from an Internet Cafe in Mildura, Victoria

so it's been a while, and we are in AUSTRALIA! we spent a week in Sydney and now we are in Mildura, Victoria. Pretty much we spent our time in Sydney sleeping, working, and looking for work. Matt found a handy man job helping this guy renovate his house that he worked for for a couple of days while I looked for something more full time. We finally found a place in Mildura that helps people to find jobs in the area. We figured we had nothing to lose and went for it. We arrived in Mildura last Thursday, at about midnight. The lady took us grocery shopping and then told me that I had to be ready for work at 6:10 the next morning. AHHH. It turned out alright though, and the job is pretty good. There is a tea lady that makes tea for everyone during our breaks and the hours are long and the pay is good - i even get overtime. So hopefully I'll rack up some money quick and we will be back to our vacation! I'm currently working in a fruit packing factory. We pack oranges, lemons and avocados. And I get a lot of free fruit which is really awesome. Matt is working on a vineyard that is planting like 2000 acres of new grapes this year. He's basically marking the grid for the new posts. I think its pretty boring, and the guy is talking about them working 12 hour days 7 days a week. Talk about trying to kill yourself! On the other hand, I guess we should be thankful - apparently work is very scarce in Mildura during Sept.

Australia is very beautiful, and SOOOO different than Canada. There is a drought right now and it hasn't rained really since we got here. The air is really dry and when it gets windy there are massive sand storms. Apparently they get so bad that it gets as black as night. Groceries are also really wierd. There is tons of "spreadable" butter, and they don't keep eggs in the fridge section. THey are just on the regular shelves. There is also a lot of milk (long life) that is on the shelf. It's like milk powder, but its liquid. They also don't have frozen concentrated juice. They have cordials - concentrated juice that you mix one part with 4 parts water. It's really awesome and is really cheap. I can't get over the cars driving on the other side of the road either! I'm not looking the wrong way most of the time anymore, but I really have to think hard about which way the cars will be coming from. And I always start to go to the wrong side for the passenger door. Its just weird!

Right now we are living in a "hostel" that is more of a house with about 12 people living in it. It's pretty crummy, but the people are nice and its pretty quick. There are a couple other houses that these people own, but apparently they are party houses and noisy all the time. I'd rather be where we are. We are about an hour walking distance from the centre of town which sucks for shopping and stuff but there is a bus that stops right in front of our house. The people we live with are cool too. There are four Germans (I work with two of them), a guy and girl from Ireland, a guy from France, a Belgian, Matt and I and our friend from Canada Pat (same guy that we planted with and went on the West Coast Trail with). All in all its a pretty good situation - a lot better than we thought it was going to be the first couple of nights there.

Anyways, I'm running out of internet time, tomorrow we are going to try and post some pictures from the WCT and from Australia.