This is going to make a great story

So we left Sunshine Coast and headed back to home and Brisbane, intending to spend a couple of days there and then continue towards north and Cairns. Brisbane kind of feels like home to me. The hostel was exactly the same as two weeks ago, only some of the mean instructions/restrictions/information posted on the walls were gone but I'm sure our Taiwanese hard-working receptionist will be able to replace them with even meaner ones in no time at all. The positive change was their fixing the only good shower upstairs. The one that I know how to use because it doesn't have separate taps for cold and hot water. Last time the drain was blocked and water was leaking through the ceiling to kitchen. Yummy, isn't it?

Our cat enjoys a sunny day

The people staying at the hostel were the same we left there 2 weeks ago, and reuniting with them felt like meeting your long-lost best friend from junior high. We were comparing experiences like we hadn't seen each other for years. And the best thing ever, the cute cat was there, too, "complaining" about his food and the service, trying to get everyone's attention.

Backpackers live in the hostels, even the ones who are working. All the guys had found jobs at construction sites, farms or at warehouses where they were unloading containers full of all things heavy and bulky. The ones who have a practical occupation, like plumbers, find a job easily whereas academic people who sail through their lives idly pushing documents around the desk are the least wanted employees. There's less work for women because we lack the muscles that get many jobs done. A point I can totally relate to when I see the guys coming back from work, exhausted after carrying bricks in the daytime heat.

Surprisingly, many of our formerly impoverished flat mates were now filthy rich. German engineer had been working different odd jobs for 2 weeks and planned to buy a car after two more weeks' work. Lovely, isn't it? A British fellow who was driving a car that had been in a crash or two had met a sorcerer on the road and was now driving a modern pick up, which is likely to be upgraded to something slightly better in a month or so. Anything's possible, hopefully for me and Anna, too, after we find a job that doesn't discriminate us because we don't have any muscles.

Yeppoon on Capricorn Coast

Now we are here on Capricorn Coast, volunteering at an organic fruit farm. we had a small complication getting here as our hostess had thought we were arriving on Sunday but we were in Rockhampton already on Saturday. Well, we took a taxi to a cheap hostel that luckily had a vacant room for us. The taxi driver swore a lot, was very helpful, warned us about foreign taxi drivers' dishonesty and waited in his car until we got the keys to our room. In the morning we got to Yeppoon without any further mishaps and soon we'll see if we are strong enough for farm work. But as Anna always says, think your life as it was a story. Will this make a good story? Yes it will. Apparently that's how Russians face the challenges of life. The most important thing is that it'll make a good story.