Days 373-379! Sorry for the late post, but we’re back with another week of the adventure. I started off the week with some exciting news and a FaceTime with my grandparents, continued on the week with work, and even got myself a new book to read by the beach! Let’s dive into it!!

Countdown: 4 more days till I get to see my parents in Sydney!!!

I woke up the morning of January 9th to my Bonnaroo group chat absolutely buzzing with activity. The lineup for the music festival was finally released and it was absolutely incredible!

I had bought my ticket to the festival months ago and was planning on going even if the lineup wasn’t the best. But this lineup absolutely crushed all of our expectations! There are a number of artists I’ve been wanting to see, see again, and I absolutely CANNOT wait to be hanging out and enjoying music with my 60+ new and old friends in my group.

With that excitement there to wake me up, I FaceTimed my grandparents who happened to be with my mother!

It was lovely getting to chat with them and I’m so so so looking forward to seeing them in person in May! And what’s crazy is that’s not that long away… January is flying by and I’ll be heading to the USA before I know it.

I ended up spending most of the rest of my day working. I had a double shift, the first starting at noon and going till 3pm, and then the second going from 6pm to after midnight. In between shifts though, I devoured an anime called Tokyo Revengers that my cousin Ben suggested for me.

Friday the 10th was mainly filled with work as well. I woke up late and headed up to work around noon. I was slated to work till 8pm, but got sent home around 5pm. But because of this, I ended up going to the pub to hang out with some friends for the first time in a while!

I ended up staying for a couple hours, having a few beers, and chatting with friends and friends of friends before heading back home. I had another shift starting at noon on Saturday, so I needed some sleep!

Saturday rolled around and it was time to head back up the hill for work. For some reason, I had another shift scheduled from noon to 8pm, but again I got sent home at 5pm. It’s a little frustrating, because I wasn’t getting the hours that I had scheduled, but it’s not the end of the world.

The good news of the day though, was that my manager told me I’d find out Monday if the hotel could help me with my 88 days of rural work! So I was excited to find out. Seeing how this process has taken awhile and I haven’t gotten clear answers, I felt like if I didn’t find out Monday, it was time to start looking into other jobs.

I felt like that was pretty fair seeing how I was told I’d know after new years and it’s been a couple weeks since then!

Sunday the 12th was here and I had plans with friends for a beach morning! But… I didn’t hear anything from them, so I went to the beach myself. I wasn’t going to let their lack of communication stop me from getting into the ocean!

I spent most of my time sitting and listening to music, but then I finally went into the ocean for the second time since getting my moon boot off!!

The water was filled with seaweed, I guess with it being low tide it brings it in. But the waves were great for body surfing. So I caught a few and swam around a bit before getting back out to dry off in the sun.

While I was sitting in my chair and enjoying the beautiful day, an older lady next to me started chatting with me. Her name was Carey and we chatted all about Yamba, my travels, and where she’s lived in Australia. As most conversations go, me having an accent is an easy segway into a full blown conversation.

She had been living in Yamba the past 5 years or so and is another great example of how friendly the community in this town is!

I made my way back home, showered, and then it was time to head up the hill for a night of work.

Works been fairly uneventful, which is why there’s not much to talk about! I was really hoping I’d find out good news from the pub, but I was keeping my options open and already ready to text my friend Will about a job at the tavern.

Monday came and I was stoked. I woke up, hopped out of bed, and the first thing I did was make my way to the library to grab my new book!

It’s time for book four of the Stormlight Archives, Rhythm of War! And… it’s another brick of a book. It feels like I’m reading out of an encyclopedia or dictionary.

With all this walking and working, my foot is a little sore. But for the most part, I believe it’s getting better! I’m also constantly doing little exercises to try and build up the strength in it again.

I took my book and headed to the beach to start reading and devouring it!

I didn’t get into the water this time around, but I enjoyed sitting in the shade by the ocean.

It’s such a beautiful place to sit and relax! I love it!

Monday the 13th hit and it was time to find out if I had any good news from the pub… but I wasn’t optimistic. And… since I had the day off, I didn’t go up to the pub, so I didn’t hear anything!

I texted my friend Will to try and set up a time to come chat with the Tavern and see if they still are game to employ me. Hopefully they will be, but I guess we will see!

I spent my day off watching Tokyo Revengers, sitting by the beach reading, and playing guitar. None of my friends had the day off, so it was a nice day of just relaxing and catching up on sleep!

On Tuesday, I had work starting at 6pm. So I spent my morning relaxing and reading in the park overlooking the beach!

When I got to work, my manager told me “good news!” Apparently there’s headway on figuring out a way to allow me to stay at the pub. I’ll talk about it more once it’s concrete, but for now, there is hope! However, I’m going to keep my options open, since this could affect me having another year in Australia if I want to!

I worked till after midnight again and played some very fun games of pool with my coworkers. I didn’t get to bed till almost 2am!

Now we’re caught up to the present! One last day of the week, Wednesday the 15th. I got a package in the mail this morning and I wasn’t 100% sure what it was. But when I opened it, I was pretty pumped!

I’ve had my trusty water bottle with me through all of my travels so far (and a couple years before that too). But, while motorbiking, the strap connecting my water bottle to the cap broke! I did some research and found out you could buy a new one… but I didn’t want to do that. So I emailed the Nalgene customer support and asked if they could send me a new one since mine broke.

And to my surprise, they said yes!

Now, it’s not the same colors, but it’s close enough! I’m pretty shocked they sent me a new one… but they even sent it all the way to Australia! Thanks Nalgene!

I spent the rest of my day reading, playing guitar, and watching some tv. I’m getting pretty close to finishing all the songs of the little travel EP (smaller than an album) I’ve been working on. Maybe at some point I can produce it! But I just finished a beach rock style tune that I’m really happy with. It’s been a fun project to work on over the past few months!

I had work from 5pm and worked till after midnight. It was a pretty lowkey night that got fairly busy after dinner. The night was fun and cruising along and then my manager had to ask someone to leave due to intoxication levels and comments he was making… and then he went ballistic and started yelling at the top of his lungs about how terrible they were for kicking him out.

He was pretty much proving their point that he needed to leave.

These types of situations ruin the vibe for the rest of the night and are one of the unfortunate realities of working at a bar.

But even so, the rest of the night went by and we played a few games of pool before heading home!

Before all this happened though, I took my dinner break. I’ve generally stopped taking food pictures, I don’t really want to anymore, unless it’s something super appealing to look at. But I had to give the chefs in the kitchen a shoutout for absolutely stacking up my dinner.

They gave me a ginormous burger with multiple potato’s worth of fries. I was a very happy bartender eating this meal!

It was a fairly uneventful week, but sprinkled with nice little things here and there. In just a few days, I’ll be able to give my parents a hug in person and enjoy a week exploring the city of Sydney with them!! I’m so freaking excited!!

I’ll see you all in a week with those adventures!

– Elie