The end of eBay...

Randomly Monday morning was both the beginning and end of my working week and my official working life in Sydney, My contract with eBay Australia was concluding today – July 24th 2006! There’s not much to be said for my last day really, it was much like any other, or at least the past week anyway, when we were basically getting paid to do not very much at all. Most of the project had been done so we were mainly busying ourselves with QA’s and you’ll have noticed a spurt of postings appearing on this little blog.. hmm, wonder what I was making use of!! That said, I was surprisingly sad to be leaving eBay, despite always knowing it was only a temporary contract and Team Mage having their ups and downs, I had enjoyed being there and had made a couple of good friends. I’d also settled in to city life scarily easily and the end of my job marked the beginning of change again – a scary thought and somewhat unsettling! But, as someone once taught me ‘the scary things usually turn out to be the best things’.. Now I just have to get past the fear!!

Anyway, as I was saying, the day passed uneventfully, Martin and I had lunch at the usual place then at the end of the day we were sent off with our 'goodie bags' (personally I'd have preferred a bonus but hey beggars can't be choosers and all that) from eBay and I was once again a lady of leisure… aka: a skint backpacker!! As everyone else was still in the habit of working for a living, there was no big night out to mark the occasion but in truth I was a tad knackered anyway so didn’t really mind – how rock’n’roll am I eh!?!

So, Tuesday morning dawned and while Luke headed off to work I stayed in my bed and enjoyed the luxury of a lie in… because I could! Ah bliss! In fact, the day as a whole was pretty lazy, I ventured as far as Coogee town and the internet café then home again, believing this was the first of a couple of weeks at leisure, there was no real urgency to do all the things I needed to do to be sorted for when it was time to leave. Turned out I was wrong, I had prior to leaving eBay made efforts to find a couple of weeks extra work to top up the funds as well as keep me from getting bored and spending what little I have left in the coming 2 weeks… I just didn’t really expect to find anything – especially given I was being fussy with what days I wanted to work cos of Lotte coming back. The pic here btw is the view from the top of Beach Street down to the beach (obviously) my flat is the cream/yellow building with red tiles above the window, on the left hand side of the pic. Our flat is actually on the other corner of the building but that's where it is anyway.

Anyway, I had a call from Candle; the agency that had got me the eBay contract, they had something for me, working for a Facilities Management company called ‘Five D’. Now, to be perfectly honest, the job’s boring as hell.. basically I’m filing but given they were offering the same money the girls were on being paralegals and they were happy for me to work/not work on whichever days I pleased, I’d have been daft to turn it down. So, Wednesday morning it was back to work for Flee!! The rest of the week was taken up with the heady world of filing… how glamorous can you get eh! But at least I had a view of the harbour bridge from the window – small things eh!

The only other thing to report from the week was the inevitable Friday night drinks that occurred given I was back to being a city girl. After a cheeky drink at work I headed off to meet Star and Adam for a few at Bar 333 & Angel before heading to Orbit bar to meet Charlotte, Tom, Graham, Rob, Adam and Charlotte’s parents. As Lotty’s parents were over for a visit, the Orbit bar venue had been engaged, once again, as a little treat! After a few there we headed off to Minus 5, the vodka ice bar. Myself and Rob weren’t going in – Rob had already been in and I was waiting until Lotte arrived back to go with her – so we left the others to it, found ourselves a booth in the, much warmer, bar downstairs, got the menu, closed our eyes and vowed to have whichever vodka our fingers landed on….. all I can say is Ouch! I have no idea what they were and couldn’t even pronounce the names but I can tell you they were hot and my throat and watering eyes were only too aware of that! (and i think Rob's face in the picture says it all too.. the aftermath!) Was all good fun though and fuelled by a few of those, some good banter and the offer of marriage to Charlotte’s brother, it was on to the next venue… now, with Tom in tow there was really only one place it could be… Karaoke....again! The boy is obsessed! So, once again we belted out some tunes (see Lotty ans Graham giving it there all in the pic!), danced on tables, drank lots of wine and generally made fools of ourselves – Lotty’s parents included, quite rightly! Thank god I didn’t have anything to get up early for the next day!! xx