Ryan's Awesome Australian Adventure: Hostel

So after a pretty naff first day I went to the weekly meeting on Tuesday with a less optimistic outlook on the whole enterprise. Standing for 8 hours in the street being constantly refused ‘2 minutes of your time’ is not as much fun as I first thought. So my natural pessimism was seeping into my consciousness, fortunately the team at Public Outreach are a good bunch of guys and girls and all seemed to be really enthusiastic...

Because enthusiasm makes you invincible!

Which is good and slightly annoying at the same time. So we (the new people) introduced ourselves to everybody and were told to play a few team based games (the sort of thing 5 year old kids do in PE, like everybody grabs the hands of two random people and then as a group try to untangle ourselves). Pretty good fun, but I was still dreading going out onto the street as I really needed somebody to sign up, otherwise I probably wouldn't pass my evaluation and I’d be looking for work again.

So out we went, to the corner of George and Liverpool street. Three of us again but a new location, which was so windy I was certain the obese flatulence awareness society were in town. This gave everybody an excuse to not stop, because Aussies are wimps and the slightest breeze makes them think that they should be wearing ski jackets and wooly hats. ‘It’s too cold’, said the Australian in the parker jacket, ‘Aren’t you cold out here?’ asked another weakling. ‘No?’ I thought ‘Are you sure you still have a pulse?’

Pictured: An Australian in 20oC heat

So hours went by, I talked to a few people with little results until out of nowhere my eyes fell onto a girl and by chance her eyes fell onto mine, the bright-eyed blonde 21 year old student, as she wondered through the streets of the city, rambling through the avenues of time, she stopped to talk about Save The Children as my shadow played a bass clarinet.

Um... Where are you going with this, Ryan?

I pitched like Kenny Fucking Powers and knocked her off her feet (although that may have been the wind)

Nope. It was the101MPH charity pitch!

She was convinced and wanted to sign up! Tadaaa! My first sign up! Go me. Best of all the other two got none, so I felt really good about myself that night and had a few beers and played cards with the roomies (plus one Californian guy), a g’day indeed I think you’ll agree.

So with a spring in my step this morning I got the bus over the harbour bridge to Mosman and met Samantha, who kind of reminded me of my cousin Suzanne somehow. Anyway I felt really good about today, however the location was rubbish. Imagine an ordinary highstreet with a row of shops, extend that by a few miles and then copy paste it to the other side of the road, take away the car park and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what it’s like in Mosman. It may have been better had the weather not sucked, and it may have been better if I didn’t see the same 20 people throughout the day. Nobody signed up, but one woman did take an interest as she was writing a book on children’s charities and was wondering who to contact to ask about donating proceeds from her book. There were a lot of dogs and their owners which was nice as there are no dogs in Sydney city centre.

So a merde day and my jeans are wet, good thing I had my waterproof jacket! Now I’m back to how I was after the first day, worrying about whether they’ll actually want to keep me seeing as I didn’t get anyone to sign up today (But neither did Samantha, so it must have been the location).

It's always location location location in the charity game...

So after walking in the pouring rain listening to Whitesnake (My iPod is really awesome sometimes) I got to the hostel and instantly got cheered up by my roommates and another French girl called Lucy (she was out with us in Kings Cross), really good bunch of people, we all love taking the mickey out of our accents (French people pronounce ‘hungry’ like ‘angry’), I just had some camomile tea with the German (Zoe) and the yank (Will, who is leaving in the morning, but is a really nice guy. Definitely the nicest palaeontologist I've ever met!)

Pictured: An artist's impression of a palaeontologist

So, if this job doesn't pan out I will not be down, it has been a great experience but I fear this week is not the best for fundraising and it has dented my chances of passing my evaluation. Still, I may be too pessimistic, which is normal, we’ll see at the end of the week.

Time for bed now though, work again tomorrow, so I’ll say bon nuit!

So here I go, off on the Awesome Australian Adventure that I technically started 2 weeks ago, but now I’m off without a safety net! Checked in to the Elephant Backpackers hostel in Wooloomooloo (pronounced Wool-o-muloo, or ‘Near-Kings-Cross’) today after dropping off Tim at the airport so he could fly back to ‘the Shire’ or ‘Mordor’ or wherever he is living in New Zealand.

So after saying farewell to my auntie and uncle I walked into the building and got my room key (after the usual filling out of forms etc.) and proceeded to make my way up the stairs to the 3^rd floor which helped me lose 2 stone straight away! It was about 3PM so nobody else was in the room, I dumped my stuff in a locker and decided to wonder off and take some snaps of things around the local area (see below, no, not there, I mean below the writing on this page. I know it's a lot of phallic symbols but there isn't much else to photograph in the immediate area) before buying something to cook (I said 'cook').

Came back, ate food, said hello to a few people and went back up to my room in which 2 girls were sitting packing their stuff. After saying hello I determined they were from the north of England and I got a few tips about Cairns (where I will eventually go), apparently the Global is the hostel I should try to get into when I get there. The two northern lasses are going elsewhere in the morning but I still have 3 roommates to meet.
I did notice earlier that there was a balcony outside our room, something that only 3 room have, however there is no handle on the door so I haven’t got a clue how to get out there. There is also a roof terrace which I am yet to go to and a cafe that sells bottles of Tooheys for $2.50.
I have my potential employment decided tomorrow, hopefully I’ll get it so I won’t worry too much about money and I may venture out tomorrow night to sample the local night life.
Oh, the internet isn’t actually free here so I may sneak into a Starbucks before I can update next.

So tomorrow I will be interviewed and either celebrating or commiserating, tune in next time for Ryan’s Awesome Australian Adventure...

See that? There must be so much cool stuff in there that there wasn't even enough room for an awesome T-Rex!

St. Mary's Cathedral.

I'm not sure of the name of this building, but it is a war memorial. I'll have to find out if there was a battle of Wooloomooloo, where Admiral Nelsooon (or was it Woolingtooon) made his name.