Heat, job hunting and bird attacks. The usual...

Hey guys!

So a little update on my life... not a whole lot new to report. I've just been hanging out in Cairns, looking for work, and meeting people! But a few interesting anecdotes of my life right now.

First of all, being from Florida, I thought heat was no big deal... I've survived two Miami summers, I can survive anything right? Ah, well, see, here's the thing... when I lived in Miami, my deal lovely roommate (cough Kara Wall cough) liked to keep our apartment at around 40 degrees Fahrenheit (I have to specify now, since everything here is Celsius) So after being in the miserable Miami heat all day, I would actually get cold in my apartment and find myself in sweatshirts or sweatpants after work.

Well.... now my apartment in Cairns doesn't have AC so it's roughly 90 - 92 degrees here every day, but instead of retreating to the peace of an air conditioned apartment, I wake up and its hot. It's not unbearable, I've got a fan and a good cross breeze through my window. I go to town and before I even make it a block, I'm drowning in sweat. It's been really great, looking for jobs. "Hi, I'm Amanda. Please don't mind that I'm currently melting, but I would really like you to hire me." Then I get home from job hunting and its still hot. Still not unbearable, but its really hard to cool down when there's no AC....

On the topic of job hunting... holy cow. I've never walked door to door passing out my resume, but MAN is that intimidating. You've really got to have some tough skin and get used to rejection. I think I've been to the copy/print store like 4 times this week, just to print out more resumes. I think there are about 30 or 40 resumes with my name on them floating about in Cairns. I've a got a couple of things that might work out, but I'm not going to tell you about them yet, because I don't want to jinx it ;)

One last bit of Australia related news... and it's terrifying. The birds here are starting to make nests and have babies... Most people would think "Oh cute, baby birds, how lovely. Cute fluffy adorable things". NOT IN AUSTRALIA. In general, every creature in this country can kill you. If you've been following this blog since the beginning, you remember the cassowaries (giant jungle birds with talons that can disembowel a man). There's also countless snakes and spiders that will kill you with one bite. AND then you have cone snails... nice little sea snails that are one of the most toxic things in the ocean. Awesome. So, all the aside, one would imagine that the birds would be pretty harmless. Little song birds couldn't be dangerous right?? WRONG. In less than a week I have been attacked by no less than two different birds. One was a really cool looking bird called a curlew with huge eyes and long legs.

This is a picture of a curlew from the first week I was here....

Anyway, I was coming home from Cairns Central, which is the mall that's very close to my house (I've been hanging out there a lot since it's air conditioned) and on the way home one of these birds comes at me, with its wings out and making this insane hissing sound. WHAT? I may or may not have screamed at it like a little girl. But this bird was persistent! It chased me for probably half a block. 

The second bird came 3 days later. I was walking back from my apartments office and this little tiny black bird, about the size of an apple, starts DIVE BOMBING me and pecking me in the head!!! Excuse me? What is happening here??? Again, chased me for a half a block, pecking me in the head three times! Come to find out, its breeding season for both of these birds and they must have had babies or a nest nearby. Well, props to their parenting skills... but damn... I'm so done with birds. 

That's about all I can share from my side of the globe... hopefully I'll have some good news in a few days but again... don't want to jinx it! Just send some good job-hunting vibes my way! :) 

Sending lots of love from Oz!