Saturday, December 5, 2015

The First Two Weeks At My Job

I've just finished the first two weeks at my job and I thought I'd just let you know what I do, how I live, etc. 

I arrived on Saturday November 21st, I got picked up from the train station at 4pm by a guy named David who also works at the stables via VisitOz. 
The house I'm staying at is very nice. There is no other house is sight, it's got 3 bedrooms, a kitchen, a bathroom, a living room and satellite tv! I've got no wifi and barely any mobile reception at the house but that's all okay. The house is 40 minutes away from the stables but that means that I do have a car to my availability :). 

The stables I work at is an endurance stable. It's called Toft Endurance. They work with young Arabian horses that they train and eventually sell. 
My job mainly consists of feeding the horses in the morning, then I start riding the horses. I ride a total of 4, sometimes 5, horses everyday. I start riding at 9am, than have lunch from 12:30pm till 13:30pm and than ride again till about 4pm, after that it's just cleaning and going home. 
The 4 horses that I ride everyday are Wallaby Jones, a 4-year-old stallion, Kewpie Doll, a 8-year-old mare, Sartilly, a 5-year-old mare, and Heidi Ho, a 4-year-old mare. My job is to maintain the balance in the horses and get them to accept the bit more, relax, bring their head down. Basically, I teach the horses the basics, before the learn all the real endurance-y stuff.
I work from Sunday till Thursday and than have Friday and Saturday off. I usually just chill and do laundry (im such an adult) on Friday and than I go into Brisbane on Saturday. Oh, and I make $520 per week, which is about €347.

Even though I know my job is amazing and I'm very lucky, I kinda just want it to be over with. I just wanna make the money, go backpacking and go home. 
I am really excited to go backpacking. Cause I just wanna see places and take pictures and stuff. But to be fair, I've worked here for two weeks now and they've gone by so fast, I've just got 10 more weeks to go 😁.
But I'm not gonna complain, the house is great, I've got a car, the job is great, and life is good. 
I'll keep you updated on my job and mainly, when I'll go backpacking :). 

My house and car for the next three months. 









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Friday, November 20, 2015

You Can Call Me Guy

This past week I've been on the trainingfarm. It was so different than what I'm used to! I'm used to pretty dressage and show jumping horses and people riding pretty and stuff. This is like the complete opposite. I've been riding for 9 years and it felt like I was riding for the first time when I rode for the first time here. 

Day 1: We arrived in the afternoon. The people here really struggled with pronouncing my name, so they changed it to Guy, lol. So from no on till I come home I'll probably be Guy. We didn't do a lot of hard work since we had just arrived. First we got a little show around the farm. I also learned how to drive a tractor which was quite cool! For the rest we didn't do anything special, mainly work with cattle. In the evening I called someone who had offered me a job to take care off and ride Arabian horses. It all sounded very nice so I'd probably call them back tomorrow and take the job :). 

Day 2: Today we had to get up at 7:30. But ever since I arrived here I've woken up at like 5/6am so that wasn't that much of a problem. I learned how to drive a quad and a off road motorbike. Both we're so cool, and I really thought I would be harder! After lunch we got to ride horses and I was so excited but it was such a disappointment for me. It was mainly my fault. I was too focused on still sitting "dressage-y" as they call it here. I just needed to relax, they said (which is easier said than done). I hope that at my job next week I can ride with English saddles and more dressage and show jumpy things. 

Day 3: Today we woke up at 4:30am. We drove for about 2 hours to a different farm to go mustering. I was kinda nervous because we had to ride for several hours and yesterday it went so bad. But for some reason, maybe I was more relaxed, maybe I got a nicer horse, maybe both, it went so much better! I wasn't that got at the whole mustering stuff but I definitely had fun and enjoyed it. After that I got to work with calvs. At first my main job was to switch a gate so that the cows and calvs were led to the right field. That was a great job, it was easy, it was in the shade. Just perfect. Unfortunately that came to an end and I had to help getting the calvs and this little cage thing, where they're lined up. And I got to witness them being numbered in their ear, having their balls & horns chopped off and getting brand marked. It didn't mind seeing the brand mark & the ears getting pierced and numbered, but watching the balls and horns getting chopped off was so gross. There was blood all over their heads. Not a very pleasant view. After working for about 10 hours straight we were finally done, got to shower, have dinner and go to sleep. 

Day 4: Today we did similar things as yesterday. We got up at 5am and got mustering at 6am. When we got back the guys from the other trainingsfarm arrived to get the experience of mustering. It was a bit more chill and relaxed the yesterday because there were more people to help around so the was nice. 
At around 7pm we went home and we got McDonalds on the way home! I don't think I've ever enjoyed McDonalds more. I've been craving it since the day I got here. 

Day 5: Today we had a bit of heat wave. At the highest it was 37°C!  We got a bit of a chill day because of the heat and because we had two days of hard work. We went fencing so I learned a lot about that. For the rest the main thing i did was pack because tomorrow we are leaving for our actually jobs!

I had so much fun at this farm and learned so so much. I am actually very excited for my job! I'll keep you updated :). 




Just a little indication of how dirty you get from mustering...
Doing a little mustering

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Friday, November 13, 2015

Australia: The Arrival

My departure to Australia mainly started on Tuesday (Nov. 10th). My mother and I started packing my backpack. We checked if I had everything about 10 times and yet still when we were in the car my mom asked if I had a wire to transport pictures from my camera onto my laptop, which I had forgotten. Then when I was at the airport in Dubai I realized I completely forgot my sunglasses *sigh*. Oh well, I have the important things.

We left for the airport at about 5pm. It didn't take long to see that it was really busy on the road. But eventually it didn't matter because we arrived at the airport at 6:30pm (my plane left at 10pm). 
My parents, youngest brother and myself had some dinner at the airport, and said goodbye. It felt kind of weird since I've never said goodbye to my parents for 4 months. It felt very surreal. 
I first flew from Amsterdam to Dubai, which was about 6,5 hours or something. I didn't get to see a lot of Dubai, I mainly saw the insane prices in the Duty Free Shops. 
After that I got on a plane from Dubai to Brisbane. Which is about 14 hours. Which is a complete nightmare. 
I actually really enjoy going on a plane, but being on one for 14 hours is a pretty fucking long time. Luckily they had great movies on board, such as Amy and Paper Towns. I've wanted to watch both these movies ever since I saw their trailers. 
Both flights were perfectly fine, nothing special. 

At the airport I was greeted by a representative from VisitOz (the organization with which I'm here). I then had to be on a bus for 2 hours with some other people who were here with VisitOz. On my first day I was mainly tired, jet lagged and home sick. All I wanted to do was sleep and then go home. I think I just really have to get used to being away from everything I know. But so far I actually really wanna get home. I also think it's because these first few days I didn't have anything to do, so I had nothing to keep me busy and to distract me from being homesick. I think once I'm on the farm where I'll be working, things will get better. 

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Monday, April 6, 2015

A Life Change


Okay so last Thursday was kinda my last day at school. Let me explain a little somethin’ somethin’

Last year in May i graduated from high school and in September i went to college. I had to sign myself in before the first of May, but in April i still had no idea what i wanted to study. I decided (very last minute) to do some tests - some on the internet, some with professional people - and see what came out as my interests and stuff like that. All of the tests told me to do something with languages or communication, which didn’t really surprise me. So i went to the presentations of two communication majors at a college in Amsterdam. At the first one, Communication And Multimedia Design, i found myself constantly listening and taking notes, at the second one, Communication Management, i found myself become bored. So to me it was very clear back then. But i hadn’t done any research as to what the major was about and what you learned in those years. But since i did want to start studying i decided to just sign myself in. 
I started in September but already in February i started having my doubts if this was the right choice for me. It was very “technical”. I learned how to work with HTML & Javascript, which i found extremely boring. I also failed miserably at doing my homework or very sometimes showing up in general. My grades were very bad and i wasn’t happy. I thought that maybe that was just a bad semester, and promised myself to really try harder on the next semesters. But i didn’t. I kept procrastinating and sometimes not showing up. I didn’t even know what some of my subjects exactly were about. 
The main reason that i procrastinate so much, is because in high school i could get away with that. I did everything last minute and i (almost) always passed. Or at least got a grade high enough. But in college you can’t do that. You can’t get away with it and i think that’s something that i really am going to have to work on. 
For now, i am not sure what i’m going to do. Which freaks me out. I like having control and especially when it’s my life. Not knowing what i’m gonna do or what’s gonna happen with my life scares me and it makes me extremely anxious. Sometimes i just get so afraid that one day i’ll be homeless, or just a nobody that achieved nothing in his life. 
About a week ago i decided that it’s no use of forcing myself to do something i don’t like. I might disappoint someone, but this is what is best for me. My plan is to take a year off, work and make some money, work on my photography and travel. Trying to find myself and figuring out what i love and what i want to do with my life, cause for as now, i have no idea at all. 
I am mainly scared to tell my parents. I don’t know why since i’m only 17 and it’s quite rare for a 17 year old to know exactly what they want. But i feel like i’m letting my parents down. I’ve always been the steady one, i’ve always done it on my own and i (almost) always succeeded and i feel that now i have failed miserably. And it’s all my own fault. 
I do truly think that taking a year off to find myself and find what i like is a good idea, but at the same time i’m really afraid it’s not. I’m very scared that i’m just gonna lay around all day and do nothing else but work and watch Netflix or Youtube. But i’m willing to take that risk, cause right now i really really really wouldn’t know what to do with my life. I hope my parents will be okay with my decision and will accept it. I will obviously need and want their help on finding things out, but that’s another one of my flaws. I don’t like to ask people for help. When i’ve achieved something but i got a lot of help from someone, i feel like didn’t really achieved it. I feel like i’m lifting on someone’s succes. I also tend to let the other person find everything out, instead of doing it together. But this time i truly need the help of my parents. Because without them, i will be laying around, doing nothing but watching Netflix and Youtube…

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Saturday, April 4, 2015

Hi everyone!

Okay, so i don't really know how this whole blog thing works, but i'm just gonna give it a go.

On November 10th i'm leaving for Australia where i'll be working on a horse ranch for 10 weeks, and after that travel around for about 5/6 weeks. This blog is meant for my families and friends to stay updated on what's going on with me in Australia. 
This will be a very visual blog with a lot of pictures since i love photography.
I hope you enjoy my blog :)

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