London Girl Travelling: "Real" Life

It's been a few weeks since I've written anything. Sorry about that. I'll try not to ramble on for too long.

I've been in my house for over 3 weeks now and I love it. Lovely house with lovely company! I'm having to become an expert ant killer, but I'll elaborate on that in my next blog - too many annoying animals in this country to not write about them.

The first two weeks I lived here were the school holidays, so I had lots of time to chill and explore my local area - by foot! I walked 30 mins to the supermarket. How I miss my little car back home. Luckily, my friend's dad helped me find and check out used cars and I'm the proud owner of a little white car now! So I've been able to drive to the supermarket and do proper food shops not worrying about carrying too much home and I've also been able to drive to the pool and start swimming again. I've joined an outdoor pool, which is heated, but also 50m long!! Tad bit different to the lido at home. I've also started Salsa classes, which is fun - and mainly because I've made quite a few South American friends who can dance Salsa and I really want to be able to do the turns properly! Haha. I've still been going to Spanish conversation nights and I'm continuing to get to know the other people who go. Got a good lil bunch of people from there that I've been spending more time with, so that's nice, however 3 of them are off on new adventures now (farm work/studying elsewhere). I've also been able to catch up with an old friend from work who's from the Gold Coast - it was so lovely seeing him - and I've been able to get to know my housemate a bit better. We went to a place called Eat Street (my kind of place!) and ate and drank lots. I was also lucky enough to have a friend from Melbourne come up and stay with me for a few days, as she was on school holidays too, so I got to play tour guide but also took my first road trip to the beach. I drove us to a beautiful beach town called Coolum. To end the holidays (and the Brisbane Festival) my friend, her husband and I took a picnic to a park by the Story Bridge and enjoyed Riverfire - an afternoon/evening of air displays and fireworks. It was beautiful, there weren't heaps of people and I learnt about a bite relief product called Stingose - haha. I might have got bitten by 3 ants and gone to the first aid tent to get something to relieve the pain - Australian ants hurt!!!

Last week I learnt that Australians get a public holiday for Queenie's birthday. So ridiculous. Sorry people in the UK! What's funnier is that Queensland doesn't even have it in June! We had Monday 2nd October off to celebrate. Why the hell not, hey? I've also got to grips with how supply teaching works over here. Unless booked in advance, I wake up at stupid o'clock in the mornings and sit hopefully waiting for phone calls. I worked in one lovely school not too far from my place and had a great day, I had a meeting at another school about working there a bit anddd I got booked to teach primary French, which was fine, until I looked up the school and learnt they have a bilingual program delivered by French natives!! I then thought I should let them know that I'm not French nor bilingual. I could teach a French lesson but there was no way I could wing maths, history, geography etc in FRENCH! I've also been booked for two and a half days of teaching this week, which means I'll only be waking up waiting for a phone call 1 more day this week (got called in to a school today). Busy week! Almost like I'm back working full time - haha!

Had a lovely chilled Sunday yesterday, but mainly because I was so tired - on Saturday I went to my first ever Oktoberfest here in Brisbane. It's apparently the largest one in Australia. Had a fantastic time with great people. Wore a beautiful dirndl, acquired a beer stein & danced on tables.

But alas, today is Monday and it was another early start. Had a day with an interesting class... Definitely earnt my money today! Hope you're all keeping well back home x