July 10 Cairns (pronounced "cans")

I flew into Cairns after saying goodbye to Shayna and Ben, and arrived in the evening, around 10:45 pm to my new home. I couldn’t see any of the surrounding area or town since I flew in at night, but I was excited to explore. The familiar but not so comfortable feeling that I get when I move somewhere new crept up on me. I can’t put my finger on it, but the way I get rid of it is a lot of self pep talks about relaxation, self-confidence, and being open to new things. The airport literally had 2 luggage belts to claim from (okay, not really but it was a super teensy airport). I was thinking to myself, “Jamie you have really done it this time. No job, nowhere permanent to live, and no friends out here”. Well, out of every doubt and question mark comes some wonderful experiences and friendships. I arrived at Calypso Backpackers Inn, and started my job search the next day.

So, let me back up here a moment. The reason I came out to Cairns in the first place was to fulfill 88 days of regional work in Australia to be eligible for the second year visa. Americans can do this work in the form of tourism or hospitality, so I thought it’d be an easy go. It is a long story, but in the end I wasn’t able to get eligibility for the second year visa from the work I was doing. I don’t really know what I’ll do if Ii decide to try and go for the second year visa, but we will see what happens! Okay, back to Cairns. After weeks of walking around passing out resumes, not getting calls back and overall just a lack of job opportunity here, I luckily found work at the Cairns Dinner Theatre in the casino and work at my hostel. There was a spot available for work for accommodation, which is 12 hours of work a week (toilets, housekeeping, kitchens, grounds, etc) in exchange for free rent. I jumped right on that opportunity and then when another opportunity came up to work as the shuttle bus driver I took that as well! I was nervous because the driving in Australia is on the other side, but it was one of the best undertaking’s I’ve done here because I proved I could adapt and do my job successfully even though it was different than I was used to. I also got to DJ in the car, which made the rides so much fun. Our hostel is located about a 6 minute drive from town, but is only about a 25 minute walk. The walk is beautiful along the esplanade and has some pretty amazing sunsets and sunrises. Cairns is in tropical Queensland and was a 3.5 hour flight from Sydney. Australia is huge! The weather here is also glorious, all the time. It only rained twice in the time I’ve been here. Usually it is high 70’s in the day, and with that strong sun it feels like it’s 80. The people here are golden I tell ya! I can definitely see why people move to warmer climates or somewhere near the beach. There is just something about it.

Anyways, I’ll give you a little more info about the hostel I stayed at for almost 2 months. It is a Mad Monkey property, one of 5 in Cairns and they are remarkable hostels. There is air conditioning in the rooms, a receptionist on duty at all time, free breakfast (pancakes, fruit, beans, in addition to cereals, toast, juice), free unlimited wifi (Australia gets a bit funky with this and have a lot of caps on the wifi usage, so finding unlimited free wifi is amazing), free GYM (real gym membership basically! was incredible) free bbq once a week and events every night of the week. The events varied from beach volleyball, pool party, killer pool (billiards game), bar crawls, live music nights and more. This was one of the most vibrant communities I’ve ever been a part of. Not only was I lucky enough to be staff and live in the staff housing, I got to enjoy my time with staff and guests from all over the world, all between the ages of 18-30 roughly. There was always someone awake, always someone willing to go on an adventure with or just chill out. I will miss those people so much, and all the crazy shenanigans we got up to. Another great perk was the bar. The hostel isn’t BYO, which is a bit of a bummer, but the minimal staff and guest prices made up for it. My time was filled with working, going to waterfalls and beaches, laughing with friends around the pool, cooking, and going out occasionally! Since the hostel had a good sound system with people who knew how to DJ, it wasn’t really necessary to go out much! Although when we did go out it was to: Woolshed (Techno and pop music), Gilligan’s (biggest club but not my favorite) or PJ Obrien’s (Irish pub with great karaoke). Another big part of my time in Cairns was going to Chabad and joining the small but strong Jewish community. I had some close Israeli girl friends from going (Shayna and Meyrav), and another boy from Melbourne named Daniel who is actually a doctor up here in Cairns. Outside of my hostel door is the hospital, so it was just a wonderful happy coincidence that Daniel only lived 3 blocks away! We always did something interesting: walked on the pier, hung at a waterfall, watched the city lights twinkle at a nice lookout and had Shabbat lunch together. Whenever I met one of his awesome coworkers, they always asked if I was also a doctor at the hospital. Uhh, you know, doctor, backpacker, same thing lol. I learned so much from him about being a young doctor and growing up in Australia in general. I learned about crazy situations and medical emergencies people have (it made any day to day hostel issues seem so unimportant), and what it was like moving away from Melbourne for university when most of the people stay in town. I really value these types of friendships and will miss Daniel and his hospitality! For the duration of my stay in Cairns it was nice to settle down in an area with an established group of friends from the hostel and even some friends outside of the hostel from the Jewish community or my dinner theatre work. The mad monkey community really was special, and we even made friends with other staff from the other hostels. One of my favorite memories all together was watching the World Cup on these enormous screens at The Jack, and cheering on France as they took the victory. There are so many French backpackers in Cairns, and the place just exploded with excitement the whole game. In America the professional soccer hype isn’t really there so it was fun to celebrate with people who were die hard fans.