Sandwich artist, stowaway, clumsy fool

Well, it's truly amazing what can happen in a week. Since I last wrote I have managed to score a job at the local subway, stay for free as a stowaway in a London hostel, farewell Cameron off on his Contiki and break our hardrive with all of our photos from the trip saved on it.

So if you want the long winded version read on:

will that be a six inch or a footlong?

After doing the same tired old job at Woolies Greystanes for almost six years it was a funny learning curve on Monday to start my new job at Southend Subway. After four days I've pretty much mastered the "art" of "building a sandwich" and eating as many cookies as I can in a shift.

It's a pretty cruisy time - much easier than Woolies - but pays pretty poorly - £5/hour (about AUD 12/hour) and in all honesty if it has done anything it has made me realise how lucky we are in Australia to have unionised workplaces - the workers in retail and fast food in this country have absolutely no rights - it is truly abysmal.

Cassanovas and Days

On Tuesday night Cameron decided to stay in London as he was leaving at 7am Wed morning for his Contiki - so being the helpful seasoned Contiki girl that I am I went into London with him to show him where to go (and get one last smell of the big smoke that is London before I get stuck into my three weeks in little Southend Subway.)

And as usual I've digressed right off track - so - it turned out that the Australian couple that we first met in LA on our first day - and coincidentally shared a hostel room with again in NYC 4 weeks later - were arriving in London on Tuesday aswell.

Phew - are you confused? - I am - and I know what it is that I'm talking about :)

So > Camo, myself, Cookie, Shannon, Alicia and Jacko (the Queenslanders who won the Triple J "beat the drum" competition) all found ourselves in the same city once more - and to celebrate the momentous occasion we decided to be typical antipodeans and find the first thing that reminded us of home - which in this case turned out to be an Australian band playing the opening gig of their European tour - The Cassanovas.

I knew we'd picked a winner when the lead singer walked up to the microphonee wearing a Rodney rude t-shirt. So, very, very many cheap beers later (yes - believe it or not - I drank beer!) and after several trips to the teeny tiny little bathroom that matched the equally tiny venue we all emerged onto the streets of London - our wallets a few £'s lighter - our ears ringing (the sound system was certainly meant for a venue 40 times the size) and me suddenly realising that the last train to Southend had probably left some 2 hours before.

So being the industrious creative girl that I am I went back to the Generator hostel where Cam was staying and produced some ridiculous story that somehow convinced the bouncer that I needed to go up to cam's room even though I wasn't on the bed list - and stayed for free in a very cramped little bunk bed.

[Bargain - always good to save a bit of backpacker cashola where you can ; ) ]

Next morning Cam and I were up bright an early so that he could leave for his Contiki and I could pay £15 (AUD 36) to catch a train back to Southend and return to the daily grind of Subway.

Needless to say it's been humbling to get messages from camo over the last few days as I stand slicing tomatoes and wrapping subs - he's having a wonderful time celebrating his birthday in Paris and next he's off to the French Wine region - honestly it's a tough life for some ; )

4000 photos - gone

Those three words pretty much sum up what happened when I dropped our hard drive. Who knew you could do so much damage so easily? - obviously not me. We've taken the hard drive to a local techie who is trying to salvage our files - but I'm beginning to face the reality that most of my photos from the last few months are never going to see the light of a computer screen again
: (

Anyway that's about all the exciting news for now - oh and did I mention we finally got bank accounts with real debit - or should I say "chip and pin" cards?

I'll write again soon from some new exotic location no doubt - this first week back at work has already got me planning our next adventures to Norway, Malta, GreecEgyptgpt and the Tomatina festival in Spain : )

Lauren
xo

PS. I'm still considering that new career direction - hairdressing - as well as cutting cam's hair again the other day - I also gave Poppa Norm a trim : )

circles...

Well, five $30 train trips to london, 4 banks and another 35 quid later and cam and I are finally on the way to having English bank accounts ... on the way that is, we don't actually have them for sure... yet

Turns out - just trying to sneeze in this country results in everyone assuming you are either a terrorist trying to launder money or - heaven forbid - another Aussie/Kiwi/Safa on a working holiday - without - gasp - a utility bill to prove where you live

As you can tell we've had a pretty interesting week. We've spent most of it walking aimlessly around London with various other just-arrived-Australians trying to find a place to live, searching through garbage outside a pub after a slightly drunk lauren has managed to yet again throw out her dental retainer, and generally (in the words of camo) "chasing our arses" trying to work everything out.

One thing is for sure though - nothing here is simple.

Aparently you need a utility bill to get a bank account, a house in which to have a utility service, a job to get a house, and a bank account to get a job. Which brings us right back to where we started - nowhere.

Anyway, very boring long story short - Cameron will be off to Europe in a few days to live it up on his Contiki and I'll be staying here in Southend (as the plans to move to London with our mates have been destroyed by the red tape that seems to have wrapped itself firmly around every corner of the London real estate market.)

In the meanwhile I spent today job hunting here in Essex and so far I've managed to be rejected from a cleaning job, joined two agencies, been grilled by the local subway owner who is "going to call me in a few days" and applied for a mini-lab position at the local "snappy-snaps" (Unfortunately I can't get a job in my area of expertise as the two local supermakets don't have any positions vacant - shame I really was missing all that scanning and "next pleasing")

But not to worry - I am sure that by the time cam gets back to London in about 3 weeks (and our various visiting mates will begin to arrive) I will have found a job, made bucketloads of pounds and found us a fabulous place to live in an awesome part of Central London (and then maybe a few pigs might start flying daily from Heathrow to Sidney Kingsford Smith and we can all slide down a rainbow with the leprachauns into a pot of gold!)

No but seriously - I am sure it will all work out - even if it means paying copious amounts of money to intermediary organisations (like the thieves who charged us 35 quid for a bank account!) - we will cut through the red tape and living it up in the capital of the Mother Country will truly begin.

So untill I have further adventures to moan about - that's all for now - and stop whinging about the winter weather in Sydney - I've been checking - and it still beats our windy rainy British summer :)
Lauren

sarfend

hello to you all once more

hope everyone got the email about our new UK mobile numbers - and if you were somehow missed out of the mass email then either email me or one of the other million people in sydney who did get the email - that is i suppose if you care :)

anyway that rubbish aside - cam and i are still here in (as the locals call it) "Sarfend" - and we've spent the last two days hunched over our laptop organising, cataloging and resizing about 3000 photos that Camo alone took over the last 6 weeks -(haven't even started mine yet) ... which means, fingers crossed that we may just have a few posted up on the internet very soon :)

[no promises though as we are on holidays - and we can't work too hard ;)]

nothing much has changed since I last wrote - we've just been doing a few things around the place for Camo's grandparents and generally sleeping alot - although things should start to get a bit warmer on the fun-o-meter as two of our new just-met-them-in-NYC-Australian-mates are arriving in London on Sunday and all 4 of us are keen as hell to get a new abode in Central London.

So good news to all of you coming over in the next few months - we should have a couch (or floor) for you to crash on in the next week or so.

I have still yet to go job hunting - but we almost have English bank accounts so we're on the way. Anyways - might be off - camo is cooking me dinner tonight and I can't be late ! :)

Cheers for now - and will someone give me a few updates from home?!?

Lauren xoxo