Well, he phoned us last night around 9, 11 a.m. Aussie tme, the next day. He was on his way to his first surfing lesson, and it was only 20 degrees, so he'd be in a wet suit. He's lonely and the Manly Beach hostel is filthy with bed bugs. His job as a waiter in a busy cafe has only booked him for 3 hours so far, and he hates Sydney, but needs to stay there and wait for his girlfriend to arrive on May 15th.
Everyhting is terrible expensive, so much so, that he has to find more work or his money will run out far too quickly. The place is crawling with backpackers, which could account for the inflated costs of accomodation and food. I sent him some recipes for cheap meals, but he has no access to a freezer or hot water at that particular place. And there is no clothes dryer. And his cell phone only works sporadically.
My poor baby! I guess this is a hard lesson, and I'm sure that Laura's arrival will brighten him, and then they'll head north to the sun and warmth, probably to Cairns. But from what I've heard, jobs are at a premium there, particularly for travelling kids, and there are many. Laura has only half as much money saved up as my son....I suspect they might be home before October. I'm going to suggest that they hop on a plane to New Zealand and look for work there. It's cheaper, friendlier, and from my perspective, more beautiful. The only snag is that he bought a car already, so what to do with that, other than to sell it at a possible loss. He says he hasn't driven it in over a week anyway.
It's so hard to see a child miserable, and so far away. It's just really hard.
aww kae, I sure hope that things get better for him. I am sure things will get better when his girl gets there, at least then he will have a friend and wont be doing this on his own
Thanks, Shelly. The weird thing about this is that Nick is a really social creature and has always made friends quickly and easily. He seems to have had a pretty good time in The Pink House in downtown Sydney, but once he moved to Manly, he was alone most of the time. It could be that all the Brit kids he's with now are about ready to go home again, so what's the point of hooking up with the new kid on the block. It's autumn there now and beginning to chill up, the off-season.
I know he'll be darn happy to see Laura when she gets there, and he can put up with about anything for two weeks, I guess. There was a little bit of a rift between them after she broke her leg right before she was supposed to leave, and I have a feeling that this little separation has done their relationship some good. I know she's desperate to get there with him, and bored out of her mind hanging around waiting for her flight. She quit her job three days before the leg thing, moved out of her flat and into her parents' place out in the boonies with no car available to her. She'll come here this week and can use Nick's car until she's ready to leave.
He's still pretty grumpy, according to Laura who spoke to him last night. She cheered him up with the news that her parents gave her for graduation a week's stay in a luxury condo resort in Surfers' Paradise, starting May 25. They'll head up there after she arrives, taking their time on the road. That ought to be a good antidote for the bedbugs.
That's so good I'm glad to hear things are looking up for him. Hey you can always let him know that my step brother who is doing Missions in Africa found a hissing beatle the size of his fist in his bed last night. Talk about some bed bugs!!! Lol lucky for him they've moved up from eating weed rat, and got some chicken and goat, but he says the chicken is a lot more gamey there.
Ack, Jess! There isn't anyhting that could induce me to be in a place that has insects that big! Nothing! I have a melt down when I have to kill a house spider, lol. And I'm afraid I might have passed this on, because when Mike (middle son) was in Costa Rica, he had to kill a tarantula the size of a grapefruit and the lady of the house gave him a machete for the task. He ended up chopping up their water supply hose by accident.
Another time, in the Dominican Republis, 2 of my kids were renting a beach house and when they opened the door, there was a huge creepy crawler on the wall. Nick picked up a cantaloupe and hurled it, missing the bug and making a mess of the wall, lol. We don't have a very good relationship with some of God's little creatures.
No entemology for me, for sure. But it seems to be a plague. One of my husband's first year room mates at college, a really quirky guy, was head of entemology at the Smithsonian for part of his career. When we visited him in the DC area a few years back, we were sitting in his sunroom where he kept a large box with a screen over the top. Inside he was incubating a variety of rare moths. Over our second drinks, he leapt up and opened the screen to let out a brand new moth the size of his hand that fluttered around, swooping down, scaring the devil out of me. My objective was to either kill the damn thing or let it out of the room. He wasn't amused, LOL.
