australia day

so after a long morning and afternoon of working australia day i was able to stroll around and take in the action. turns out (shockingly) that australia day is celebrated almost exactly like the 4th of July - lots of hanging out in the sun/on the beach, BBQs a plenty, almost obnoxious prevalence of the flag.

today on the agenda is packing and starting to clean for my move on saturday! since i didnt want to request days off, i ended up working a double shift on saturday (day im supposed to move) and also working friday morning, so im trying to get as much done ahead of time as possible. since its gotten insanely hot here the past couple weeks im really excited to be moving into a new air conditioned apartment (and still only a couple blocks from work!)

australia day plus a snake scare

Australia Day, 26 January, is the anniversary of the arrival of the First Fleet of 11 convict ships from Great Britain

Australians celebrate by getting the day of work (except for those of us luck enough to be in the hospitality industry, in which case we get holiday pay - 2.5x normal wage!). I will report back after tuesday to let you know how the day goes down!

on another note, i had my first close encounter with an australian venomous creature - a snake (not sure what kind, im going to imagine something incredibly rare and poisonous instead of a garden snake) dropped down from the top of the fence i was sitting against right next to me. screaming ensued. my official welcome to oz!

visits

had a lovely weekend with my friend sarah who i used to work with at abercrombie. she was only in brisbane a couple of days (20 days total in Oz) but we had a blast catching up and seeing the city! we spent time in south bank, cruised on the citycat boats, went to the botanical garden, spent a few hours in the museum (Gallery of Modern Art - GOMA), had a grilled cheese BBQ (sarah is also a vegetarian), went to the lagoon, shopped in the city center, got dinner and saw some live music in the west end, etc etc etc! lots of fun and great to have a visitor as well.

a golden opportunity

last week i had 2 days off in a row (rare treat!) so decided to go to the gold coast to go to the beach and check out the infamous Surfers Paradise. it was really easy to get to from brisie, just took a 1 hour train and then a short bus ride right to the beach - round trip $22. some people from work had suggested renting a car because apparently you can find them for about $25-30 a day, but it was really nice and relaxing to just read and chill for the ride there and back instead of getting lost and worrying about staying on the right (left) side of the road. Surfers Paradise was all that i had heard it would be - flashy and obnoxious, but in a charming way. it was a great beach day as well, 80 degrees but cloudy so it never felt too hot. had a lovely day hanging at the beach and getting ice cream and the such - i will have to make that a frequent day trip!

also on my list is going to the mountains right outside of Brisbane and also the Queensland Botanical Gardens.

i'm really excited that Sarah, my friend from Abercrombie, is coming to visit this weekend! I have requested those days off work and am really excited to run around and do touristy things with her, show her the city, and get to catch up and see a familiar face.

the future

i've been thinking a lot recently on what i am going to do job/career wise when i get back to the states. currently im reading a book by myers-briggs on the impact of personality type (i'm an ENFP) on certain areas of your life such as marriage and career. it has given me a lot of relief to hear the theory that people with my personality type typically dont have a long reaching career, instead, they usually have a string of 'projects', and a series of passions that they delve into excitedly for a period of time before they move onto the next. as someone who has grown up in a society that values the 'career' and 'corporate ladder', this new idea of a still very successful and exciting work life consisting of a series of perhaps unrelated endeavours feels like a breath of fresh air and resonates very strongly within me. it also may help that due to my marvelous upbringing (thanks mom :) i'm good with saving money so that can keep me financially stable as my work and new 'projects' vary.
it is also very helpful to realize that my next job when i return from my year in australia does not have to be my lifelong career - it can just be my next project, just like my job at Abercrombie (an absolutely amazing experience i'm extremely grateful to have had) was just my 'first job out of college' and not 'the rest of my life'
im relieved and excited to think of possibilities and experiences that i can have post-Australia without feeling like i'm spending more years 'putting off the real world' - this can be my real world. who needs to settle or settle down? (not ENFPs, argue Myers-Briggs)

Ideas for future endeavours:
-work on a cruise ship
-be an entrepreneur, start up businesses/ideas and then sell them to let someone else deal with the day to day running of the business
-go to business school (helpful for the above)
-continue to spend a great deal of time travelling
-work again in the fashion industry, perhaps as a consultant or something less structured than what i was doing

the babychino

the 'babychino' is the most ridiculous thing to plague australia since the overpopulation of kangaroos. it consists of a tiny coffee cup filled with milk foam (from making lattes, capachinos, etc) and topped with chocolate powder (also used for making cappachinos) created for babies and little kids who are having coffee with their parents. the logic is somewhat reasonable - kids like getting what their parents are getting and milk topped with chocolate powder is a semi normal thing for a child to be drinking. BUT the whole principle strikes me as pretentious and psychologically unhealthy! making these 2 year old kids mini-cappachinos is too funny to take seriously, plus it is guaranteed to get them to start drinking actual coffee and becoming little caffeine addicts at an unhealthily young age.
to cinch the annoyance at this modern aussie custom, my canadian friend travis made a great analogy to giving your babies non-alcoholic beer so they 'could be like mommy and daddy' and feel all grown up.

i have my fingers crossed that america doesnt pick up on this!

while on the subject of australians and their coffee (as a newly trained barista, thank you very much!), they come up with all these versions of standard coffee drinks and make new words for them that all sound exactly the same to an american ear - see the glossary of coffees i was requested for today at work:

Cappachino - standard coffee drink consisting of 1 shot of espresso, half milk, half foam in a standard coffee mug topped with chocolate powder

Mugachino - same as a cappachino but in a extra large mug with an extra shot

Mochachino - same as a cappachino but with chocolate milk instead of plain

Machiato - an entirely different drink, a shot of expresso topped with a bit of foam

Skinnichino - a capachino made with skim milk

Babychino - we've already been through this one... sigh

Happy New Year!!!

Happy New Year all - its going to be a good one :)

So excited that my baby niece was born and that she and her mom and doing well. Excited that a friend from Abercrombie is visiting me in a couple weeks. Excited to be exactly where I am in location and in life. Very glad to have jumped off the corporate ladder. Grateful to have such wonderful family and friends. Thankful technology allows me to keep up with them even while on the other side of the world.

2010 has some big shoes to fill!