My Life in Words

So this week was an interesting one, and not always in a good way. Firstly, our long awaited 7th secondee (Bart-Jan) finally arrived from the Netherlands on monday night. He fit into the group right away and has been keen to go out and party and do activities. Before he arrived we were all speculating as to what he was going to be like. For some reason every speculation we had turned into into an extreme; for example one guess was that he was going to be a huge accounting nerd who brought the Australian IFRS standards with him on the plane to study. Another guess involved him picking up girls at the airport and bringing them home. Fortunately we were wrong. We all went out on wednesday to Northbridge and went for Mexican food. The food itself was not the best Mexican I have ever had, but the prices were reasonable and it was cheap cocktail night. We stopped at the brass monkey pub down the street for a drink on the way home. Over all a fun night, but nothing crazy. That night I wa...

So two weeks in, I decided to post a few comments about some unusual things here in WA (good and bad). 1. Everyone knows how to spell my name! - Over my 23 years, I have gotten accustomed to people not knowing how to spell or pronounce my name. I am used to being called "sio-bhan" and having to spell it out letter by letter. Here in Perth, however, I have not met anyone yet who does not know the name. Everyone at the office knows it, the guy at a winery where I bought some wine knew it, the lady at the phone company knew it. Its shocking. 2. The taxi drivers are useless - They dont know where anything is, they take forever to show up, they are often rude, they suck. 3. Nothing is open in the evenings - On Fridays, downtown there is now "late night shopping".... the stores stay open until 9pm! Every other day, everything (including grocery stores) is closed closed by 6pm. Banking hours are 10am-4pm. Only recently have stores started opening on Sundays (a...

Week 2 in Perth is now over. I have found that I am getting used to being here. There are still a few things that need to be sorted out, but I am feeling settled; my apartment is feeling more like home now. Work this week was average. I was busy during the days, but I did not have to work late which was nice. I find that I am much more productive here. I dont know anyone, and when I get to work its already 5pm Vancouver time, so I dont have anyone to talk to on sametime. Also, the TV here is rubbish, so I get my internetting done in the evening. I have been working 1/2 in the office this week, and 1/2 in a suburb called Subiaco. I will be out in Subiaco for the next few weeks, and it seems quite nice there so I would like to do a day trip out there on the weekend to check it out. Seems like a very trendy area. It is also where the footy stadium is located. We are going to go to a game, so maybe the day we do that we will spend some time there So this weekend we went down to Mar...

I have been here 5 days now, byt it seems like longer. It seems like I have been away from home for weeks. I guess that is just hte result of a very long day of travel and the persistent jet lag. I am living in an apartment in South Perth with 2 other girls. One is from Calgary and the other is from the UK. Our place is nice and has a gym, pool (unfortinately unheated) and sauna. I have been quite frustrated at times though getting everything organized. We were menatto have a phone hooked up when we arrive, but it wasnt. What should have been an easy fix has turned into a big hassle to try to get the EY housing team in Sydney to get it hooked up for us. Its a freaking phone, why has it taken nearly a week to get it hooked up (its Sunday night, it still isnt done). Our internet we get with our work computers comes with an aircard, but a lot of sites are blocked (like hotmail, and skype - luckily not facebook), so its been really hard to call home. I have a calling card which is super c...

Part 1: Leaving Vancouver It's 10pm and I'm sitting in the maple leaf lounge (thanks to Craig's Air Canada gold status he gets some free lounge passes and was nice enough to give me one). My flight leaves at 11:50pm, so Im killing time. It is with mixed emotions that I am leaving. I know I should be excited; excited to be going somewhere I have never been, excited to meet new people, excited to break the daily routine in Vancouver. But right now I am having a hard time finding that excitement, I'm just full of anxiety. I'm sure once I am there it will come, but right now I've got a 24 hour flight in front of me which i am not looking forward to. Also, saying good bye to Craig at the airport an hour ago, for the next 2 months, was not easy. Finally, I think the fact that I am going there to work (and not on vacation) is making me a little skeptical. I have no idea what i will be working on, what my expectations will be, etc. It's kind of like starting a ne...