Well, I’m finally here !

I haven’t bothered my arse updating this since arriving, partly because I’ve been on Facebook pretty often, and partly cos I’ve been sleeping 18 hours a day !

So I guess I could spread the last few days out over several posts if I wanted. However, I’ve decided that a quick summary will suffice :-)

- The flight was okay – managed to get 3 seats to myself for the London to Singapore leg, so could stretch out all I wanted. However there were screamy kids all over the shop, so I only managed about 3 hrs of kip out of a 12 hour flight. Disaster. The Singapore to Sydney leg was a bit sh*t, cos it was 3 hours longer than I thought it was gonna be ! Oh well

- The sun was rising as I was passing over Sydney harbour during the descent — but it was completely overcast, so I saw f*ck all ! I want my money back ! Larry and Diane met me at the airport and took me back to St Clair. I took 2 naps during the day before going to an engagement party that night and meeting a load of Aussies, including (cousin) Brendan’s mot.

- Went for a tour of the city with L&D the next day, visiting all the usual tourist sites — the Opera House, the Bridge, the Harbour, the Rocks, etc. It was a lovely day, but I made the amateur mistake of wearing my thongs (flip flops), so ended up with blisters and sore feet (which I have yet to recover from).

- Other highlights from the last few days include meeting baby Ciara, having dinner with Megan and Damo, getting lost in St Clair after having been walking around the city on my own for several hours yesterday, and visiting the Blue Mountains today in the mist and rain:

The plans for the next few days include hanging around Manly with Brendan, finding a hostel to live in for a couple weeks, and meeting up with Andy and Amy on Paddy’s Day. Also finding a job at some stage.

Til then — toodle-oo

Thought I’d throw in a little photo of Sydney to whet the appetite (mainly my own).

Well I’m counting down the days now, which means it must be getting close to the Big Day.

I was at Andy and Amy’s going away thing on Saturday, they’re going next Monday, so less than a week to go for them ! I’m sure they’ll have fun in Thailand, but I don’t regret skipping it this time. There’ll be plenty of opportunities to see the land of the ladyboys.

Meanwhile I’m gonna spend the next 2 weeks getting my own ship in order. It looks like I’ll have more money than I thought I’d have (probably closer to 4k than 3k euro), so that’s pretty sweet. I’m gonna get my bag out of the attic in the next few days. There’s probably no need to do so, but I feel like it :-) I have to do the following before I go:

• Get all my money together and stick it in the bank
• Make sure my CV is all in order (and I must remember to add my typing speed to it, as well as the link to the portfolio site)
• Find out about transferring money across to my Oz account — what’s needed, etc. That means writing down my Irish account number, etc., also. Oh and don’t forget that code card thing.
• Get together a pay slip or 2 from each job. Also get my references together.
• Find out and write down all the passwords for my FTP, hosting, domains, etc. Also determine when my hosting and domains are gonna expire, so that I can leave a bit of money in the Irish account to pay for them.
• Finish www.davidmcginn.ie so that I can add it to my CV and maybe get a web design job over there. Thankfully I don’t have any other sites that I need to finish (got paid for Knowlesy’s dad’s site yesterday).
• Get some clothes — I think the last time I bought a pair of shorts was about 3 years ago, so I doubt many fit me anymore…
• Get addresses of Larry/Diane, Damo and Brendan’s houses
• GET INSURANCE!!!

That’s all I can think of at the moment, but I’m sure there’s more that I’m missing out on. It’ll come to me.

Anyways, n0t sure if I mentioned it previously, but it looks like Larry and Diane are picking me up from the airport and taking me to St. Clair for a few days. Not sure how long I’ll stay there, we’ll see. It’s good to have an address that I can give the bank too, so that’s where my laser card will go to.

Nothing else to say really… I’ll update again in a week.

Well, it’s been a few weeks since I’ve updated, and it won’t surprise any of my loyal readers (ahem) to learn that there has been no more movement regarding visas, flights, or any of the other rather important stuff that comes with travelling !

My savings haven’t diminished at all, which is great, but Christmas has meant that I haven’t been able to add to them for about 2 weeks. I’m around the €2,500 mark, so about €1,000 spending money at the moment, which is quite respectable. I’ll keep at it and see can I beg, borrow and steal (as well as save) as much as possible before leaving. Hopefully the folks will be able to loan me a few quid.

Andy was telling me that he’s planning on getting a one-way ticket, since he’ll probably be over there for the two years. After much deliberation I’ve decided that I’ll just get the return one. I don’t know how long I’ll be staying for to be honest, but I’d prefer to have the security of the return flight if needed.

Regarding jobs, I’ve been asking plenty of people about it, as well as looking around the internet for as much info as possible. The prevailing sentiment seems to be that there are plenty of jobs going, but you’ll have to be versatile. That’s fine by me really. I really don’t care what I do, or indeed where I do it ! Once I find out the best places to go for casual work, then I’ll go there. Several people have also said that they might know someone who might hire you, etc. I’ve been pestering random people on boards.ie and trying to get a feel for the job situation, and 2 or 3 of them have told me to send them my CV when I go over and they’ll keep an eye out for work in their place ! They don’t know me from Larry, like !

9 out of 10 people are saying that there’s jobs around, and since unemployment is 5-6% over there, but every so often I’ll hear or read mention of someone struggling for months to find work, or that employers are reluctant to take on backpackers, and such is my nature that I die a little inside ! Aside from death or incapacitation, the big fear for me is that — not finding work, and then coming home after a few months and having to give up on the Oz experience. It would be rather devastating to come home, lose all my savings, go back on the dole, and have to pay back a loan as well…… But enough thinking about that.

As it stands, I have nothing booked, and haven’t got enough money ! But we’re getting there slowly but surely. In the meantime, I got the Lonely Planet Guide to Australia for Christmas, so that should whet my appetite somewhat :-)

Next update, I’ll have my visa. I promise.

Well, there’s still been no movement over the past few weeks as regards (a) preparing for Oz, and (b) a job ! So I’m still on my arse refreshing job sites all day. But at least I’m making some progress with the web design stuff ! I’ve done another couple of mockups in Photoshop: one for my uncle and one about Tallaght.

Anyways the real update is regarding the Australia trip ! Andy is planning on leaving in Februrary and just trying to find work straight away, and I’m starting to think that’s a good idea too.

Unfortunately it doesn’t appear as though I have much chance of getting work over here for the forseeable future. I’m not even getting responses from most places I’ve applied to ! It’s a loada shite ! Unemployment is at about 13%, and while there is new jobs going up on the sites most days, I’m not qualified for the vast majority. Australia on the other hand is only 5% unemployment, and after looking at Aussie job sites such as Seek, I’m fairly certain I’d have little trouble finding work within a couple of weeks. There’s even cool web design jobs, where they’re looking for junior designers to do donkey work ! That could be me ! There’s a dearth of those jobs over here unfortunately.

So I guess my options are:
Stay here on (most likely, after the budget) €150 a week and try to save as much as possible. Realistically €100 p/w x 4 = €400.  If I stick with the original plan of leaving in May, that’s 6 months = €2400. That’s plenty of money really when you convert it to dollars (about 4k).

Or, stay until February saving as much as I can (€100 x 8 = €800) and then head over with what I have. Since we’d be skipping Thailand on the way over, the flights would probably be closer to €1k than €1,500. So that’d be €1k spending money, which is not much (about $1,600). Realistically I would need to get some financial assistance ! I don’t think anyone in the family is flush with money anymore, but if I managed to scrape together another €1k ($1,600) then that’d be over $3k, which is plenty, and would get me weeks of security.

However, one of the requirements of the visa is having $4k in your account, so perhaps I should aim for that in case they check.

Oh yeah, I’ll also be selling my PS3 and my laptop, so will hopefully get $650 out of that.

I think it probably makes more sense to go with this plan than to sit here and hope I get some work in the next few months. It’s rather soul-destroying !

Only trouble is finding some people to loan me €1,000 at least !

hmmmm……