A Little More Work, A Little Less Holiday

A pub in Richmond

Friday marked the conclusion of my first week of my new long-term assignment that will hopefully last me until I'm ready to move up to Sydney. The timing is pretty perfect though since I'm on a contract that expires at the end of April, meaning I would have almost a full six months up in Sydney, which sounds rather ideal to me. With all the people I've met and all the exciting things I've gotten to do, Melbourne has been exceptionally good to me though so I'm in no rush to leave this city.

This past week, I spent my days in a training session with nine others who have also been hired to complete this assignment. Only two people in our group are from Australia and then the rest of them are from the UK, Ireland, France, and New Zealand. My co-workers were relatively outgoing and bubbly, which made it fun to do the million and one icebreakers we did each day to get to know each other and to pass the time. It also helped that our trainer and supervisor were both vibrant and laid back and even took us to a local pub after work on Friday.

Out for Friday night drinks

Most, if not all of them, are pretty avid travelers, which was exciting to learn because well, I love travelers and their stories. Sometimes I feel like backpackers are such a unique breed of people, taking months or even years away from their traditional ways of life to explore the world..... but maybe that's because I'm from America, a place where, unlike Europe and Australia, taking gap years to travel is almost unheard of. I can't count the number of times during the past few months alone that I've been told, "You're from Pennsylvania? We get a lot of Europeans and Canadians doing working holidays down here, but there aren't so many Americans." I don't understand why that's the case though because I couldn't imagine my life without it.