In Sydney I stayed in a small hostel called the Dury House Backpackers. I stayed there for my entire time in Sydney and really enjoyed it! At first I wasn't too sure, because it seemed kind of dirty, the kitchen was small and the fridges (each room had its own) were always full and not clean either.
But in the end I just loved the company of the people in the hostel, enjoyed the evenings and didn't mind the superficial dirt. Ok - a big part was that it was really cheap and offered a lot for the money! (free rice, toast and jam around the clock!)
The wifi could have been (much!) better, but I was lucky and could reach the library wifi from my bed :D
I met many people, most lived there for a long time and others returned back after traveling around Australia or in other countries. Because I was staying in this place for a long time (I hadn't stayed in any place this long for over half a year) I think I grew very fond of everyone there and the hostel felt a bit like home.
During my stay I wanted to work, I settled for a job in labouring/ construction, because the teaching would have been a pain to get everything organised. I should have thought about that in Germany and already gotten all the forms, infos, proofs and translations. Now sending my friends and relatives on a hunt for my certificates seemed unneccesary. I did try and asked around in the department of Education and sent an application to an independent school, but they never answered. The Department of Ed. said I'd first have to file for different things (which all cost money) before my application would even be considered.
So I dropped it and did the easy White Card (an online questionaire for 40$) and then got a job soon after. I worked for a shipyard on Goat Island. An island in the Sydney Harbour which is actually all national park except for the shipyard which was founded in the early 1920s (I think).
The weather was really bad though. And because they needed to paint the car ferry, they couldn't because of all the rain. And so their painters did the job the normal labourers should have done and they didn't need us extra labourers (the painters belonged to the company directly, we were hired via an agency). So the weather made me loose my job.
Not a week later after I had applied for other agencies I got a call saying I could work on a construction site. I agreed and started the next day. It was much more physically challenging but was paid better. AND they wanted me to work overtime which was also nice, because then I of course got more money. I worked with different tools, like a grinder, jackhammer and drills, but mostly shoveling. Then after a week I was helping another guy with simple tasks so I hadn't my gloves with me. When they wanted me to jackhammer, I asked the office for some gloves got some and was walking out when the foreman came and he got angry, that I wanted their gloves and rudely told me to get my own. At the end of that day the foreman told I needn't come back. Later the agency told me he thought I wanted to steal some gloves and didn't want another stealing backpacker. Great...
I again went searching for a job. It was harder than I thought considering others were working 2 jobs and cheating to keep both. Then finally my first agency called me and told me I could go back to the shipyard. That is where I stayed till I left in the end of April. The car ferry was still on the island but slowly everthing was finished painted and we were tasked to fix everything together again, like handrails, doors and other things. Shortly before easter the ferry went into the water and luckily I was allowed to stay and helped work on the next big project, a fire tug boat from the sydney harbour authorities.
In between I had helped on smaller side projects, exchanging windows on a cruiseboat, waterblasting barnacles off pontoons and glueing other pontoons together. It actually was pretty cool working there, escpecially because it was a rather odd job (going on an island each day and working with boats was pretty awesome). Mainly the coworkers were really relaxed and friendly!
Of course I did many other things while staying in Sydney. With the people from the hostel and other friends I went to the cinema, did different walks, visited several beaches, partied in different bars and clubs or just relaxed in the hostel with a beer. People celebrated birthdays, their last days in the hostel and then that day came for me too. Silja (the friend I visited in Auckland and with who I traveled Australia before) arrived in Australia and we planned to do the east coast. Together we went on a boat cruise in the harbour and walked in the blue mountains with my roommate John and his sister, who came to visit him before leaving Sydney.
Finally it was time to part ways with the dury gang and start traveling again!
I will write some more posts about this time, but wanted to summarize this quickly for most. Friday I arrived in Melbourne after doing different tours around the East Coast. Here I will stay about a week before flying to Perth.
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