07. 07.10

HAPPY FORTH OF JULY AMERICA! (even though I am a few days late.)
Well to start the week, on Monday, Dougies had a huge Canada Day celebration. There are a good handful of Canadians backpacking through Australia, and staying at Dougies so why not! Lisa had the day off, which I know she was excited about. I had to work, but John and I celebrated after.
It was our first official Canada Day celebration. Everyone was dressed up, somehow or another, like a Canadian, or representing Canada. Lisa had a Canada shirt on and a took or a beanie. It was maybe 11pm when we got back to Dougies and Lisa was pleasantly drunk. Adam, and Dave were also around, handing us beers. John and I bought Lisa a shot and we all sipped on some Mercury Cider. We got a chance to hang out with the other Irish and Scottish boys. They had us dyeing in laughter all night long with their jokes and sweet accents. John hung out with the boys, and me and Lisa kept sipping our drinks on the other side of the circle.
At one point me and Dave got chatting and started taking pictures. He was loving the camera and told me that you always have to capture times like these. He got everyone together, and started posing us. By the end of the night, he started falling asleep at the table. His head was bobbed down, his eyes closed and his arms folded on the table. At one point, he smacked his head on the table!.I got a picture of the moment. It wasnt until 20 minutes later that he came to me, with his hand on his forehead and said 'Gee Autumn, that really hurt!.'
It was a great Canada Day!
The following week I worked every night and did three split shifts. They have me scheduled for a certain time, but wont let me leave until everything is finished. The stuff to be finished isnt crucial to the running of the restaurant though, and isnt stuff that requires more then one person to complete. So they keep me till 4:30 or 5, when I should have gotten off at 3:30. its a 20 minute walk to Dougies, one way, so by the time I get there I just have to go back again. It sucks.
I have been working really hard, and my feet have been killing me. If I even so much as gently touch my toes to something, like the tent, I am dyeing in pain. At night, when I lay down, my feet are tingling with pain and throb, therefore, I sleep awful. I mean it when I say it.it would feel better if I just cut my feet off! I decided to just buy a more expensive pair of shoes though, and hope that it will help a little.
The good news is that we got an air mattress! We are still so excited about our large 4 person tent, and dont even know how to contain ourselves with our double air mattress now. Its been wonderful, and I still cant thank Sonja enough for the tent!
Unfortunately, I had to work a split shift on the Forth, but John and I, Lisa, Andy and Lucia all stayed after work to splurge on the amazing cocktails at Zinc. We each ordered two, all different, and passed them around so everyone could taste. It was a short lived celebration but it was wonderful.
Andy is a newbie at Zinc. Such a pleasant man from England, and he is also a waiter. His waist is literally the size of my thigh, and he just cracks me up with his accent. He is backpacking with his boyfriend, whom I met one day, when they came into Zinc during the day for some cakes.
Anyways, on the Forth, my left eye was slightly red, and felt irritated, like there was sand in there or something. The next day though, it was full blown red, puffy, and gummy. It wouldnt stop watering and was bothersome to blink. After my day shift, I ran to the pharmacist who told me I had conjunctivitis of the eye, which is just fancy for pink eye. He prescribed me some eye drops and told me to come back in a day if it wasnt getting better.
The pharmacys out here are able to give prescriptions for certain things which is so nice. Im so thankful that I didnt have to spend the money for a Dr!
I told work, but they kept me on anyways. Not like America, where they would most likely wrap you in saran-wrap, lock you in a room and tell you to stay for 72 hours, until you werent contagious anymore. Olivia said that as long as no one licks my eyeball they should be alright. Funny.
The past few weeks at work has been hard work, but gotten much better. Rads and Olivia have both been really nice and really appreciative of my hard work. I have been kicking ass as a waitress, and really appreciate the smiles from Rads-ivia.
I noticed that with Andy, and the most recent addition, Jasmine, that they really yell at everyone for the same thing. Its like they put you through a grinder to make sure your tough enough to work there. I heard Rads say the same thing about being quite, and holding plates properly to Jasmine and Andy. I just laughed. It makes me realize that they are really sweet people, just trying to run a successful business. I am sure it is really hard for them, considering their staff turns over so much. With employing most backpackers; I would get sick of training people over and over again as well. I still dont want to get on their bad sides, but they have good intentions, and really are nice girls.
Today I had a day off, thank goodness! I am soo bumbed that my eye is hurting so badly, but tried to enjoy the break.
John and I had lunch at his work and then took a nap in our nice 4 man tent and on top of our lovely air mattress. He left for work when we woke and I have been spending the rest of the evening on the blogs. I am happy to have them updated finally!
Thanks for being so patient with the updates and so forth. We have been receiving such a large number of hits that we had to expand our bandwidth, and make some other changes. It is such good news, and love knowing you look forward to our posts. Thanks for your support!
We are working on 3 months in Australia, this July, and its crazy that we have been here for so long. The best part is the wildlife, and even though we have been camping, have been seeing plenty of it.
Bandicoots run around everywhere, like rats, even though they are much cuter. Tree frogs are everywhere, and we have been spotting giant, St. Andrew Cross spiders, and run into brush hens almost every day. We found a blue-bottom jelly fish on the beach, hear loons crying at night, and are still perplexed by the variety of cone-shaped, cocoons everywhere. Today, we even saw a cone crawling on the ground at the top was a caterpillar, crawling itself to some point where it could lodge, and eventually turn into a butterfly. When I picked it up, to place it on some plant, I could feel something like a heartbeat, coming from the inside.
The friends and the wildlife have made our extended stay, here in Port Douglas, well worth it.