ages to get into a shit night club (Cheeky Monkeys), which at the time I must admit looked appealing. I think alcohol had something to do with it? We had great fun. Ended up going for a swim at maybe 3-4am after the party with some young Aussie boys and spent the night at their camp site because ours was way too far away to walk back home. After a refreshing shower we headed to bed and had a few hours  sleep before it got way too hot to sleep. The boys were kind enough to drive us back to our camp site in the morning. They were from Canberra. Love meeting the locals! :)
Since we had a long night that night, we decided to spend the morning on the beach, half asleep, and take it easy for the rest of the day. The whole day seemed to pass by in slow motion. Didn't go out that night - decided to spare ourselves for the following two nights.
Since it was the 30th and almost the last day of 2013, we couldn't resist but go and check out the town again. Mad busy again. Queued for Cheeky Monkeys for 40 mins again and just before paying entry decided to go to another place called The Beach Hotel. That place was a bit more upmarket. Could tell by the crowd and price of drinks. Plus it was close to the beach with an outdoor beer garden. Ended up spending some time there. As it was Monday night, the party finished at around 1am. But wait, we did not feel like going home, so ended up going to a billion star beach house with another bunch of Aussies. It was about a 500m walk along the beach and some steep climb up the rocks but that place was amazing! Had a few drinks there and danced to some good music and left probably around 4.30am. Great times again! The blokes were really nice to us and did not attempt any sleazy moves either. Just a lovely crowd. They were from Melbourne as far as I can remember. They said the house belonged to them but we didn't believe it. We just thought they may have rented it. I guess only they can tell the truth. They invited us over for drinks on the 31st but we had other plans already, so no more free drink haha. Maybe we should have gone for it since 31st itself wasn't that much fun. We weren't too bothered about it either as two previous nights had lived up to the standard and exceeded our expectations of fun :)
1st of Jan was probably the most chilled out day we'd had. Great day for sunbaking, couple of dips in the water, couple or more of 11am ciders in the Beach Hotel, a bit of a nap in the park (must have got drunk..).
That day felt great, I was in paradise again! Couldn't ask for a better start to 2014.
Since we were leaving on the 2nd, we decided to head out for a few drinks in the evening. Again, to the good old Beach Hotel. Picked ourselves a table, had a few drinks until some weirdos came up to us for a chat. Serious dudes - a 45year-old guy and some younger guy who would have been a cross between Middle Eastern and NZ. The 45yo Swedish lookalike with dyed blonde hair and skin tight "Sverige" t-shirt immediately considered me Swedish and thought it wouldn't do harm to ask me if I wanted to be his fourth current wife? He wanted to recruit me into his harem. Apparently, he needed someone to do his gardening for him. I might even get promoted to become a housekeeper, chef or even into the bedroom.What a great offer. I refused politely. He then proceeded to label me as high maintenance, difficult, and spoiled by daddy. Turns out he is a great people profiler and his friend confirmed it because he is such an excellent people reader. I was flattered to hear he could tell so much about me in 15 minutes of conversation. There weren't only two of them, there were about four more of them friends - all seemed to come from different walks of life and they were from different parts of Australia. It did not make sense. Rach and I thought they might be part of some weird cult. Couldn't figure out what their common interest would have been. One of them introduced himself as being gay and single. He did not even mention his name. Instead, he was keen on convincing me I would never pass IELTS language test (which I am considering taking and I am aiming for score 8.. well in reality I would only need a 7 but better safe than sorry!) and that he has friends who have taken the test numerous times and have not passed. Strange that he could tell what my academic abilities were after ten minutes of conversation.
We were pretty keen to get rid of them. Luckily, after a while, they realised our conversations weren't actually getting anywhere, so they left. Oh, and when I took out my phone to send a text message, one of them said I wouldn't do it if I were you. There are no mobile phones allowed after 11pm!? He said something bad would happen to me. I asked what he was going to do if I used it. He said he wouldn't do anything. CREEPY!!! That was the fun night we had that night. Did not miss out on anything, for sure. Saw a lot of drug infused people on the dance floor and thought of the irony of having a high class private rehab in Byron and then seeing all these young people on drugs. Two different worlds out there.
Almost forgot to tell all about Claudio!! He is a masseuse in some holistic healing / massage place. Rach and I both got ourselves a well deserved massage. I was lucky enough to get a 50year-old Italian-Belgian male who was keen on having a peek at my boobs. At that time I didn't really care and thought I'd let him have a good day and have a look at a good set of boobs haha. I asked him if he had ever had any other Estonian customers. He said he had a Swedish girl once but she went back to Sweden and then he had some other girl from South America I think but these relationships didn't last and that he had never tried an Estonian before. Wtf? I asked him about customers not whether he had had sex with an Estonian before!! He was clearly suggesting we wouldn't oppose if I offered myself to him. So funny.