Christmas Shopping in 35 degree weather... WERID

The holiday season is quickly approaching, but I have yet to really realize it! With sunny, hot days and a serious lack of snow it just doesn't feel like christmas! I have been working at APK (Australia Pizza Kitchen) now for 2 weeks and am finally feeling comfortable there... just in time to attempt to quit! Today I had a chat with the owner of a cafe just down the street from where I'm staying. Currently I am walking 1/2 hour to get to work which is NO fun. It cuts down on beach time and after a 6 hour shift running my butt off the last thing I want to do is walk home! There are busses available, but their schedules are pretty limited. SO, i've taken the job at the cafe called The Serious Sausage (too funny, i know. i giggle when i say it). And just came back from attempting to quit at APK. It didn't go well and I've agreed to try to work Saturday, Monday and Tuesday nights. I said I'd see how that went and if it's too much for me and I'm finding it hectic then I'll have to go buy a backbone and really quit. I have training for the Sausage tomorrow and will start there after Sunday. So the job situtation is good. The people at APK are great and I've had no troubles with the cranky boss, although I did witness him make a girl cry. The Sausage has the sweetest little owner who seems very concerned that Marcy and i have the same days off and that i have enough time to enjoy my time in Newcastle. So that's great! the hours are 10:30-3:30 Saturday - Tuesday and 10:30-8:30 the rest of the week. I couldn't ask for a better spot!
Today my mission is to get a bit of Christmas shopping done. Just want to get a few token Aussie things to send back home for the holidays. It still seems surreal to have christmas music and decorations everywhere when the weather is starting to reach 38-40 degrees now. And i have a bit of a dead line... packages have to be sent by the 4th of December. Marcy and i have yet to make any real holiday plans, but the way things seem to work out for us something will fall into place. We want to do a bit of holiday baking (Marcy's YUMMY christmas treat with the crackers and chocolate and sugar) and will spend some time on the beach roasting ourselves instead of a turkey.
Besides the new job, not much is new. Starting to get into a routine of work, beach, eat, sleep, lacking any sort of real excitement. Can't do anything too wild on the budget we have! Tonight Marcy and i hoping to get out and head to a pub to have a drink and listen to a band.
Hope everyone is doing well and getting in the festive spirit.
Good luck on Xmas exams!
Miss you all dearly and think of you several times a day.
xoxoxo

ps

call my cell if you want! free incoming calls
international # is 0011 and country code is 61

"I'm going to make a town and call it Oldcastle"

Hello all!
Still here in Newcastle (Newy as the locals call it). After 2 nights in a hostle we only had to house/room hunt for 1 day! We ran across a crazy lady who had all sorts of rules about living, including not cooking after 9pm and no outgoing phonecalls. Pass. Next stop were 2 students who appologized for "such a mess" when literally there was a text book on a couch and everything else was spotless. NEXT. We lucked out with where we are now. it's in the suburb of newcastle called bar beach (well really "newcastle" is all suburbs) and we're a 2 minute walk from the beach. we share a 3 bedrom flat with 2 guys. Yes, marcy and i are currently sharing a room. but it's because it makes it cheap for us! only $50 a week each plus $10 a week for power and water. we actually are even sharing a bed. it's going so well. tough to imagine, i know, but we really have a little routine figured out and with out much stuff one room is all we need. it's going just great. the roomies are interesting that's for sure. Paul (who has had one hell of a life: lived in new guinea, crisis councelor for prostitues and drug addicts, has blood clots right now, etc) is about 37ish and a bit of an odd duck. i'm not quite sure how to take him sometimes but he's full of information, loves to tell us how to do just about anything (make smoothies, about asutralian history, how to catch and clean prawns) and is very generous offering us lifts anytime we need it. Steve is 28 and i call him princess. he's a nice guy who we hang out with fairly often but he can be a bit touchy. We went out last friday night and marcy and i left him at the bar with is friends and he got mad for leaving. sooo. yea. but over all 2 nice fellas who keep life interesting. Our first day that we moved in they took us around the town to different pubs (it's the thing to do on sunday afternoons around here) and then to a meat raffle (also a common even for folks around here). Yep, a meat raffle. you buy numbers and if your number is drawn you get to pick out an assortment box of meats. we all chipped in and won 2 boxes. we have picutres where you can tell how hard we're laughing at such an idea. we think we'll bring it back to the legions at home and make a fortune.
so after finding a place the next step was finding a job. touched up my resume and hit the pavement. the first day was rather unsuccessful for me, but good for marcy as she landed 3 trials (you actually do a short shift instead of an interview). So i kept at it the next day going a bit further than i'd like (i have to bus or am attempthing to find a 2nd hand bike to get to work). But after dropping off a couple of resumes, i walked out of one restaurant where a man asked me if had just applied there. he then asked me to sit down, proceded to ask me questions about my work history, was a selfproclaimed "jackass who liked to yell" and then told me not to drop off any other resumes because i was hired. it's called APK (Australian Pizza Kitchen). It's pretty fun. A lot more relaxed than what i'm used to - no sections, no formal wine opening, no order to how people are sat. they frequently sit themselves. and it's byo (bring your own anything, wine, beer, coolers, mix. whatever! it's interesting) I've had 2 shifts and the last one was on saturday night so it was CRAZY busy. i made out ok, and head back to work tomorrow for 5 days straight (mix between days and nights). the boss who said he was mean is always around, but i have yet to see him act up. i hope it stayes that way!
the weather has picked up SO much 36 degrees today and i've been at the beach for the last few, enjoying while i can. i even attempted to surf on my own with steves help.
i feel like there's so much more to say, but i've run out of time on the internet. love and miss you all. keep in touch. i'll try to write again soon.
xoxo

PHOTOS!

go to my photo page for pics from surfcamp!!

this one time, at surf camp...

hello again! i'm going to do my best on this post, but it seems that everytime i go to write on this thing i'm pretty pooped and i forget all the good stuff to talk about and what i've even done for that matter!
so, marcy and i killed another 4 days in sydney prior to heading off to surf camp. it involved CRAP weather (very cold and rainy) and a lot of walking around again. we went to olympic park and toured ourselves around there. pretty cool stuff even though it costs about $15-30 to actually tour any of the venues. but we took a few token tourist pics (telstra stadium, the torch, etc.). we had bought a day tripper pass to get around on all public transit ($15 for busses, trains, and ferrys. great deal, since its $6 one way on a ferry) so we took advantage of that took the fairy to a suburb of sydney called manly beach. but first- we had our 1st meat pie! pies are THE thing around here. they're freaking everywhere. but we found out a good spot to get them, walked 15-20 min in the rain to get to it, and it was well worth it! the topped this lil meat pie with the greatest masshed potatoes and heaps of tomato sauce (ketchup). so yummy. i was skeptical on them, but i'm sold now! so we went out to manly after supper, walked around, and came back sitting at the VERY front of the boat in the rain and wind just to get a great view of sydney at night! it paid off i have some good pics that i'll be posting when i get them burn to cd. turns out i forgot my camera cord back at home.
on monday (nov.6) marcy and took of like keen little campers to surf camp! sooooooo much fun! i know how i can be pertty klutzy, so i was a bit weary about the whole ordeal, but it turned out great! the camp was sponsored by rip curl so they provided us with wetsuits and boards for 4 days, we had nice little dorm room cabins and the fed us a ton of pretty decent food. the instructors were all hilarious too. we had a lot of time in the water which was good because i learned that surfing is mostly a LOT of practice once you've got the basics down. we had two 2 hr lessons each day. only 15 min on the beach for each one with instruction. the weather for these 4 days wasn't the greatest either! marcy and i didn't really think it through that we'd be wet most of the time and cold let alone the cloudy, sometimes rainy and always cold nights. one morning we were up and at the beach by 6. it was cold, we were tired, but as corny as it sounds catching a few waves made it worth while. we had a bunch of fun with the 20 other people. killed time at night playing cards, games and watching movies. felt like one happy family by the time we left. i even got a tshirt and a surfing dvd! whoo hooo!
so we were brought back to sydney last night for free pizza and bear to wrap up camp and spent the night at a really cool railway hostle. we headed up to Newcastle today. one of the surf instructors offered us a ride 3/4 of teh way up (he was heading home for teh evening), so we didn't pass up the offer! picking up our luggage from storrage was an advneture! it took two aussies and two canadians to get ourselves 6 blocks over from where we started. they were great about it and it was just a good laugh. it was nice to have a drive up here, mostly cause Dan is really funny, and it beats the train. we caught the train for the rest of the way up to newcastle and have booked ourselves in to a hostle for 2 days while we hit the pavement to find a place to live here until... maybe christmas? and then the hunt for a job continues. so far, from what we've explored it's a great spot. seems to be the size of fredericton, it's a uni town, with great beaches REALLY close. going to keep up on the surfing.
well it's been a long day and i'm pooped so that's all for now. i'll write again soon when i figure out more about what newcastle is all about. thanks my loves for your emails! it's SO great to hear from you so keep it up!
as always i'm thinking of you all and miss you lots!xoxoox

OH! most importantly i have 7 minutes to see if i can post my surfing pics on the photo page. so try to check it out.

and we're walking, walking.....

helloooooooo everybody!! time for a quickie post!
q: what have marcy and i been doing for 2 full days?
a: WALKING
i swear, even waitressing, i have never walked so much in 2 days! we've seen the oprah house and harbour bridge a couple of times each, spent time in a ritzy area called the rocks, walked around darling harbour (this BEAUTIFUL area that is yep, you guessed it, at the harbour with all sorts of cafes, etc), when to the aquarium, went to kings cross (another area of the city about a 20 min walk from where we mainly are) and walked up and down george st. (the main drag) a bizillion times to the iep office and to get super cheap sushi. we're doing well budgeting. our trip to the aquarium was free, we use free internet at the iep office most of the time, a full meal of sushi for the 2 of us is only $4 each! gotta love living next to china town. which we also explored thuroughly.
lets get some important things out of the way now. as far as i can tell, the toilets DONT' really flush the other way. the seem to just kind of gush straight. although i've really only used public-industrial type of toilets, so this may change after i've used a real on. but it's weird because the have 2 flush options: 1/2 and full. they're real water savers these aussies are!
marcy and i had origionally planned on heading up north 3 hours to newcastle (because it's a smaller area where we hope to meet more people and get decent jobs and enjoy the wonderful beaches up there as well as save some money- sydney is expensive!)on thrusday, but there was a change of plans. we're going to surf camp on monday! 4 days including 8 lessons, all meals, accomodation, gear, transport and a tshirt for a great deal. the group is about 22 and it's just a few hours south of sydney. a good beginner beach where the waves aren't huge and the water is shallow. this way we'll know how to surf for the rest of our trip! hopefully anyway! because of that we've stayed 4 extra days in sydney and are being tourists. the next 2 days include going to olympic park, taking a ferry to manly beach to spend teh day and catch the great view of sydney at night when we come back on the ferry and go to bondi beach for a day.
last night we went for pub night out with the iep people. we weren't expecting to recoginize anyone, but we did! and even so it was located under a hostle so pertty much everyone was a backpacker and very chatty. had SO much fun which translates into being useless today! didn't do much, but it's raining so it makes it a bit more acceptable! i tried "hungry jacks" the aussie version of burger king. pretty good stuff. but that may have been influenced by the type of appetite i had!
i think of you all often and miss you all! again, i DO promise to send off some more personal emails a bit later on when we're more settled.
hope all is well at home and hope to hear from you guys soon! i miss knowing what's going on.
ps- marcy's bank has a dragon logo :)
xoxo
shan
chris- i'm going to try to txt you. i have a lot of free ones
pps- i have a cell now 04-1126-9105 free in coming calls