Settling in Mildura

So I realized today that I haven't posted anything since the first day of work. Quite a bit has gone on so this is mainly a recap of the past week or so... We started work last week and haven't done any picking yet because the money is garbage! Instead we are covering and uncovering the grapes. Basically what you do is put a pin in every meter or so as a tractor lays the tarp.. Sounds easy and it is as long as nothing goes wrong.. aka tarps rip, machine breaks, spiders blocking your path... haha these are all things that happen frequently. The pay is ok... not great and the work is very unorganized for the most part. We still are waiting on our pay from the jobs... but have kept a log of all our rows and how much we should be earning.

However, today we went to a new farm where we though we would make a killing. They were going to pay us $10 each per row... at the previous farm it was about 2-4 dollar per row. So we arrived and the farm was very nice, and very organized. However, the rows were very long, and we have to put a pin every 80cm... and pull the tarp tight and also put the pins in differently then we had been taught before. So unfortunately we only did about 4 rows each. We are going back tomorrow and hopefully will make more money. On a lighter note, this work really tones up your arms... I actually noticed a muscle in my arm the other day I never had seen before.. haha It's because all day I have my arms in the air pushing vines out of the way of the wire to pin... Living the dream! haha

A note on the hostel now....

Things at the hostel are becoming strangely familiar and almost homelike. A typical day consists of waking up at about 6:15am (gasp) get to work around 7am. Do a day of work that is usually till 1-2 pm (after that it is usually waaaaay to hot). Then we get home, call dibs on the shower... I'm usually mid range, once I got first shower... it was glorious. Then we have a few games of ping pong, watch gogo stop (kids show) and Deal of No Deal at 5:30... both classics! Then make dinner. And lately we have been having poker nights in the hostel. We each bring an item of food, like noodles, or something small and play. Instead of chips we use nails to bet with haha I have some pics I will post soon of the games. They are fun, and I actually am not that bad, I won the other night! :) Then we usually go home watch an episode or 2 of Dexter and sleep.

We have met some pretty cool people in the hostel too. There are some guys from England, and a girl from Ireland called Claire who we play poker with. So all in all we are settling in nicely. I thought today that I may even be a little sad to leave this place in about a month... I didn't think I would be the first day we arrived but it's really not that bad once you get over the shock of the filth you have to live in haha jk. Anyways, I gotta get going but i will try and be more frequent with posts! :)