My Life in Words

Now that I have been here a few months, I thought I would put together a list of some of the terms and expressions that are very commonly used in Australia, but not at home. There are lots of different slang words that I’ve come across, but the ones listed below are the ones commonly used in everyday conversation. I find myself using some of these expressions more and more. When I do, I feel like a bit of an imposter, but it’s not intentional. When you hear everyone saying the same things all the time, you can’t help but pick it up. Also thought I would share a few “cultural” differences; things that I wouldn’t even think twice about at home, but that are different here. Terms and Expressions 1. “Flick” – As in: to flick an email (instead of “send an email” or “forward an email”). For example: “I’ll flick you the email I got yesterday,” or, “Can you flick me those instructions?” 2. “Mate” – Before I moved here, I thought this was just an Australian stereotype (like the way

Time for another blog post. This time, however, I have some travel stories to discuss that involve something other than mines (although...I do have some of that to talk about too). Trip 4 – Sydney->Tamworth->Gunnedah->Tamworth->Sydney I was up early last Monday to travel again for work; you’ll never guess where I went this time. A coal mine! Surprise surprise. By the time this secondment is over I’m going to be a coal mining expert. We flew into Tamworth on Monday morning, which is about a 45 minute flight from Sydney. It’s north west of Newcastle, but farther north and west than Gloucester (where I was last week). After that, it was supposed to be a 50 minute drive to Gunnedah, but of course nothing is ever easy. There had been heavy rain that weekend and the road had washed out. So we ended up having to take the long way around and drive about 2 hours to get to the client. We were lucky though… the other team of people who were going up to the other mine

I’m now just wrapping up week 3 of 4 consecutive weeks on the road. Last time I wrote, I was home in Sydney for the weekend after a thrilling week in Northern Queensland. Trip 2: Sydney->Brisbane->Sydney I’m getting used to waking up at 5:30am on Monday’s now…. Not cool. Last Monday, I flew up to Brisbane first thing in the morning and was at the client by 8:30am (which is 9:30am Sydney time – they don’t do daylight savings up north which is crazy because it literally gets light out at 4:30am). So at the start of my workday, I had already been awake for 4 hours. Ugh. After Emerald and Tieri, Brisbane was like a holiday. We were in a really nice hotel right on the riverfront, which included an excellent free buffet breakfast. They also gave us all envelopes when we arrived, which turned out to be about 10 drink vouchers (each!) for the hotel bar! I was also pretty happy about the hotel bed; after weeks on an air mattress, a few nights in a huge lush king bed was pretty

So, I’m into month 2 here in Australia and I will be spending a significant amount of it away from home. Over the course of November I am set to visit 4 mine sites and one shared services centre in 5 different towns across 2 states. I’m pretty much going to be away during the week and back in Sydney on the weekends for the next month. While being away from Sydney is not ideal, given that I was finally just getting settled, the experience so far has actually been quite interesting, so I thought I would discuss it. Trip One: Sydney->Brisbane->Emerald->Tieri->Emerald->Sydney My first trip away was one week long; up to Northern Queensland for 5 days for work at 2 coal mines. I left Sydney Sunday evening and arrived up in Brisbane around 9pm. Its a tough trip because to get to the northern mine site you have to get a very very early flight out of Brisbane on Monday morning... which means we had to spend the night at an airport hotel in Brisbane. I was up at the hor

So my first week in Sydney is now over. Tues-Thurs was fairly uneventful. We spent the week in “induction” (aka training) re-learning how to do basic things like send emails and use our computers. It was pretty boring, but I can’t complain about a slack week. On Tuesday night, a few of us new starters and one of my friends went for drinks after work. There are a few people in my starting group that I get on with quiet well, so that’s good. Wednesday night I spent house hunting – I think I saw 5 places in about 2 hours. The housing market is really tough. Some of the places I’ve looked at absolute dives; I’m talking stained carpets, dirty walls, tiny kitchens, etc. The biggest issue with most of the places is the size; the bedrooms in some are the size of a bed. In others, the kitchen is literally a stove and a sink. Some don’t have closets, some don’t have dishwashers, and some say “internal laundry” when they actually mean “there is a place to hook up your own washing mac

Ok. Blog entry number one from Australia. I debated whether I should keep a blog on this trip because it’s not like I’m travelling and doing exciting things. I’m moving for work…. and lets face it, my glamorous life as an auditor does not exactly make for interesting reading. But with that said, I do like to write and I think there will be enough non-work related events to warrant the odd post. I imagine there will a fair bit to write about at first, and as I get settled, there will be less to discuss. I arrived in Sydney on Friday October 7, direct from Vancouver. I can’t say the 15-hour flight bothers me too much…. what does bother me is the Sydney airport. After 15 hours in the air, I do not feel like circling the airport for 45 minutes, nor do I feel like sitting on the plane for 15 minutes after we have landed for “quarantine”, waiting in an hour long customs line or having all my bags sniffed by a dog. Oh well… I made it. The 18-hour time change that comes with the flig

My parents own a condo in Playa Del Carmen, which is about 40 minutes south of Cancun. They've owned it a year now, but due to my other travels, I haven't been able to take advantage until now. So here I am. I originally didn't plan on writing my blog while in Mexico (as I planned on doing a whole lot of nothing this week which does not make for interesting reading), but I've changed my mind. One of the best things about traveling (even if it's just to a touristy area of Mexico) is the interesting people you meet and things you see. So rather than give a day-by-day account, as I have done previously, I decided to just document some 10 of the more interesting observations from my trip. 1. Funny Americans - On my way down to Cancun, I had to connect in Dallas. The guy sitting next to me on the flight from Dallas to Cancun (and his girlfriend next to him) were likely from Dallas; both of them were decked head to toe in Dallas Cowboy's gear. In air, we were

Croatia Day 6: Hvar So once again, in preparation of our next day departure, we had to be up very early in order to get our boat tickets for the next day. This time Emma got up early (hungover) to get them. Such a stupid system. Around noon we made our way to the harbour to try to figure out what to do with ourselves. After having lived the high life for a day on board a yacht, everything else seemed quite dull. We ended up getting a boat to a near by island called Palmizana. We were told that Palmizana had sandy beaches; a rarity in Croatia. Up to this point, all of the "beaches" consisted of rocks. A sandy beach was particularly appealing because of the sea urchins which live on rocks. At the rocky beaches, you had to be very careful, or have special water shoes, as stepping on an urchin would leave you unable to walk properly for a few days. So off to Palmizana it was. The island had a hotel and a number of restaurants. We followed the crowd to the beach but when

Croatia Day 1: Arrival/Split So as I mentioned in my last post, I had a really annoying trip to get to Croatia from Greece. I had to fly to Munich and then double back. In Munich, my one hour flight to Croatia was delayed an hour and a half (so annoying) so I didn't end up landing in Split until 9:30pm. After taking the bus into town, it was 10:30 on Friday night. Now in most cities, this wouldn't be a problem, however Split was different. The hostel that I booked was right in the centre of the old town, which doesn't have street names and does not allow cars (or taxis). On a quiet Sunday morning, it would have been hard to find, but on Friday night with drunk people everywhere it was tough. Add the fact that there was a huge concert going on (so street closures and thousands of extra drunk people) and it was a nightmare. I had directions, but because of the street closures I couldn't follow them. Carrying my huge backpack, I got told to turn back about 5 times

Turkey Day 6: Ephesus/Kusadasi This was our last full day in Turkey.  We had an early start to get to Ephesus, which is one of Turkey's most important archeological sights....it was definitely the most impressive we saw.   A good portion of the city is still in tack, including the theatre, the library, a number of streets and bath houses.  I think the most interesting for me was the public bathroom which was still standing.  The oldschool toilets were beside one another along a bench.  The whole thing was fairly well designed as the room included an open water pipe (in front of the bench toilets) which was used for cleaning ones bum off.  Apparently the latrines were social places; even if you had a toilet at home, you might have a membership to the public toilets as well....I guess so that you could 'shoot the shit' with your friends....literally. After Ephesus we did a stop at a leather factory and store.  Once again I was not enthused, but I ended up buying a fairly

Overall, Turkey was quite beautiful.  The ruins and archeological sites don't compare with Egypt, but the country itself was so much nicer.  I would definitely like to come back and spend more time in Istanbul.  I feel like I didn't get to see enough of the cities themselves.  We saw all of the sights, but I would have liked more time to really get a feel for the country; I feel that we were too rushed and a week just wasn't enough. Days 1 & 2: Istanbul As I mentioned in the last post, I was terribly sick the day I travelled to Istanbul.  I woke up my first morning there and discovered that I was still sick. I spent most of the morning fighting a losing battle.  I guess I was looking pretty pathetic because the hostel staff kept coming and checking on me and they let me check out a few hours late.  So around 1pm, when I had finally composed myself enough to move, I packed up and took a taxi over to the hotel where I was meeting my tour. The hotel was a bit odd....m