Hello! Just to let you know that Ihave lined up a job at Marks and Spencer (kind of like Myer or DJ’s here) until Xmas and I have booked to fly to Amsterdam onthe 21st December with Easyjet now too so white Christmas here I come.

I have been really worried aabout stuff lately. I went for an interview for a writing job (a pretty dodgy one actually, writing all this content for those viagra, weightloss junk, sex toys…all that crap you get in your SPAM) …theres more to the company than that but its how it makes enough money to stay in business. It wouldnt have been a career move but it would have been more interesting than selling plates in M&S.  I would have had to stay here for probably another 6 months.  But I didnt get it (I actually felt relief, coz I don’t know what I would have done if I had. So lucky I left it to fate…_)

To be honest the idea of staying in London for another 6 months away from family, friends, SUN(!!) justdidn’t really appeal to me. London was always only ever going to be a place to base myself for a few months to wait for Christmas so I could join Hayley and Nat in Masstricht.

So as long as I don’t have a totally evil manager or old, evil colleagues I plan to make the most of my time working here….Well even if it sucks at least I know it’s not forever. i know there was a chance given with money, eventually some friends and a decent job, I may grow to love this place. But frankly where I am now, I don’t want to risk it. As boring as my job at home is, it gives me a sense of security and at least some plan for my future. I want to be an editor one day…..I think at least one more year at McGraw-HIll is going to get my closer to it.

I have wonderful friends at home….I always knew I didn’t need to come here to build a life. When I get home I feel like I can handle anything. In fact I thinkI will look at moving into a sharehouse somewhere.
I am content……

I can start my countdown for home soon too. Just deciding to do Ireland for NYE. Think I might….

Can’t wait to get back for Australian summer!!!!

And nothing has changed. Amazingly I still haven’t lost my marbles. Yep I am still unemployed and Peckham is just as boring as it was when I first arrived.

If I don’t get some decent work in the next week or so that’s it. I am going home.

Radio 1 (on BBC1) is just fucking awesome. They play the best mixture of songs I have ever heard.  Its keeping me sane.  Sometimes they play the most random songs. Someone just called in and requested Afternoon Delight from Anchorman so they played it. Hahaha.

The other day I was so bored I actually watched the same episode of Home and Away twice (they play it in the arvo then repeat it again in the evening) And then I felt like crying for more than one reason….

Mmmm that’s all. I will let you know what the outcome of this situation ends up being.

~Vanessa

xxxxx

Hi there

So right now I am in my room in my new sharehouse in Peckham. I don’t mind living here. The house is very orderly with a cleaning roster and no rowdy sex crazed housemates. I have a nice big room, very reasonable rent and a computer at my leisure,  and the girls who own the house are nice. Hmm but sometimes like now it is so quiet and I am so bored.

So where I’m living. Its not really the most exciting part of London but its not too far from London Bridge in the South-East part of London. There are heaps of buses that go into town all the time. Hmm so yeah lots of black people live around here. I haven’t seen any Aussies or hardly any white Brits. But the shops are heaps cheap for London. And you can get whatever you need – theres a huge supermarket, lots of those small Asian stores that sell cheap fruit and veg, and my housemate told me London’s cheapest cinema. To be honest at the moment thats great for me. I have hardly any money left so I can just stay here and watch tv and cook a cheap meal of spaghetti in the extremely clean kitchen.

But if I don’t find a job soon I may go insane (and be evicted as well)

I do have a few more interviews lined up so I really, really  hope besides the rent situation and for the sake of being able to afford to go out and have a few drinks at the pub and try to create some kind of social life when I do meet people, I hope I get it. I really want to do this Winter Tour in December and if I dont get some stable work it’s not going to happen. In fact if I don’t get work soon I think I will just head back to Australia before Christmas, which would be so disapointing. Have so been looking forward to my first white Christmas with the family. But the Aussie dollar is so bad. If I havent got work by next week I am going to consider it

We shall see….

And British radio is pretty shit. I have been fiddling with the dial trying to pick up a decent station. BBC1 is pretty good but it doesn’t have very good reception here at all. It keeps changing over to this annoying reggae station. All the other stations I have found have been golden oldies and some station where all they played is power ballads. I am serious…

But to finish on a happy note. I have discovered: wait for it…(Luke this will excite you)

Home and Away on Channel 5! And because my housemates are always in their rooms 99 per cent of the time nobody seems to care that I go downstairs and watch it at 6.00pm each night (it is also on at 2.30pm I have recently discovered) and they are right up to the episodes that were on just before I left Australia.The Olympic Cliffhanger Luke!!  That might sound really sad that I am here and just watching Home and Away but it costs nothing and I appreciate it even more than at home if thats possible.  A little of piece of home…

Well this stupid radio station is starting to drive me nuts. I am especially not in the mood for Vanilla Ice tonight.

I am going to flick it off and go downstairs. Shame it is Saturday so no Home and Away on tonight

Wishing you all the best and as much as I miss you all really hoping I get to stay in Europe a bit longer

Love Vanessa

xxxx

Dear friends

I know its been ages since I have managed to write a blog. That’s because I have been with Topdeck for the past 19 days and have barely had time to breathe, let alone blog.

Actually I did get a bit of a break when we were in Pag Island in Croatia. We stayed in a lovely hotel and I actually got a double bed to myself and got to have a bubble bath, which might have been the best bath I have ever had in my life just because I needed it so much.  But seriously if you ever make it to the part of the world do not I repeat go any later than September. Seriously that place was dead. And it was actually cold and raining! It’s meant to be a huge party island between June and August but after that everyone packs up and leaves. Seriously all the stores were even shut and there wasn’t one internet cafe on the island.

We took a boat out to another island called Rab Island. Not a particularly pleasant experience. It was pouring rain, chilly and we were stuck on a boat with these loud, drunken Germans who looked like they had just been let out of jail. Rab island was a nice place though, climbed up another bell tower and got an amazing view of Croatia. Shame about the rain though.

It was also raining when I was in Florence.  Climbed another church tower (I’ve lost count of the amount of bascillas/churches/bell towers I have visited since I have  been in Europe LOL) That one was quite a trip. About 500 stairs. Got to the top and decided to call home because I felt especially lonely that day so I was standing at the top of this tower in the rain. It was as depressing as it sounds.

So I am finally free of the Topdeck bus. I cannot say how happy I am. That sounds terrible but I hated that bus. I have never seen so many amazing sites. (I just loved Italy and can’t wait to go back there for a month sometime in the future!) But being on a bus for 8 to 10 hrs hours a day sometimes with these people was really starting to do my head in. Don’t get me wrong there were some really nice people on the bus but generally the majority of them were idiots and that’s all I am going to say about that.

So I have had many experiences; good and bad, which was wanted to get out of this trip so I am not regretful at all. So far the places I have been to:

Dubai

London/Oxford/Scotland (UK)

Greece (Athens, Mykonos, Paros, Santorini and Ios)

Paris (still my favourite place)

Barcelona (hmm was okay, 4 days was a bit much there)

Nice and Monaco (pretty but extremely expensive and beaches were mediocre in my honest opinion)

Italy (Florence, Orvieto, Rome and Venice) – Fucking amazing, even with the rain in Florence.

Austria (some cave town I can’t remember the name of at the top of my head and Tyrol). Looking forward to hopefully seeing more of Austria in December

Slovenia (Lake Bled and Ljubjana) – really nice part of the world

Prague, Czech republic, which is where I am now.

So I am totally out of money and need to start working asap!! I am back to the UK on Saturday. I think I will spend a week there in London to see if I can find any temp work and a place to live. If not I will have to take the pub job which only pays less than 6 pounds an hour but has very cheap accomodation and provides one meal a day. Hmmm weighing it up.

I have so many stories to tell but not enough time. Thinking of you all

~Vanessa

xxx