Can’t sleep…too anxious. I wake at 5:30 and prepare my breakfast. My legs are the most sore they have ever been in a long time and I have to bike to my meeting. FUCK! This time I know how to get to work and it should take me less time than before. The sun is beaming on my skin as I make my make to the yard where I will start work shortly. I go to Eastgardens mall before my meeting and grab a cappuccino as well as a grapefruit, so that I don’t get too hungry during the meeting. The fruit in this country is bigger than I remember it being back home in Toronto, in fact most things are bigger in Australia. Being isolated from over 100 000 years has definitely made the vegetation evolve in a unique manner.
After my breakfast, or brekky as these Aussies say, I’m headed back at the City Sightseeing yard. I see the same mechanic Dale, who I met last time briefly when talking to Miles and he gets Noelyne. Soon enough out comes this small, short gray haired, fifty-something lady, with fingernails that have recently been painted in a red and black Chinese style. It doesn’t really match the rest of her gear though, as she is rocking a T-shirt and jeans with no make-up. Noelyne is very friendly and seems to have a decent sense of humour. She curiously asks me, “What’s the difference between an American and a Canadian?” I bust out another gem, “Canada is the country ABOVE the United States.” She laughs and we go upstairs to discuss work.
“Have you ever done sales before?” I let her know that I have the same exact job in Toronto. A stack of forms is now placed in front of me and I begin to sign a lot of different things concerning work as she explains them to me. “Fill this one out with your banking information and passport number. This is about how you won’t harass people by handing stuff out or approaching tourists. This one means you won’t steal from us or lose company property. This one is blah blah. This one means you understand where the fire exits are in case of an emergency. Exits are here and here. This one says you have met with the fire marshal...HELLO, I’M THE FIRE MARSHAL!!! Let me see your VISA......umm…complies with the…valid for 6 months……apply for a second…under the…… great. Do you have a tax file number?”
“No.”
“Shit. You must get a tax file number asap otherwise I have to tax you as a non-citizen at the highest rate. That’s why I hate when Miles meets with people, he really should have told you. Oh, you need a uniform, see those pictures up there? Those are Miles’ kids, see those other two? That’s me and my sister. I was a cute kid…what happened? These are the machines we use. You can sell tickets for the bus, either 24 or 48 hour ones as well as attraction tickets for the Aquarium, Wildlife World, Sydney tower, Monorail, the Manly Ferry and Whale watching. You can also sell tickets for the Blue Mountain attractions like the Lyrebirds, the tram and the bus up there. This button allows you to print tickets for the pre-paid vouchers. You have a passport photo? “
“No.”
“Bring me one and I will give you an ID card that gets you into all of these for free. When you see the purple stripe, replace the paper immediately otherwise I’ll smack you for misprinting a ticket. You can print tickets using the issue button. It is a touch screen, so use a pen and not you fingers as that will cause a misprint…and I will smack you. Under the functions menu you will see that it has many options: New sale, annul ticket, report, lock terminal, battery level and end of shift. Lock the terminal when not in use or it will spew out tickets and you will have to annul them, and if that happens I will smack you. You can print as many reports as you want, but only do one end of shift. Now I want you to print out an adult ticket.” I do as she says. “Good! Now one concession and three kids’ tickets.” Again I do it. “Excellent! Two backpacker 48 hour pre-paid tickets and a family pass.” I print the tickets. “What’s the total amount in sales thus far?” I go to the menu screen and print out a report.
“205 dollars, plus two 48 hour pre-paid.”
“GOOD! Now annul them all.” I go to the annul option screen and proceed to annul all the tickets. “Now print your end of shift.” I print the end of shift report that now reads $0. “You’re not shy are you?”
“No.”
“Come ere’, come ere’! What size are you?”
“Small.”
“You’re probably used to American sizes… and they are fat. These are Chinese and small as hell. You will probably be medium or large. Try on this medium shirt and vest. What size pants do you wear?”
“32X28.”
“In metric, not that American bullshit. You look like an 82. Here try these…good I will have to hem them for you. Here…three shirts, two pairs of pants, one hat, one vest, a tie and a pair of epaulets. What do you usually wear in Toronto?”
“Golf shirts.”
“See I want that too but Miles wants these uniforms. Make sure you wear your hat or you will die from the heat. The Australian sun is deadly and I don’t want you to be the first Canadian to get skin cancer and die from it. Follow me downstairs.” I follow. This is your locker and this is your drawer. Store whatever you want in your locker and leave your keys and forms in the drawer. Makes it a lot easier to find your stuff at the end of the night when you are tired. This is the schedule and you are number 12, the old 12 was great so you are filling some tough shoes. Alright, so on Saturday you have to be here at 7:40AM to start you shift. Don’t be late…or I will smack you! See you then sweetheart.” That was probably the shortest training session I have ever had. Noelyne puffs a smoke and waves bye as I bike off.
On my way home I drop off the $450 I owe Fred, my new landlord, and head back to the Bounce for my final day there. I still have to do day 3 of Insanity and I am not looking forward to it. I manage to make my way to the park and do it. After stretching for what seems like forever, I am quite limber. During the workout I must pause several times due to the intensity of the new movements and the fact that I am so stiff. There is a Chinese gentlemen doing Tai-Chi next to me and he seems so in the zone that I don’t even exist. He seems very calm and relaxed, whereas I am dripping sweat and panting as I do my final exercises.
I grab a 7 dollar sub on the way home and devour it within minutes. Once I arrive at my room I am still very hungry and as I enter Chris wonders if I have been running that entire time. I tell him I have started a very extreme workout regimen and even though I ate minutes prior to getting back to the room, I am still starving. After my shower I head over to IGA and grab some pasta, tomato sauce and ground beef. This will be my final dinner at the hostel and I am glad, since the kitchen there is too busy to cook properly and the other people in the hostel do not keep it clean at all. While cooking there is a cute tall brunette girl (8) cooking next to me, listening to Dance music very loud in her headphones and bopping her head quickly to the rhythms. I have seen her around before, hanging out with the Naturals. She keeps staring at my shirt and after removing her headphones asks, “Vous parlez en Francais?” Since I am wearing my Maple Leafs Dion Phaneuf T-Shirt, she must think I am French. “Oui.” I respond. “Du France?” I don’t even look at her, since her accent is so adorable, and I tell her that I am Canadian. She asks if I am from Montreal and I shake my head and point at the Leafs logo on my shirt. “TORONTO??? I luvyu Canadiennes!” She hugs me and kisses me on the cheek, while I cling firmly to my plate of food and glass of water. She introduces me to her brother and tells me there are from Marseilles. I tell her in French that we can talk after dinner and that I am too hungry to focus. She smiles and agrees with a nod. While eating, I notice that there is a class of kids with their teacher in the living area watching Family Guy. These kids are not at all well behaved and keep running around screaming and physically hitting each other, as well as making faces at anyone who will give the attention. The teacher does not seem to have full control of her minions in any way, shape or form! Finally, a night where the Naturals won’t be the most immature people in the hostel… although they have only just began drinking.
Once I have eaten my pasta, I shrink away to avoid the French girl as she is another temptress that I can’t deal with at the moment. I have reading to do anyways and I grab my book and sit in the quiet reading area. We are introduced to a great French mathematician, theoretical physicist, and a philosopher of science named about Jules Henri Poincarré. He is famous for formulating the Principle of Relativity:
“The principle of relativity is the requirement that the equations describing the laws of physics have the same form in all admissible frames of reference.”
This means that physical laws are the same in all reference frames and must look the same to one observer, as they do to another. An accelerated charged particle…OUCH! The French girl jumps on my lap and takes the book out of my hands. “Whut eez zees?” she says as she examines the book for a second, before tossing it away. This girl is hotter than Kristy… just her accent alone is enough to make most dudes drool. Her perfume scent is very strong and quite intoxicating, which makes my heart rate speeds up. A few years ago I would give anything to be with a chick like this. This is so far outside my realm. 3 years ago the notion of a girl this hot, whose name I don’t know and who has uttered 3, maybe 4 sentences of gibberish to me, sitting on my lap would be a dream. I haven’t moved an inch and am paralysed as this coquette rubs my belly. Ridiculous. She is the second French physicist I have been introduced to today and now I have a “charged particle” in my pants to deal with. I can’t though…Cindy. Hastily, I get from my beanbag chair, and as I do so she slams HARD to the ground. This guy on the computers actually turns around she hits the floor so hard. “Time for bed!” I announce. The look on her face is the most incalculable expression I have ever seen as I march towards my room not looking back.
Jeannie is in the room and she is laughing as she reads Mark Twain on her Ipad. She tells me that she left their information on my bed so that I can keep in touch with them on their journey. This almost brings me to tears, for some reason, as I write my email address and name down on one of my companies flyers and hand it to her. Chris and Amy are already asleep. The thing about traveling is that you make new friends and see them leave so quickly, like passing ships in the night. One of the upsides of my job is that I make so many friends, not just co-workers, but people I sell to from all corners of the globe. The downside is that I will never see a lot of them EVER again, only to see them ride off into the sunset aboard a double decker bus. Tears flow down my face as I close my eyes thinking of all the people I miss back home.
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