Debrief

More home time! I babysat Nate on Thursday while Nikki got a rest. He was a bit fidgety but we enjoyed ourselves. In the afternoon Nikki and I went to town to change Nate’s feed and to get my license and health insurance. It’s all sorted!

Mum and I left early on Friday for Sydney. Ebony had her last exam at school and mum was going to pick her up. I was going too to get my car from school and to go to my debrief for my Mongolia volunteer stint. My car’s in a bit of a mess but the main worry is the spider skins all around the car. It means there are even bigger spiders lurking in the darkness of my little Ford Laser. Ewwww.

I got to the city nice and early so I could have lunch with Lai. Which was delicious! Vietnamese Pho. YUM. My favourite. It was so nice seeing Lai too. My interview thing with the recruitment lady was conveniently around the corner. We chatted for ages about what job I’m after, where I want to live, what career direction etc. I also went in to a bit of detail about some CSG drilling stuff – it was fun! There are no specific job offers but hopefully next week something might pop up that would be suitable. The super cool thing is that if I want to test out the waters with recruitment, she can get me an interview with the boss of the company I was talking to. It would be a Sydney based job, which would be really awesome! It would mean I’d be turning my back on geology BUT we’ll see.

I’m going to London with Tegan and Ebony. When I get back early January for Ebony’s birthday, I’ll test the waters again. If nothing is progressing re: jobs, I’ll start pushing and then look at going on a nice easy holiday maybe to Cambodia or maybe even to Thailand or Bali again. Just because. It also depends on the money situation.

So the recruitment chat was totally worth it. There are a bunch of Sydney based oil and gas companies that I can look at. The lady was lovely and I feel like it went really well.

I could check in to my hotel after all that so check in I did. Volunteers started arriving which was so exciting! We ended up convening in my room with our food vouchers, ordering food because it was the cheapest food of the three eatery options we had. We had a couple of bottles of wine and lots and lots of food. We’d been out for a couple of drinks beforehand so I was starting to get a bit tiddly. More volunteers arrived, more hugs, hellos etc and more food ordered to satiate empty tummies. It was so nice to see all these people that were in Mongolia, but are now in Australia. Below: ordering in our dinner (we got a voucher for dinner in the hotel, ordering in was the cheapest option).

Lai had to go to work to finish something off AND there were free drinks there, so I left the other volunteers to catch up (they were all previous intakes so had much more to catch up on together) and we headed to Lai’s weird circle office work.

A quick drink of wine later we tried to get in to the Ivy bar but decided against it because they were asking a $20 covercharge, which is crazy. We ended up at The Establishment where we had more gin and tonics and chatted. We met some nice new people – my recent Mongolian adventures captures the interest of many, which is weird. I know it’s not weird – it’s a different place and all that jazz. It’s just weird at the moment because Mongolia is so normal to me that it’s weird to think of it as not-normal. If you catch my drift.

It was a big night – lots of fun. It ended when I was trying to teach a nice army boy how to partner dance and he flopped me around a bit too much and it looked like we were intoxicated (which, I probably was but definitely NOT beyond extra-tiddly) so we had to leave. I don’t know when I got to sleep but it must have been close to sunrise because I’m terribly tired and hungover today! It was worth it though.

We’re staying at the Grace Hotel. It’s pretty fancy, quite nice. Breakfast buffet left a bit to be desired. There was a lot of stuff but it wasn’t deliciously fresh. I wasn’t really looking forward to the sessions today because I thought they’d be all wishy-washy, boring kinda thing. But they weren’t. I’m so glad I came. We all just talked so openly about everything Mongolia – why we went, who and what we impacted, what we expected and what we got out of it. All those kinds of things. We all had different experiences but it was a great way to have a bit of closure re: my job that was so, so shit – and knowing that I definitely do not regret that decision to leave. It was nice to get other people’s ideas and inputs and how they’re feeling and coping with different things now. At dinner tonight I met another girl from my intake (30). There were only two of us as most people are still overseas. She was in Tonga and quit her job just like mine. We talked about it a lot and it was reassuring to know that someone had felt the same as me and made the same decision as me.

My Tom Tom isn’t working at the moment which makes city driving that much scarier. That plus my hairy huntsman spiders crawling around my car. Sunday tomorrow – yay! I’m going to the markets with some awesome friends and then I’ll spend more time with Lai and do some stuff. You know. Whatever.

town day

You may wonder why I’m boring you with the small-ities of my day to day life in Australia. I’ve studied the trends associated with my blog and the amount of people that read it. If I write regularly, people read regularly. So write I will. I’ll write while I’m back in Australia so that when I’m over in Europe, you’ll still read and know what’s going on.

So there you have it. Read away! Tuesday was a day of rest. I was fairly zombie-ish but managed to get 6 loads of washing done to take the stink out of my clothes. Serious stink, mind you. Not a slight one. I couldn’t wear my clothes because they stunk SO much. The good news is that they just needed a wash to get the Mongolian pollution out of them.

I’m still having trouble putting toilet paper down the toilet and I’m eating like a horse because I see all these yummy things that I haven’t had for ages and just.must.have. For example, I needed chicken chips yesterday. There was no small packet, so I got the big one (you know, the party size one) and ate the LOT. Oh man. It better stop soon. I have a meat pie, sausage roll (I’ll make my own), lots of dumplings, and some lollies left to devour before I stop.

Wednesday was town day. I had to get a new Medicare card, License, debit card, film, health insurance….. I went to Pilates with Nikki and then had a massage to get rid of some of the sore bits from Mongolia. Salad sandwich and custard tart for lunch and I checked out the Ariat boots so that Ebony and I can go in and buy some when she finishes exams. I tried to get my license but without my passport I had no ID. I tried to get a bank statement but to no avail (and three visits to the RTA and Commbank respectively). I’m still driving illegally. Health insurance with Westfund, because it’s local and it’s easiest. I’ll go in today to finalise that and get me some decent new sunnies. Then I got my hair lopped off. It needed a good cut.

There were the ‘where is Mongolia’, ‘What is Mongolia’, ‘What do the people look like’ and ‘is it Asian’ questions. All the things I was dreading about coming back to. I know it sounds snobby of me but I swear it’s not. It just sucks that other people don’t even know where I went, let alone understand the concept of a nomadic people, developing countries, corrupt governments and pollution beyond anything they have seen before. It sucks because I have to explain, and then know that most of what I said wasn’t understood. It sucks because I know what I’ve seen, and not many people understand what I’ve seen. But it’s okay! It’s way better than I thought! I guess I don’t have the added stress of BEING in Mongolia now, so my tolerance level for everything has changed and it means I can tolerate the feelings that go with trying to explain a different culture and being a part of it.

I got home (it’s a 40km drive to town), popped in to say hello to Nate and Nikki and chilled out for a minute. I’m still exhausted. Orkhon Valley trip, epic week of packing and goodbyes, Olgii week and then my 3 days of travelling to get home. For dinner we went to the pub. The Cooyal Pub. It’s halfway to town for us, which means it’s about 25km from Mudgee. It’s a small pub that’s gone through some upheavals through its life but it’s currently thriving as the local beer and pool joint. They sell lots of by-products of chicken schnitzel, steak, deep fried lamb chops, pizza etc. When I asked for a glass of white, I had two options: cask or fruity lexia. I chose cask, I don’t think I could ever drink fruity lexia again. Dinner was nice but I hit the wall pretty quickly.

Lots of sleep sleep sleep in my comfy comfy comfy bed with a big doona and decent pillows and the best of all: my teddy! This morning I’ve been baby sitting Nate. He was a bit naughty last night because he’s been having trouble eating and stuff, so Nikki’s having a sleep while I entertain him.

I’ll go in to town later to get a license and fix up my health insurance. You know, heaps less QLD’ers that I met have health insurance, because when you pay your (?) bill (I think your electricity bill), you also pay for ambulance cover, so the whole state is covered. In NSW we don’t have that option, so everyone has at least ambulance cover. And when I mean everyone, I mean, some people – more than QLD.

The photos above were taken in town yesterday – Mudgee. It was a hot-ish day but lovely all the same. Smells are great at the moment. Everything smells so good!!!! Chips, the air, rain on the ground, food smells, cheese smells, fresh clothes smells.. Everything!!!

Nate’s just woken up, he’s not so keen on watching me type. Adios!

Home Sweet Home

'Sup guys.

I'm totally home.

It was a very long trip. I arrived in Sydney at 7:15am on Monday morning. I got out of the airport at 8pm. We went to Ebony's school in Parramatta to drop her off - she's got a couple of HSC exams to go. I also managed to have a shower. Sweeeeeeeeeeeet free flowing hot water. There was also that moment where you hover over the toilet, wondering whether or not - should I, or shouldn't I - put the toilet paper down the toilet. I still feel guilty doing it.

After a stop at the fruit shop to get supplies we headed back to Mudgee. Everything is so functional. I still get vaguely excited when I hear an Australian accent or see a whitey even though in Australia they're everywhere.

Before we got home home, we stopped down at Nikki's house so I could meet Nate. By this time I was pretty much a walking zombie but it didn't stop me going down there a second time...... Why not, right? Nate's pretty cute.

We had a minor issue finding corned beef in the freezer. Instead of boiling the corned meat, mum boiled a roast beef. It was salvageable and was delicious! I remember the same thing happening on my last night before I went to boarding school or uni or something.

I stayed up til 8:30pm and crashed. I put my knee on the bed first (I guess it's a Mongolian relic - hard beds require knee first), expecting to climb in to bed but instead of just shuffling in to bed I SUNK in to bed. My heart skipped a beat it was so excited. A soft bed! Woohoo!

8am wake up - to roosters, dogs and the bloody inside dog with a cat bell round its neck (I took it off this morning). Now I'm bored already. I've called the recruitment lady about my job in Sydney. They don't want me for that role but they might have something early next year (maybe?) for a geo, which would be perfect. I'll meet the recruitment lady, and hopefully the company, on Friday when I go to Sydney for my volunteer debrief thing.

My clothes STINK. So bad. Everything STINKS. I've done three loads of washing so far. It's the pollution smell, it's got in to EVERYTHING.