Going around New Zealand for three months without working puts a dent in your budget to say the least, so I've been looking for work since I've been in Sydney. On Friday, I went to an orientation talk at the Work and Travel Company office, which lasted for four hours and went through a series of topics, from the facilities available to us and working in Australia to tax and beach safety. After that, we all went out for lunch down the road and then I spent much of the afternoon going through various bits of paperwork that needed to be filled in for me to start looking for a job.
On Saturday, I went down to the Work and Travel office early and gave in all my forms to one of the employment advisors. She said that if I wanted retail work of any sort, I would have to go door to door, because shops don't really come to them to look for workers because we're bound by a limit of three months to work for one company. So I spent most of the afternoon going to various shops and enquiring about vacancies. I left my CV with a dozen of them, but the general vibe I got was that no one was really looking to hire because of the time of year.
That evening I went to The Spirit of New Orleans: Jazz in the Domain, a free concert in one of the city's central parks. About 70,000 turned up to see the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, The Dirty Dozen Brass Band and Terrance Simien. There was a great atmosphere and although you couldn't see a lot from where I was, the music was great.
On Sunday I had a day off from worrying about finding a job and went first to the New South Wales Art Gallery. It's got a fairly diverse range of galleries, with European and Australian art, old and new. There's also a exhibition on Pissaro on at the moment, the 'first impressionist', which was interesting although very busy. I had lunch in the cafe there and then continued down to Mrs Macquaries' Point, a great viewpoint over the harbour only sploilt by the overcast sky. I then headed back to the city centre via the Royal Botanical Gardens, which are surprisingly good and full of all sorts of plants and animals you'd never see at home, but I guess that's kind of obvious.
When I got back to the city centre, I got on the monorail for the first time. It's a small circuit, looping to Darling Harbour and back every four minutes or so. It seems more of a novelty than anything, but I guess you've got to do it once. So I got off at Darling Harbour, just to the west of the city centre, where I went to the National Maritime Museum. Like a lot of the museums in Australasia, this one is both excellent and free. One thing I did pay for though, was entry to a replica of the Endeavour, the ship that Captain Cook sailed to New Zealand and Australia (amongst other places) in. It's exactly the same as the original, except this one has a 400bhp engine, something I'm sure Cook would have found useful!
That evening, I went to another free Sydney Festival event, this time in Darling Harbour. The Concert of Fire wasn't as big as the Jazz in the Domain, but it was definitely more spectacular. It was basically a series of percussion pieces interjected with fireworks, a strange but suitable mixture. I also met a girl there called Victoria there, who was also an English backpacker. Like me, she'd been to several of the Sydney Festival events, particularly the free outdoor ones.
On Monday, I got up early and checked out of Base Backpackers and went to the Work and Travel office. There I applied for a resort job that I'd spotted on Saturday. It involves living on an island on the Great Barrier Reef for three months, working as a room attendant for 35-40 hours a week. It would be fantastic if I got it and at the time of writing, I'm waiting for them to call me.
I then got a taxi to the Wood Duck Inn, another hostel I'd read about in the Rough Guide. It was still fairly central, but not as expensive. In fact, I got a two bed dorm for only $20, which is almost unheard of. After dumping my stuff there, I met up with Victoria for lunch and then we went to the Museum of Sydney, which had a special exhibition on Bondi Beach on as well as its permanent ones.
Admittedly, I spent a lot of the day glancing down at my phone to check if I still had signal, just in case the resort company would phone me! I hate having to wait like that, knowing that what you're doing in the next three months is dependant on whether you get a job or not, and that decision is in someone else's hands. Anyway, wish me luck!
