02Nov

Finally some fucking Castles!

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Like I keep saying, I love Romania! When I first landed in Bucharest I still could not believe I was actually here, I never really thought I would live to see thirty let alone get my shit together enough to travel, I am definitely very pleased with myself at this point in time.

I stayed in Bucharest with a friend of mine (Lucian) and his family, I am very grateful they allowed me to stay with them, they are such lovely and fun people.  Lucian took me on a tour of Bucharest City as well as to a Village Museum and we also did lots of shopping.

After Bucharest I went and stayed in a lovely hotel in Constanta which is on the coast of the Black Sea.  Constanta is awesome but I was a bit lonely as I can’t speak much Romanian and staying in a hotel instead of a hostel is not very social.  I pretty much just stuck to the harbour, visited the old casino, and enjoyed the food and beer.

I left Constanta for Tulcea which was an Epic fucking disaster!  The people I stayed with had a filthy bug infested apartment, the apartment itself could have been lovely if they just cleaned it. Not only was the place awful there were no hostels that had any beds left so I was stuck in a filthy apartment and having to share a bug infested bed with a total fucking stranger.  I had to pay 100 Lei to stay at this horrible place, I only paid because anywhere else would have been tripple the price.  After paying this amount of money it soon becomes clear that my “friend” from IRC and his flatmate have no money at all and I have to pay for everything.  I got jibbed out of so much money and I was only there for two days, I could have stayed in five fucking star hotel. I spent more in Tulcea than I did in Bucharest and Constanta combined and as a consequence I could only afford to visit one more city.  I got the fuck out of Tulcea and went to Brasov.

In Brasov I stayed at a pretty cool hostel called Kismet Dao… at least it was cool until one of their staff members lost both my blazer and my new winter coat.  I am pissed off about it but fuck it, I’ll just have to get over it.  The staff have made efforts to get my jackets back but I have not received an apology and maybe it’s a bit to much to expect but I believe I deserve one, instead the person who removed my jackets just said “good luck finding a new coat”.    There are notices that explain staff are not responsible for theft etc. but in this case the staff member physically took both of my jackets off their coat hangers and put them with a bunch of luggage that was being loaded into a bus to Serbia.

I stayed in Basov for a week during my time here I saw three castles, Rasnov Fortress, Bran Castle and Peles Castle in Sinaia.  I love all thee castles but Bran is my favourite, Peles Castle was just a but much for me.  Bran Castle is just perfect and not because it’s “Dracula’s” castle because it’s actually not.

Dracula or Vlad Tepes Probably never even stayed there, he may have been imprisoned there for a night or two but there is no evidence of this.  Bran Castle became famous as Count Dracula’s castle because of Bram Stokers book Dracula.  Vlad’s actual castle, Boenari Castle and is located Walachaia (the province Vlad actually ruled) at the top of a huge mountain that no public transport goes to and you have to climb 1480 steps to get to the entrance.  I do want to see Boenari Castle so I will come back in summer to visit Vlad’s actual castle as well as the cities of Sighisora and Tirgu Mures.  I am a sad I could not afford to see these places this time but the locals have told me summer is better anyway and I need my money for London.

In a few days I will leave Romania and go to London where I will hopefully get a job quickly.  I am very much looking forward to seeing my Angel again, staying with her is going to be a blast!

21Oct

Life in Romania

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As mentioned in my former post I am amazed and in love in Romania but please don’t let this fool you into thinking Romania is nice place to live.  Romania an interesting place to visit, there are lovely buildings, churches, museums and lovely people but Romania itself is fucked.

The Romanians are slaves and they get given a bad reputation because of the fucking gypsies who aren’t even Romanian!  Their Government charges high taxes (as high as New Zealand) and there is very little infrastructure, the Government are thieves and the Romanians are poor and do not trust anyone.  You can’t smile at people on the street because they will think you want something from them, the people have to work long hours for very little pay.

My friend works 40 – 60 hours a week as a software and game tester and gets paid half of my weekly Service Desk salary a month. My friend wants to move to Australia, when he is ready I will help him find a job there, he and his family deserve better than life in Romania and will do what I can to help.

The Romanians have lost hope that their country will develop like the developed rich countries near by and just want to leave.  I say do it!  Unfortunately it is not that easy as no one gets paid enough to get by let alone save for a ticket to another place as well as save enough to manage else where for a while until one finds a job.

If you are walking down the street and have a hand bag you have make sure the bag is closed and you have an arm over it otherwise a gypsy thief will take something out of it – no shit, this happens all the time.  My friends are so worried because I am now traveling around Romania by myself and they know very well what the gypsies in their country are like.

So far I have been Bucharest and some of Constanta, both are lovely and as much as Romania is dangerous and the Romanians are not lucky like us in New Zealand I would still like to live here, I like the food, the beer and I am crazy enough to enjoy life here.  I would also be able to save a fuck load as the local currency (Ron or Lei as is it called) converts to three – four times the $AU.  Prices are expensive for Romanians living in this economy but cheap for us Westerners.  My goal is to one day be able to work remotely and just live in an apartment in Bucharest… Although if my friends leave Romania there will not be much point as the major reason I love this place is because of the friends I have here…

21Oct

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I have been in Romania for nearly a week now, I am amazed and totally in love.  I am relived to be away from Australia and it’s awful fucking beer.  Beer in Romania is like it should be, full of flavour, the right colour and tastes fucking amazing!

I do miss my job and the people I worked with.  The guys are all so beautiful and I even loved my managers.  I hope the guys are being well looked after now that I am not there.  When I left lots gave me gifts; Troy gave me a Nokia N95 with 8gb of storage, Moie gave me a keying of a little jandle and Simon gave me an Angry Bird.  I could not fucking believe the guys gave me these things, I am very grateful and love all of my gifts.

I very much miss the people I lived with at Billabong Gardens Hostel in Newtown.  I especially missed Matias, the fucking Pike bastard who lived with at the hostel. No word of a lie he is mixture of two Brad Pitt characters… Mickey O’Neil (Snatch) and Tyler Durden (Fight Club), a total sexy as bad boy.  I did stay with him for one night but I very well behaved (meaning I was to drunk to do anything else).

A girl called Clau Dia was in the same dorm room as me and we became very good friends, she is super motivated, clever, beautiful and was always so nice to me.  Clau Dia is from Germany and I look forward to visiting her there when she returns from Australia.

Everyone else in the Hostel was lovely also, the Canadians were oh so funny.  One of the Canadians, Riley is a total man whore but still a lovely guy and the other Canadian, Ian actually looks like Where’s Wally.

I became friends with pretty much everyone that was there long term which made it easy to live there, if I go back to Australia I will definitely live there again, at least until I find a flat…. Although it is pretty fucking easy to just stay there.

05Sep

easy times

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I really enjoy this hostel life, the other long termers (as we are called) and myself have so much fun and we all get along so well.

We all go to our jobs and when we come home there is always a lovely bunch of people to hang out with. Tonight we went to a quiz night at Freaki Tikki every weekend we are always out and about. I don’t think I have ever hang with so many people in real life for this long a time before.

There is such a mixture of strange, lovely and very weird people. And oh so many fucking sexy as guys, Henry looks like an angel, I actually want to put him in angel wings. I have not yet had sex with any of them but doing that kind of thing is very awkward in a backpackers…. there is not anywhere to go….

As much fun as I am having all the going out and drinking is very expensive and now I only have six weeks left to save as much money as I can. Romania will most likely be fairly cheap but I will need as much money as I can for England. I think for the next six weeks I will spend less out and more time online.

16Aug

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At first Sydney sucked fucking arse!! It took a lot longer then I expected to find a job and while trying to find a job I was battling my depression as always and to make everything worse I had to deal with my step mother who despises my existence, blames me for all the problems in her marriage which of course have been happening ever since I was a little child. It was horrible but I had to politely tell her that I am not responsible for her decision to stay in a violent marriage and although I can understand she thought she was doing what was best for her children it was still not my fault nor is it my fault she believes she loves her beater.  I have no way to verify how horrible her situation actually is, from what I experienced of her she seems to use filthy machiavellian mind games and deception to get what she wants.  Every time I caught her up in a lie she had told or asked to explain why something was my fault when I was four years old she nearly strangled me.

I tried to get along with my step mother and I would still really like to, unfortunately I have no control over what people think of me or how they feel towards me and I am only responsible for my own actions. I decided to get the fuck out of that house. I will of course stay in touch with my siblings, I loved being there and getting to know them, they are just so lovely.  I liked being able to get to know my Dad too, I don’t really know my Dads side of the family and I very much enjoyed their way of life and of course all the wonderful curries.

Eventually I got a job doing IT support at an accounting firm.  This job was not so good and I was only there for two weeks.  I left the accounting firm when I got my current job which I absolutely love.  I now work for Fujitsu on one of their Service Desks. I am absolutely in my element, I love service desk work and the people I am working are lovely too.  I may have been in such an amazing mood ever sense I have been working at Fujitsu and I have been so warm and friendly the managers think that this is what I am always like and other members have commented on how much I brighten up the place.  No one knows I am dark dreary depressed reformed emo…. Hopefully they will never have to find out.

I am living at a backpackers in Newtown Sydney, working every day and saving for my travels to Romania and England.  I leave on October 13 for Bucharest, I’ll travel around Romania for three weeks then get a job somewhere in England where I will drink tea and listen all the lovely British accents… I’ll get an accent like Stephen Fry.

The people at the backpackers are really lovely and I get a long with mostly everyone, there is one insane batty old lady who is just bitter so I just keep away from her, I was originally in the same dorm room as her but I promptly moved to the room next door and I have a really good set up and a routine that suits my lifestyle at this point in time. One of my new backpacker friends just made me a lovely cup of British tea.

03Aug

Riley Brendan Payne: 21 May 2011 – 20 July 2011

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My sisters new baby  recently past away because of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. I can’t imagine what she must be going through, I actually have no comprehension of what loosing a child feels like.

I was unable to go back to New Zealand to be with her for the funeral but there was lots of family there and our mother is still staying with her for support and helping with the other kids.

Even though I can’t be in New Zealand with my sister and her family I will forever send out love and strength.

06Jul

two very lovely things.

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Fist lovely thing: After a horror of an interview this morning which consisted of 12 of us candidates having to do presentations, tests and group exercisers another woman and I went out for a much needed coffee. During our coffee a person sitting near us heard us talking about the interview and how awful it was and without our knowledge went and paid for our coffees.  After we went up to pay the waiter informed that our bill had been settled by someone who had already left.  I would have liked to have been able to thank the person and let them know I am very grateful for my coffee.

Second lovely thing: Once I got back to my dorm room after coffee and checked my emails and I could not fucking believe it! There was an email from my formerly mentioned favourite audiobook reader Cynthia Holloway.  The email I sent to Cynthia (or whom ever answers her emails) was just a letter of appreciation and this the reply she sent me.

Charlie-Jayne,
Thank you so much for your letter. It was really interesting to read not to mention appreciated! I am really glad that you found the audiobook genera, it’s pretty great and I wish I had more time to listen myself!

Thank you for your kind words. Joyce is actually a good friend of mine, she would be tickled that someone thought we should read together. I admire her work too (especially her accents) and she has actually directed me on a few projects in the past.

I got my start doing The Laurell K. Hamiliton books but stopped doing them a few years ago when she moved publishers.

Thanks again you again for your email, it helps when I am in the thick of it to know that someone is out there enjoying the finished product :)

Take care,
Cynthia

I am now in such an amazing mood, both of these things has put a beautiful smile on my face which is perfect because I have two more interviews this afternoon and I am glad I can to go to them already feeling to great :)

04Jul

listening to audiobooks instead of working…

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In between applying for jobs and going to interviews I have been watching TV but mainly listening to the new book by Karen Chance, Hunt the Moon. I love all of the books written by Karen Chance and lucky for me (being dyslexic and all) the audiobook readers are amazing too. Hunt the Moon is the fifth novel in the Cassie Palmer series which is read by my favourite reader Cynthia Holloway

The novels are about Cassie Palmer, a clairvoyant who also has the ability to communicate with ghosts and later becomes Pythia. Cassie also ends up in a dysfunctional yet  hilarious relationship with Mircea Basarab who is briefly explained as Dracula’s older more attractive brother, I imagine he looks like this.

Karen Chance also writes novels about Dorina Basarab, Mirceas daughter and a dhampir. Dorina totally kicks arse and the lucky lady becomes Louis-Cesares lover. These books are also amazing and hilarious. In these novels we get to know the Vamps a lot more and we get to meet the third Basarab brother, Radu also known as Radu the handsome who fathered Louis-Cesare the second time around. Louis-Cesare is a master vampire with a past and a problem. Of course, his past is part of his problem, including a childhood spent largely in jail, a reluctant (and somewhat strange) vampire Sire, an altered time-line and a reputation as the dreaded enforcer of the European Vampire Senate.

Favourite dialogue between Louis Cesare and Radu:
“My lord…I can explain-,” Louis-Cesare began, looking less than certain that he could do anything of the kind.
Radu held up a hand. “I am sure there is a perfectly good reason why my niece is naked and tied to her bed. I am also equally certain that I do not wish to hear it”.”

The Dorina Basarab audiobooks are read by Joyce Bean who does an amazing job and makes Mircea sound so sexy, I love him. I think that Cynthia Holloways portrayal of the bridge characters is much more accurate accept for with Mircea but I am a sucker for an accent. If the story lines ever fully collide I think both readers would work well together.

Aside from listening to audiobooks and telling you all about them I am actively seeking employment. I have more interviews this week which is good and the more interviews I have the more confident I feel about them. I am sure I will get a job soon enough, I just want one now so I can get my savings plan back on track. As it stands I don’t think I will make it to Romania this year which is really disappointing but not the end of world. I will meet my goals soon enough and in the interim have more time to enjoy Sydney.

28Jun

morbid little self.

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I don’t really know how I like Sydney yet because I haven’t started working and have gone out, met anyone or engaged in any activities with any hot guys. On Thursday I will find out about a job I really want and then I will hopefully start work on Monday.

Staying with my family here is interesting…. My Dad can’t understand the Aspergers, my step mother hates me (see an earlier post). My siblings are cool though and I am enjoying getting to know them. I think moving here was good because there were things I was feeling guilty for and needed to apologise to my Dad about which I have done now.

I will work until I have enough money to go to Europe and hopefully have some fun there :)

I miss Brisbane so much, I haven’t laughed at all since I have been in Sydney, I am back to my morbid little self.

23Jun

Last few weeks

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My last few weeks in Brisbane were a total blast! I stayed at Brisbane Backpacker Resort (which I absolutely recommend) had an amazing room mate called Kathie who has a really bad habit of going out with French psychopaths, the latest one hates hair straightener and calls them “ze burning shit stick!” and thinks people should have “ze big ‘airs”.  Aside from crazy boyfriends Kathie is amazing!! She taught be about ironing my shirts with starch and took me to a fucking awesome music café in the West-End where I managed to find myself a girlfriend for a few days. (girlfriend was hot! and I had so much fun with her.)  Kathie is an amazingly confident and clever woman who knows how to have fun and always has a funny story.  I was sad to leave Brisbane in the end and all the wonderful people I met there.

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