My first day.

Yesterday was my first day at my new job. My first day as a Nuffy at Nuffield Hospitals. My mornings no longer consist of juggling my cereal bowl and applying mascara whilst overtaking trucks on the Monash. Now, I sit, peacefully with a book or magazine in the comfort of the overland train. No squashing into the mini-tube.


Surbiton, home of Nuffy, is sort of like working in Mulgrave, except instead of the occasional Hawthorn footy player hanging around the half erect Waverley Park, I now fight off the oldies with walking frames and chavs with prams whilst trying to find a decent latte with real soy milk. Not the fake kind I got this morning. No more Waverley Gardens for me, it's all out the supersized Waitross that literally kisses my office's front door.

It's quite a funny transition. I've gone from working in the beauty industry, where the daily office banter revolved around the latest advances in cosmetics and the actual mineral content in the new generation of mineral make up. Now, working in the health industry, the conversation around cosmetics is all about the best way to market a tummy tuck and how to correctly price a new set of boobs. Rhinoplasty anyone?

It's definitely not anything like The Body Shop, and I sure miss the TBS team. There are no paper mache gorillas or rhino's out the front, the cleaner doesn't have a hook for a hand to scare the children from the Children's centre and there is no restaurant with the chef (?) serving his gourmet warped sense of humour. There is just product offers to make your tummy trimmer and your life much more fulfilling. Seriously, check this out - http://www.nuffieldcosmeticsurgery.com/katesdiary1.asp - a tummy tuck really will make you happy.

Oh, they did give me a laptop (Yeess) and the promise of a gym membership. Pity, I don't actually have a desk yet.

Umemployed and cashless

After the thrill of Amsterdam, the shock of reality started to settle in. Here I was, unemployed and cashless, in one of the most expensive cities in the world. All I had were some interviews lined up with recruitment agencies. Not real job interviews, but just meet and greets - "Hi, I'm from Australia, here is my CV, I have these transferable skills and I'm worth this much, find me a job that is exciting and pays extremely well.", and their reply "Hi, I see people like you everyday, you haven't done this and you want to do that? If your lucky, I'll find a bunch of jobs that may or may not match your skills, dependant on how much I'm listening and the level of care factor I have for your situation."

Well, I must say, the recruitment agencies weren't that bad. An hour after my first 9am agency meeting, I got my first call about a job. That fast. And, that's how I spent the next few days - battling through an array of various job offers, from Tesco to Royal Bank of Scotland.

I even got to the stage of knocking back jobs that didn't tickle my fancy. One of the first ones I knocked back, came back to me 2 hours later, offering me more money. They lined up an interview immediately for Friday morning at 11am. I accepted the job at 3pm, ready for a start on Tuesday. They don't muck around.

I then relaxed a little and left the comfort of my laptop. (Ash's laptop)

Thought I better see as much of the city as I could before being chained to a desk again.

I visited the Tate Modern, an amazing art gallery filled with modern art.

This is their latest exhibition. A big huge crack. It's about 2 foot deep running the length of the building inside. People keep complaining because they are breaking their ankles thinking it's a painting. Idiots.

I found the eye and that's Big Ben in the back. Haven't been on it yet. I can only doing free things.

I saw the Tower Bridge.

I stumbled upon Buckingham palace. Wow.

I made a new friend in Trafalgar Square. Isn't he cute? Nothing like my Kitty at home.

I chased a squirrel in the park.

I found London's attempt at the Arc de Triumph. Notice to amazing blue sky. Who said London winter is bad?

I even found Piccadilly Square.

I wanted to call someone to speak of what I was doing, but the phone smelt too badly of urine. Where are those Dutch urinals when you need them?

I went to see the Templar Church, built by the Knights Templar. This is THE Knights Templar mentioned in the Da Vinci Code. These knights actually invented personal banking, and got extremely rich by doing it over centuries. King Philip IV of France got a bit jealous of their wealth and with some sneaky and clever planning, had all the prominent leaders killed, across the whole of Europe, all on Friday 13th. See, I even learnt some things.

I tried some shopping, But not your average shopping experience. I went to Argos. No visual merchandising needed in this shop. You walk in, look through the catalogue, write down the number of the product you want, pay for it, wait a few minutes until they call your number, and they bring you your items. I was buying pillows, and when they arrived, I thought I had ordered the wrong thing. They were tiny. I tried to return them and the lady laughed at me. She said they were shrink wrapped to save space. That's the Argos policy. And, that's a good example of British customer service - she laughed in my face. No 6 steps of selling here.

Tiny shrink wrapped pillows acutually suited me - easier to carry home on the bus. Pity they flatten after a few nights.

Since I spent so much time alone, one of my new friends, Lily, cooked a roast for the boys and I. I think it was the best meal we'd had in ages.

We got absolutely smashed on the '3 for the price of 2' on New Zealand wine deal from the local Offie (Off Licence or bottle shop) and we did some team building. I love the constant flow of 3 for the price of 2 deals everywhere.

I got a new nickname - Musty. (Boys just don't appreciate gold op shop finds. Or, musty op shop finds.) We were all so drunk, that Leigh turned green.

Lucky our street name is written on our house, so found our way home ok.

So, that kind of sums up my first week in London, and my first, and only week, of being unemployed.

The Dam... or what it has become.

We arrived and Ash woke up to take this photo. (See previous post)


Amsterdam welcomed us by teaching us how to spell its name with big letters. That's Ash inside the d.
Amsterdam was named after the Dam that it was built upon. Now, all that is left of the Dam is a huge memorial to the soldiers who fought in WW2.

In city, famous for sex, it's one very phallic monument. The homosexual war monument, a few streets away, is not anything as straight up as this.

Opposite the very phallic tribute, and across the picturesque square there is a magnificent palace for the King and Queen of the Netherlands, which rudely, and very purposely, cuts off and towers above, the almost-as magnificent church. Now, there's a struggle for power at play. (There are also lots of beautiful people in this beautiful square!)


...and lots of crazy bikes, of all shapes and sizes.


A possibly even quirkier way to get around.



It was absolutely freezing, despite the amazing blue, almost Melbourne like, skies.

The buildings and houses were absolutely incredible. The Amsterdam-ites are so proud of their canals, some even choose to live in the canals. They even have small backyards, with pot plants.

The view from their front yard is definitely worth it.

There are loads of cool sites to see, despite the sad reasons that they have become tourist must-sees.

And here is how they keep the drunken tourists, and locals, from pissing in corners. You wouldn't want to fall on that with your fly open. Ouch.

If spikes aren't your thing, and you really need to piss (and your male) they do have public toilets. Everywhere. Even in front of important monuments in the middle of the street. Very innovative of the Dutch.

We visited a small town called Delft, where my beautiful cousin lives. We're just like sisters.

We tasted some local beer.

And got a serious case of beer goggles.

Notice the church spire is severely leaning? I swear, it wasn't just the beer. The church is actually sinking, like half the buildings in Holland.

Aren't we cute?

Back in Amsterdam, we checked out some local art at the Sex Museum. This was Ash's favourite.

She is saying "Gail, Do you smoke after sexual intercourse?" and Gail says "No, I gave up ages ago."

Here is my favourite.

Here is our amazing hotel.

And me inside our amazing hotel. (Thanks Ash.)

Our last supper

After our sugar rush from Dutch Maccas, we had some fun on the plane home.

Amsterdam-aged ???

Ash and I have been joking about Amsterdam, and have started calling it Amsterdamage, as a precursor of how wasted we were planning on getting.

To start things off in the right direction, Ash made a crazy decision at about 10pm the night before we left, to start the 'damaging' slightly early, and after polishing a bottle of vino to himself, and then cracking open the duty-free vodka, he and the Red Baron, got, well, really wasted.

We both got to bed at 1.30am.

Our taxi arrived at 2.45am.

Here is a pictorial timeline of Ash's decline from London to Amsterdam. Amsterdamaged.

2.50am - A lost taxi driver and an angry, and very drunk Ash. It's probably about -2 degrees, raining and too damn early.

3.05 am - Inside our taxi, speeding at 140miles an hour.

Me: Extremely Excited.

Ash: Asleep.
3.45am - The check-in queue. Notice the non-existent line? We arrived at the airport so early that is was almost laughable. Well, for me anyway.

4.30am - Checked in and through customs. While I went duty-free shopping, Ash carefully kept watch over our bags. And snored loudly.

A close up.

5.45am - Waiting to board at the gate.


6.15am - 7.30am - Flying. It takes 90mins to get to Amsterdam. We arrived at the airport 3 hours early for a 90min flight? This fact tipped Ash over the edge, so he covered his eyes and asked for paracetamol to get him through.


And then he looked at the view. Then got bored and snored.

8.15am - Arrived. Schiphol Aiport. It's sunny, it's beautiful and it's freezing.

8.10am - Our Mercedes (taxi) arrives to pick us up.

8.30am - Speeeeding down the freeway. Asian drivers are crazy and erratic, European drivers are fast. Super-sonic Fast.

Me: Extremely Excited.

Ash: Dreaming of fast cars and hot Dutch women.

To top everything off, we arrived at our amazing hotel at about 9am, but our room wasn't going to be ready until 2pm. Balls.

Stay tuned for more Gags and Yeo adventures.