We made it to the airport and checked infor our 1 hour flight to Brisbane. We had decided that we would try and find work here - our friend Ryan from China was living here and working and it was warmer and slightly cheaper than Sydney (although we both loved Sydney and want to go back!) We landed and got a taxi to the Bunk hostel. It was 25 dollars a night for a 20 bed dorm!!!!!! We have been used to paying 15 dollars a night in Bali for a double room with a pool etc or 7 dollars a night in Thailand for a bungalow so a 20 bed dorm is a bit of a step down...! Its so hard to sleep or lie in because no one tries to be quiet and there is no where to unpack your bag, we wanted to go and meet up with Ryan and he said to meet him on Caxton St. We were looking for a while and then realised that we had got confused! We were staying in 'The Valley' (said with welsh accent) and Ryan was in the city centre. Apparently the Valley is the clubbing and bar district! So we checked out the next day and got ripped off in a cab - he had to drive 10 dollars over the bridge to turn around... (he did actually have to do that but 10 dollars for nothing!?) We took a look at Ryan's hostel the YHA - Its probably the best facilities and got a nice restuarant but the wifi is 8 dollars a day!!! So we looked at the others all down the same street and checked into City Backpackers - this time a 6 bed dorm - so us 4 and 2 Italiano guys who are really funny - they have been living there for 3 months and work as chefs!

The hostel is really cool - you can do some cleaning each day if you dont want to pay for your bed cos were paying 175 dollars a week each, so may do that once all settled. The wi-fi is free in the kitchen area and we have a pool which is nice - you can see through to the pool from behind the kitchen so downstairs there is a restuarant and behind the chefs you can see the pool - it's all see through! Then we have a laundry room 4 aud for the washer 4 aud for the dryer...! We have a movie room which plays all sorts and outdoor eating area which looks out right over the city! It's really cool. There are always cash in hand jobs going as well, so the day we checked in Lauren and I were offered a monotomous poster sticking job for 15 aud per hour cash in hand so we said yeah!

That night we went to Ryan's hostel next door for Poker! There is a tournament every Wed and 24 players. I came 4th!!! Ryan had taught me well! There was this really annoying guy who kept irritating everyone with how professional we were supposed to be playing! - Every one was trying to kick him out but he won in the end - a buy one get one free sky dive - and Ryan came 2nd! The annoying guy - George, was leaving the next day so they swapped prizes - Ryan eventually said he weanted to do it with one of his friends who wasn't here at the moment and that Rob and I should do it?! WHAAAAAAAAT - I never even wanted to do skydiving!!! Rob really wanted to do it so we thought for BOGOF we better give it a go... :/ we booked it for the Monday... That night we also had Christmas dinner because it was Christmas in July over here on the 25th July (their winter) so had all the trimmings lol.

Lauren and I went to this warehouse - got picked up at 7 in the morning and got introduced to this man who was obviously on a power trip - kept saying he could 'make us cry' and we weren't allowed to talk. There were 2 other girls - Mel and Kate too. Kate was chatting and talking and laughing all day and being cheeky and not taking his advice hahah. He was getting so wound up with her but she was hilarious! Kept winding him up and then they eneded up having a love hate relationship. We basically had to stick sticky tape to a poster and then one of us had to stick the two sheets together - for GAMING STORES around the city (390) It was really hard on the back but we did it and then they told us we had to get the train home! Cheeeek! Lauren said she was defo not coming back the next day but the rest of us said we would. So at 6am the next day Mel and Kate and I walked to the train station to get there and it was the hardest day of all. Kate couldnt really be bothered so Mel and I did most of the hard work - we had to pick up 7 different posters from the floor they were about the size of a small door and then put them on a table and roll them up perfectly and put them into tubes and stick labels on the tubes etc. We worked out we had done 1800 squats all day each! But that was 300 aud for 2 days work which Rob and I shared :)

Rob had been applying for jobs all day and had a few interviews lined up - so funny because Nick couldn't be bothered to write his CV (like us southern pansies 'up north we just shake hands over a pint and you got the job!') hahah Lauren was getting so wound up because he was not bothered about getting a job and instead signed up to a gym and boought new trainers! Rob went and bought a pair of shoes, trousers, shirt and tie and went for his 2 interviews but they were all sales and a bit weird - like selling car wax in car parks etc so he applied for lots of Bar jobs too. We spoent the next couple of days going into Southbank (the nice area with a fake beach and lots of bars and restuarants) and the main town to hand out CVs and buy some warmer clothes :/

I got a call from a pub who wanted me to go in for a trial shift so was really excited - although we were contemplating flying to Cairns to do the farm work. If we do 3 months farming we can have another year visa to use whenever - the pay is so good out here its worth having...! So we asked around and there was one hostel called Banana Barracks where you pick bananas obviously and they had work, although she said she only wanted boys. We looked at flights and was going to be about 150 aud... then we spoke to Mel who had rang and she said they told her not to bother. So we decided we are going to leave it until Jan when we come back out to do the farming. We were given a really good hostel (some hostels are horrendous... really bad reviews about having to pay for the dorm and not gettingf work etc) but this one in Adelaide was really good and ligit. It's grape picking for the Vineyards. A woman in Sydney had told us about it too so I emailed them and they replied straight away saying Jan is best to come adn to keep an eye on the website!

I went in for the trial shift and it's this really posh Tapas place! Lots of cool people working there and its 20 dollars an hour! Rob had an interesting story - he rang up and said he had handed his CV into the one next door (he had got confuised and hadnt actually ever handed it in!) They told him to come in and then that day the manager said Yeah come back for a trial tonight! So he landed himself a job in the restuarant right next door! It's not even in the Southbank or City it's right over the road! :) We have our first official shifts tonight at 6.30...!

In the meanitime I got offered a cash in hand job with Lauren working for a sex exhibition on a stand called Little Hussey... won't go into too much detail! 17 dollars an hour to sell stuff. I told them I wasn't going to go back as had this job but Lauren went back for another days work!

We played Poker again with Ryan and won a pub quiz and got 75 dollars! So impressed with ourselves!

We really like it here in Brissy and it's cvoll having Ryan next door - lots going on, just got to stick to our jobs and make some money! :)

Oh - The Skydive! We got picked up at 550 am.... I had actually got up at 4am and tried to wake Nick up and begged himn to take it off my hands, but he said he was going to disown me for waking him up 'not once, not twice, but thrice!' in his words... so I ended up having to do it! We got the mini bus with another girl and made our 3 hour jounrey to beautiful byron bay! There were 7 of us in the end but only 3 oif us were doing the 9,000ft jump - (the other girl had won it too in a kareoke!) So when we checked int he girl kept trying to upsell us to the 14,000 and we said NO its already alot of money even with the offer and would rather pay for the photos! So we didnt pay the extra 85 dollars for the 14,000 - it turned out we went to 14 anyways! So I would have been really annoyed if we had actually paid for it. We assummed the divers would always want to do 14 not 9 and out of 7 we were only 3 doing 9000. The plane ride up was awful such a tiny plane! We were all straoppoed to our jumpers!...:/ I didnt feel too tight at first but then he strapped us up, Rob's guy was cool too! I went 2nd after this Irish girl and was absolutely freaking out looking down at the sky!... They made us sit on the edge and tuck our feet under the plane, then we fell and hearts into the mouth! We fell upside dopwn so I could still see the plane but then it was OK because it felt like we were falling for ages really steadily! Then when we got a tap onthe shoulders we had to open our arms, the worst part was when we went into the parachute he wanted to losen our straps to make us more comfortable... i thought I was going to fall out when he first losened it! Actually the worst part was when we were in the van and signing all these forms saying 'There is an element of luck to parachuting' ;You are aware that accidents can and often do happen - loss of limbs, paralysing etc.' Was so scary! Rob absolutely loved it and his guy let him steer the parachute! It was really good and after we got to go to Byron for a few hours to look around and then back to Brissy!

Hope all is well at home and the olympics are going good! Hope the bike race was good!! Did you see any of it?

Hi to everyone, missing you all and look forward to skyping on the weekend! :) xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx