chunder down under

I've now been doing some work at hostel, or hotel/resort as they like to call it, in the front office. Basically I'm a porter. Still, it's a nice change from getting covered in beer, breaking my back lifting kegs and cleaning vomit off the toilets. Although I still do all of that at the weekends and occasional weekday evenings. For fun. The best part of the job involves me picking up arrivals from the airport/bus depot in the courtesy bus. It's just a van painted up in the Gilligans colours, but it's quite fun nipping around in it. Recently, most of the guests have been worriedly asking me about the approaching tropical cyclone, which is a category 5 (the highest rating) and would tear Cairns apart. Luckily it seems to be well past us, to the north west and decreasing in strength, although it is possible that it could veer back this way.
I haven't really been updating this blog recently, mainly because I seem to be working every night - sometimes until 4am. It's getting a bit much and I think I need to take some time off as I seem to be constantly exhausted and cranky. The only day I had off recently was on Sunday when I went round for a party at Steve's (a work mate). I got there at about 2.30pm and already they were sitting around playing drinking games involving tequila and sambuca. Since my short term memory for lists is not great, I ended up losing a fair few times and sitting in the pool under a rather feeble artificial waterfall drinking shots. It was one of those messy parties where someone seriously suggests having an arm-wrestling competition, and where I was drunk enough to take them up on it. Needless to say I called up sick to work and crashed out. Strangely, I felt fine the next morning - although I was a bit wobbly cycling home.
The cyclone seems to have brought the return of the rains, so it's back to being soaked every day.