Have you ever felt like you just wasted the better part of your day on something that could have been accomplished in half the time? Well, Thursday, Steve and I trekked across downtown Sydney to UVO Training for our RSA (Responsible Service of Alcohol) course that we have to take in order to get certified to serve alcohol in a restaurant/bar/hotel. Let's just say that the instructor spent 6 hours, yes SIX HOURS, lecturing us about responsibly serving alcohol. I can sum it all up for you in exactly two sentences. Here goes: Don't serve alcohol to minors or people who are already intoxicated. You will be fined impossibly large amounts of money if this happens and you are caught. She then spent a long time discussing the indicators of intoxication, which we are all well aware of since everyone in the class was of drinking age and has probably either experienced those indicators or has had friends who were more than willing to demonstrate, ie crying, slurring, running into things. After taking a 20 question test, whose answers we copied directly from the course workbook, we each got a shiny new certificate saying we are Responsible Servers of Alcohol. It was all a bit ridiculous in my opinion.
That night we had a hostel dinner BBQ and I had my first taste of roo, which is delicious by the way. I'm looking forward to having more soon. Then we walked down to Darling Harbour to see some fireworks. I haven't quite worked out why they were having fireworks on a random Thursday night, but they were the best fireworks I've ever seen and they actually were choreographed with the beat of the music. It was so cool to watch. I can't even imagine what New Year's Eve fireworks are going to be like in a couple months. Sadly, I doubt we'll be in Sydney then to see the festivities.
Friday morning we got up really early and took a coach bus out to Hunter Valley, which is a vineyard hotspot a couple hours outside Sydney. Just getting out of the city felt wonderful. I breathed a sigh of relief since as most of you know, I am not a big city kind of girl. But it was good to see green and open spaces with trees and vegetation. The hostel we stayed at is pretty little and there were only a handful of people staying there so it was a big change from the previous hostel we were in which is one of the most popular ones in Sydney. It's nice to have some breathing space and some peace and quiet. We're actually thinking about coming back here after all our courses in Sydney since they have a flier up asking for some people to do cleaning around the place in exchange for accommodation and the use of a bicycle. We'll see. We have until the 9th to figure that out.
(This is where tone of voice would come in handy. Note: Sarcasm) Oh, I forgot to put in the most encouraging news. During our orientation, one of the coordinators asked us where we were heading after Sydney to look for jobs. We, being naïve and innocent, said Byron Bay, of course. Yea, she basically shot that idea in the foot. She hedged and said that it would be very competitive to get a job there since it's such a popular backpacker destination. I think we're still planning to try it, but we're going to head to Lennox Head, one town over, which isn't quite so well known to see if it's a bit easier to get a job there. If that still doesn't work, then WWOOFing is in order. What is WWOOFing you ask? It's basically where you work a couple hours a day on an organic farm somewhere in Australia in exchange for room and board. And you can stay a long time or a short time and then move on. It's a good way to work your way around the country. Of course, we'd have to buy a vehicle.
