Day 348! because I finished work at 12:30am (this morning) I was told I couldn’t start work at 10am when I was scheduled. So I had had to start at 11am to make sure there was 10 hours between my shift ending and my shift starting. But I welcomed the much needed sleep! Oh… and I had a surprise visit from a little friend in my room as well…

I woke up this morning to my alarm at 8:30am. I was still really exhausted since I only had about 6 hours of sleep, so I tried to sleep till 9am. But I was unsuccessful and just decided to get my day going.

I got changed, ate breakfast and then set out for my day of work!

I’ve worked every night this week, but today I was scheduled for 11am-6pm. A really solid work shift for the 1.75x pay rate! Australia does a great job at paying their workers well.

When I arrived at work, the bar was fairly quiet. On Sundays the hotel has free pool and there’s always the regulars playing it every weekend. I’m always jealous, I miss the days of playing pool in Koh Tao daily (I also miss my friend Kit who’s still on the island)!

But the morning started to pick up. I think if we had more than 2 people behind the bar, it would’ve felt like a slow lunch rush. However, there were only two of us, so it felt fast paced, which made the shift go by quickly and it was a lot of fun. I chatted with a number of customers and one, that I met the day before, told me about the waves he caught surfing in my honor (since I can’t surf right now).

Just before 2:30pm rolled around, I ordered and sat down for my lunch break.

I decided to have a fish burger, which, as always, was very tasty. I chatted with my friends who were working at the bistro while I ate.

I got back to work just before 3pm and ended up working till just past 4pm when a bunch of bar staff clocked on. As I said earlier, with more people on it would feel slower, which it did. So Simmo said I could go home and I clocked off early.

Instead of going home immediately, even though I was tired, I had a beer with some of my friends who were outside listening to today’s live music. The music today was a father son duo playing Irish tunes. The father was on the guitar and the son, a 16 year old, was shredding the fiddle! It was a ton of fun to listen to and everyone at the pub was having a blast!

But since it’s Sunday and I was done working, it was time to play some free pool! I ended up playing my friend Angus 1v1 and after a down to the wire game, he won. But then we joined forces and played 3 doubles games and won them all! After that, my friend Will was heading home, so I caught a lift down the hill, saving me the walk.

I was exhausted. So I took a shower and laid down in bed. But then I decided to play some guitar, so I did that for a while before watching more My Hero Academia. I ended up finishing season 2 (of 7) before making myself dinner. But as I was leaving my room, I noticed a strange critter running across my walls.

A tiny gecko somehow got into my room… I wasn’t sure what to do, so I let it roam. Eventually, it was near my door and I prodded it out into the common space, out of my room. Now it’s lurking on those walls, cleaning up the mosquitos for us!

For dinner, I heated up the leftover roast, cooked up some chicken to add to it, and made some rice as well.

The leftover roast actually tastes terrible! But a few pieces were okay. It’s too bad I left it there an extra night. But to be fair, it wasn’t the best thing I’ve had at the pub to begin with.

After dinner, I watched a bit more My Hero Academia and then decided it was time for bed!

Tomorrow I have the day off. I’ll definitely be relaxing and try to find some ways to enjoy the weather! I’ll be working every day next week besides Monday, so I’m in for a busy and fun week!

– Elie