See ya, laters, bye, ta-ta.

My last 4 days in AUSTRALIA before I flew out to CANADA:

Monday night:

The last hang-out night with my original first ladies - Renae and Danielle.  

We assembled at Danielle and her husband Jarred’s home for the etiquette-free pizza and pasta pig-out feast.

Danielle was still in disbelief that I was leaving, and couldn't understand why I would want to move to a country cold enough to give me frostbitten nipples. She was certain this was a real condition, so we googled it of course. No such condition to support her argument.

Tuesday night

At 12.30am, my inner nagging Nancy decided I didn’t need sleep, despite my 8.15am chiropractor appointment and 9.30am dental check. You're right Nancy, sleep is for the weak, what did you need to tell me? :

Hey...um....Should you pack summer clothes if you stay longer?

How much underwear do you need?

Where did you put your travel SIM?

Crap, you need to call the bank...

Do you really need to buy those Lorna Jane leggings?

You need to buy thermal socks...

When are you going to start doing your washing?

How catchy is that new Little Mix song?...'hey, get your back off the wall...da,da-da,la-la,la....'

Why are you awake? You have a really early appointment in the morning!

Wednesday night

Another ladies only farewell pig-out feast, but this time with my fellow ex-work mates/European travel sisters - Marisa and Bree.

Thai take-away, Tim Tams and wasabi peas were on the menu while we watched Big Brother - embrace sloth position now.

I asked Bree and Marisa how they would feel if I took a lock of their hair with me.

Bree wasn't ready to part with her mini-mullet on the back of her neck.

Thursday Night:

Operation - Pack your entire life into a suitcase without going over 23 kg - are you pine nuts?

My sister Jenna was the brutal voice of reason when it came to what I really needed to pack.

"Amanda, why on earth do you need a bikini?"

"Are you seriously packing that top?"

"Let’s be serious here Amanda, you're NEVER going to read all those books."

We narrowed 356,969 items of clothing and other miscellaneous crap down to only 2000 items

All thanks to this one magical product. 

SPACE BAGS.

Friday morning:

In the words of Rafiki from the Lion King

'It is time!'


My entourage (Mum, Dad and Jenna) came along to bid me adieu, but not before we ripped my suitcase apart to sacrifice 3kgs worth of luggage to meet the 23kg limit.

R.I.P

Milo tin

Top Shop Orange blazer

Oroton evening shoulder bag

My 'A' Baseball Jacket

L'oreal Million Lash Mascara

Revlon eyeshadow

Neutrogena face cream.

Knitted scarves

OPI nail polishes in Don't Pretzel My Button and Kiss Me On My Tulips.

Checked in my luggage, swapped my phone SIM and took that dreaded walk to the departures gate.

Jenna was blubbering like she had just won Dancing with Stars and I all I could do was laugh through my snotty tears. Mum shed her share of salty eye drops and said 'you will be fine' and Dad told me to 'be safe and be aware of my surroundings' (i.e don’t lose your wallet and passport in a Starbucks)

As we parted our ways, the last thing I said was "nobody die while I'm gone or I'll be really pissed."

I really do wear my heart on my sleeve.

The flight was not as horrendous as I imagined it would be, I shared my seat row with one other girl who wore techno-coloured tights and had special dietary required meals just like me.

She was gluten-free girl and I was vegetarian girl.  I really hope those breakfast sausages were made of chickpeas.

I was able to take advantage of the extra seat between us and sleep in some kind of yoga position which I changed every time I started losing feeling in my legs or my backside. Damn those butt cramps.

Still Friday...

Land in Vancouver Airport. Yay!

Getting through customs and then the immigration office, only took a measly 3 hours of standing in line while I carried a 10 tonne backpack that was slowly disfiguring my spine into that of a 100 year old woman who once was a circus performer with the job of riding around on a small unicycle with 3 bearded women and dancing poodle sitting on her shoulders.

Note to self: Find Swedish backpacker at hostel.

After successfully picking up my two year work visa and my suitcase, followed by a 15 min train ride to Vancouver City Central and a 5 min walk in the rain to that neon blazing Samsun Hostel I finally, finally, made it to Vancouver, Canada.

Until next time, eh?

Amanda x

Discover your WORKING HOLIDAY CLUB adventure here!

In other news...

You may have noticed the new fancy pants photograph going on up ^^^^ there, thanks to my friend Dani and her picture making business called Danielle Stevenson Photography. 

As you can see I'm standing on the beach with a snowboard, a sun dress and an owl beanie. You may also notice my dress giving the illusion of a buxom booty.  (No, I didn’t go to Thailand and have cheap butt implants put in while sipping on mai tais) 

If you take notice of my 80’s wind-fan hair and the choppy surf behind me, we were experiencing brutal gale force winds. This was strange given that the weather was perfect off the beach, and was even more perfect when we visited the week before.

So, no – instead of beautiful, it was sand shit storm attacking our faces with tiny sharp salty needles. 

During the photo shoot we also had the delightful experience of seeing a flock of dead crows floating around our feet while shooting in the water, and if that wasn’t bad enough, my knickers were being flashed every 10 seconds to a group of wind surfers. 

I’m not sure which event will mentally scar me the longest.

Despite the asshole conditions, Dan was able to come up with the goods like I knew she would. What a clever dick!

Dani put the finishing touches to it with some fancy font and Jarred weaved his computer nerd magic to make Pluggers to Powder the gnarly blog site I envisioned. That’s right, I said gnarly as if I was bona fide cool person.

Career back-up plan: Yo-Yo Master ( 4 days until I leave for Canada)

Well, it's official: I'm jobless. A much younger, faster, smarter, cooler kid has replaced me. 

He comes into work on a skateboard, and could be easily mistaken for the missing sixth member of One Direction, who probably quit the group because of a nasty incident over a ghd hair straightener between him and Zayn.

I can't compete with that! I'm the older, slower, silly, uncool semi-grown up who once stacked her bike when it wasn't even in motion.

Hell, the only thing I’ve been mistaken for is a pregnant woman in her second trimester (I ate a burrito, OK lady, so back away from the belly!)

But, it's fine; it's completely fine... I did quit my job, so I guess it's to be expected.

Judging by my replacement, my boss Maria must still be bitter about me leaving. So much so, the letter of resignation I e-mailed to her was formally rejected:

Dear Amanda

Your resignation has been formally rejected.

Yours sincerely

Maria

Hmm...

I was 90% certain she was joking, but I took that last 10% of uncertainty, with extreme caution:

Dear Maria.

Was that a typo?

Yours sincerely 

Amanda Maguire 

Lucky for me she was kidding...Classic Maria.

During my last few days of work, I was treated as if I was an Australian Olympic Athlete who had just won Gold for the Women's Yo-Yo finals. (Look, if you don’t know, I’m a pretty big deal . I have quite the impressive yo-yo-ing skills…)

I received flowers, hugs, kisses, presents and my exit anthem song was Katy Perry’s – Roar. 

Our famous staff tea-room feast was set up in my honour, which included fun-sized Cherry Ripes, Jatz biscuits, brie cheese, olives, hummus dip,red rock deli chips and my favourite: Tim Tams! (The perks being of being a professional yo-yo-er, is there's no strict diet)

And they said I would never amount to anything...

Celebrations like this are a regular occurrence at our work place; any reason to eat cake, we will find it!

Birthdays, baby announcements, engagements, Melbourne Cup, a pre-reg pharmacist finishing up his exams; I'm pretty sure once we had a morning tea party because it was Thursday.

It was incredibly lovely and gorgeous of them to give me such thoughtful send-off, and to have such a positive attitude about my Canadian adventure.

Hand on heart, I love my work, I love my co-workers, I love my bosses and I love our customers. Except for the silly ones, who are rude and nasty to my work mates - Mess with my Kinny and it's on! (Ever watched a reunion episode of Real Housewives of New Jersey?)

We have certainly experience a few shit-tastic, torturous days together, when we have all turned into trolls from stress, and just couldn’t stand the sight of each other.

But all was quickly forgiven once we had our little afternoon delight vice, which was either coffee, a super charged gurana energy drink, a ciggy or a protein shake with raw oats. That last one is not a vice - that's just sadness in a cup....Nick!

Now I never got to give any kind of grand speech on my last day, or at my farewell drinks, and I feel it's something I need to do.

So I’m going to share this quote, from Merritt Wever’s, Emmy Award winning speech, after she won Outstanding Supporting Actress, for Nurse Jackie.

"Thank-you so much...umm...I gotta go, bye" - Merritt Wever

Until next time ladies and gents.

Amanda x

Discover your Working Holiday Club adventure here!

Note: If your male, and felt this blog post had no relevance to you, then please enjoy the following GIF  below...

            YOU'RE WELCOME...

Are you suffering from 'Manic Red Pants Depression'? ( 15 days untill I leave for Canada)

"Antonis, you'll be happy to know that I've finally organized my farewell drinks: next Sunday night, at Sixes and Sevens in the Valley. Happy?"

Antonis, my very much loved co-worker, breakfast buddy and impromptu singing partner – sorry, correction, sanging partner –, nodded with delight that I had finally booked farewell work drinks that suited our premium cocktail and tapas taste, on everyone’s Cheap Tuesday  budget.

As the unofficial work social-events coordinator, I put my best year-10 Microsoft Word sign-making skills to good use, and designed a flyer invite, to put in the staff tearoom. 

(If you're wondering, I used the fonts Britannic Bold and Cambria with a double-lined border . Nice, nice? Yeah, I thought so too - I've come a long way since Curlz MT and Comic Sans MS)

 Antonis poses a question to me :

"So why are you doing this? Why are you moving to Canada? Are you going through some kind of manic depression? My Dad had it, I think, when he started wearing red pants. And I was like 'Dad, are you OK?' "

I'm very much OK. Do you see me wearing red pants? Would I ever consider buying red pants?

Sure, I wore a pair of red short-shorts during my European trip. By the end of those eight fantastic weeks, my buttons were popping and camel toes weren't stopping, all thanks to a few Nutella crepes, a couple dozen cups of gelato, and a glorious amount bread and olive oil.

Other than that, no manic red pants depression here.

This GIF has nothing to do with the story, it's just really funny to watch over and over and over and over....
Happy Byrce?

The truth is I'm doing it because it's my ultimate DREAM - Ok, ok, and stop right there!

I hate using that word, just as much as I dislike the word ‘BLOG’ and‘JOURNEY’.

So, instead of dream, let's use, hallucination.

Instead of blog, let’s say, diary of my absent seizure thoughts.

And instead of journey, call it, a voyage through middle earth.

Others may hallucinate of graduating uni and landing their ultimate job; getting married and raising a family; travelling every last inch of the earth; or clocking up over 500 likes on an Instagram picture of their Sunday morning cafe breakfast.

# sunday #morning # bigbreakfast #bacon #poachedeggs #hashbrown # tomatoe #mushrooms #halomie #sausages #pancakes #maplesyrup #raisintoast #livercleansingjuice # #hangoverfood #livingthehallucination #dietstartsmonday #pfffwhoamikidding?

This hallucination has been pestering me for years.

Last year I had an epiphany, while being thrown out of a helicopter over the Swiss Alps alongside a man named Woody. As I plummeted to the ground at a gazillion miles an hour, hoping for the best, I thought to myself "If I can do this, I can do anything!”

So I'm doing it. After many years of um-ing and ahh-ing in procrastination and questioning whether I'm brave enough to flip my comfortable world upside down, I'm doing it. I'm just going to have a crack at it, challenge myself and see what happens! (Give yourself an awkward high-five Amanda!)

Same goes for the diary of my absent seizures thoughts. I'm writing about my voyage through middle earth because I get happy feet from it and it’s what I love to do. 

Sure, I've made a couple a shitload of silly spelling and grammar mistakes, but it's OK.

I'm just going to keep up with my absent seizures and improve my writing every day.   

For me, this voyage through middle earth is a must; mandatory, you could say. I don't know why and I can’t remember for how long; but this idea, this fantasy, this hallucination of living in Canada will not leave me alone until I achieve it. Then when I do, I can be at peace and focus on other hallucinations, like gaining the most likes on Instagram of a latte, with a fancy coffee art design of the Grumpy Cat.

"I'll rate your coffee art...it was horrible" - Grumpy Cat.

#Grumpycat #grumpy #cat #latte #soy #coffee #art #im#guessing#this

#persons#coffee#was#cold#by#the#time#thebarista#finished#drawing#it

Until next time hallucinators.

Amanda x

Discover your WORKING HOLIDAY CLUB adventure here.