Still looking

There is not much happening at the moment. I'm still waiting for an interview with Edge Digital, it should be there next week. The guy who wants to interview me is on holidays now. So we wait… While waiting I've had the time to get to know my fellow long-term stayers a bit better. Some of them are really great, others are well, you know. They're not really my kind of people. Still they're pretty much okay, a lot more interesting than some people back home :) About 2/3 of the guests in the hostel are working, most of them in hospitality or labouring. A couple of them work in a call centre. Not really the job I'm looking for. The other night I was talking about this with Joseph, an American scientist from San Francisco. (Why are the great guys I meet while travelling always US Citizens?) He said he felt like the Mexicans in the USA (= North Africans in Europe). And he is right in a way. Backpackers here are doing the jobs Australians don't want to do. We can find easily a labour job or a job in hospitality or mining. But once you start looking for a job requiring higher skills or a certain amount of knowledge/experience you immediately hit a wall of glass. Joe says the Australians are racists. I don't, I just see the similarity with the market I'm used to work in. I really don't know if I'm willing to wait half a year before I get a job in some kind of IT role. Melbourne really is an expensive city. You can save some money by not going out a lot, but food and accommodation costs me about 250 dollars a week. Another option is travelling in Victoria and drive to Melbourne whenever I'm needed for an interview. Once outside the city, the living costs decrease with about 30%. And it should be easier to find a job in the countryside, but it won't be an IT job. I need to buy me a car. It will cost me 2500 to 3500 dollars; luckily petrol is not that expensive ($ 1.3/l) here. Although Australians are pretty mad because the high petrol prices. The car gives you the possibility to save a lot of money on accommodation once travelling Australia. Driving on the left in a car with the steering wheel on the right is weird in the beginning. The pedals are in the same position, but the gear box on your left is pretty weird. Most Australian cars are automatics which I don't like at all, especially not when driving in mountainous areas. And the indicators have switched places with the wipers which can give you pretty funny situations when making a turn :) I've learned this the hard way travelling with Gertjan, a Belgian PhD student on a research mission. I've met him on Facebook through a mutual friend in Belgium. We rented a car and drove off to Mt. Buller, one of the higher 'peaks' with his 1835m in the Alpine National Park. It was great! Saw my first wallabies and snakes, and about two dozen colourful birds I've never seen before. Trees and plants are also completely different from what I've seen before. Fauna and flora are amazing here. I do like the smell of gum trees, especially when it's really warm outside. It's so refreshing. Check out the pictures here. One other thing I've learned the hard way: incoming police cars can flash you when speeding (I was driving 109 where only 100 was allowed)! Speed limits are lower than in Belgium. 40, 60, 80, 100 is what I've seen so far. Pedestrians and cyclers are not defended by traffic laws. In Australia the car is King of the Road. And I do like driving on dirt roads (unpaved roads, mostly gravel)… So I've started a new search. I had a car in mind, a Ford Falcon Wagon from 1975, but I didn't buy it. It didn't seem very trustworthy to me and there were some minor issues which made it not worth it. Tomorrow I'll meet some Germans to check their car. Might be a good car, and it carries a lot of stuff ! A funny note to end this post. Christmas songs about cold and snow in 30 degrees is so annoying!

posted via: http://www.dew4chter.be/blog