Brisbane 23.09.24-10.10.24

23.09.2024 – 27.09.2024:

The last few days have been very good for me. I had nice roommates and we did a lot together. Overall, I've met many nice people in this hostel and had a lot of fun so far. On Tuesday evening, I talked to a guy (Maximus), and after a few minutes, two women from South Korea (Lee and July) joined us, along with my roommate Jack from Taiwan. The two girls and my roommate are really nice, and we all hung out at the hostel, participated in a Mario Kart tournament (I came in second), and then went out for drinks. On Wednesday, I had dinner with a Taiwanese girl (Ann), which was a bit weird since she speaks English even worse than I do. However, I must say that since I've been in Brisbane, I've been speaking a lot of English and I now feel significantly more confident in it. I also understand more and more each day and am getting better at handling all the different accents. Unfortunately, I could only work three times this week because the weather was bad for two days (when it rains, it's too dangerous to work in the trees), and we can't use the loud chainsaws and chipper on Sundays. Working three times is too little for me because I also want to earn some money. However, it should get better in the coming days. Since the beginning of the week, I have received free access to the gym in the hostel, which I am actually using. I hope that in a few weeks my arms and upper body will show the results.

29.09.2024 – 10.10.2024:

On Sunday, I had to check out of the YHA and have since moved to a chill hostel. The new hostel is not as good as the YHA, but significantly better than the one I was at before the YHA. Here, I am currently living in a 2-bed room for just 330 AUD. Thus, it is quite cheap. My current roommate is from Latvia, is 40 years old, and is a really nice guy. He will stay here until Sunday. In the past two weeks, I have worked a lot but have also been out a lot in the evenings. Jamie (the guy I met in Darwin) and I went to watch soccer and often went out for drinks. I spent a few days hanging out with Lee & July (the two Korean women) and actually, we chill together often now. Over the weekend, Jamie and I visited an island called “North Stradbroke Island.” My boss told me it’s beautiful there, and he wasn't lying. The island was much bigger than expected. We had to take a ferry for about 30 minutes and then a bus for about 30 minutes to get to the beach. But finally, we could swim in the sea again. Since Brisbane doesn't have a real beach, one always has to travel a bit further. When we got off the bus, we were surprised by a horde of kangaroos. These kangaroos were the largest I have seen here so far. They were just chilling in normal residential gardens. The last ferry leaves the island at 6:10 PM, so we had to take that one. The ferry ride was really nice because the sun had already set, but the sky still had that beautiful gold/orange color.
Milena and I talked on the phone a few days ago and then actually booked a flight to Bali each. So, I'll see her again on 13.11.2024 <3 I’m really looking forward to seeing her (and of course to Indonesia).
My boss really likes me and offered to introduce me to his best friend, who has a successful accounting firm here in Brisbane. He said that if I work for him, he could give me sponsorship so that I could eventually become an Australian citizen. However, I declined this nice offer because I currently do not intend to change my citizenship. Although the offer was very appealing, I came here to get out of the office and do physical work.

Since I got the job, I walk at least 20,000 steps every day. The work is hard but still very interesting. In the past few days, we have completed many smaller jobs in private gardens. When we sawed a 15-meter high palm tree at the base and it fell to the ground, a possum suddenly ran towards me. At that moment, I was so startled by it running straight at me that I actually screamed like a girl :D My colleagues then had to take a 5-minute break because they found it so funny…
The colleague named Josh has no problem touching anything and sometimes even takes the spiders and insects in his mouth to show that they are not dangerous. I find that very disgusting and would never do it, but he is a very different person from me. His pets are 3 snakes and 5 huge spiders (of which 2 are venomous). His car looks like it has never been washed. The day before yesterday, I had to drive to a job in his car by myself, and there were 2 “problems.” Problem number 1 was that the handbrake light was lit the whole time, even though I obviously released it. I later learned that it’s completely normal. However, problem number 2 was that while driving, I suddenly saw something moving in the corner of my eye behind the passenger seat. Naturally, I wanted to know whether it was just a piece of fabric or a bottle that was moving or whatever. So, I reached over there… poor decision! When I brought my hand back forward, there was a spider on my arm that was as big as my palm. It was hairy and black. I've never shaken my arm so quickly and hard as I did at that moment. Luckily, the spider fell off, but the problem was that for the next few seconds I could only focus on that and not on driving. Immediately, I turned on the hazard lights and pulled over to the left. Fortunately, that disgusting spider stayed on the floor of the passenger seat because if it had crawled further, I would have freaked out. As soon as I came to a stop, I immediately jumped out of the car and thought about what to do. Luckily, there was so much trash (bottles, packaging, bags, etc.) in the car that I quickly took a rotting fry box and was able to catch the spider. Then I tore a piece off a pizza box and slid it underneath so that it couldn't escape safely. For extra safety, I took a bag and put the “box” with the spider in it into the bag and then sealed the bag tightly. After this act, which took nearly 10 minutes, I got back in and drove to the job where Josh was already waiting. I told him the story and said that there was a huge spider in his car that is now trapped in the box and the bag. As it turned out, it was his house spider that he couldn't find when he got home the night before. Thank goodness I didn't just throw it out of the car with the box because otherwise, he would probably have been extremely angry. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture out of excitement, but maybe I’ll ask him if he can send me one, so you can see it too.