Amy= Happy Third Wheel

Well I'm finally in Australia and currently thnking how much I miss everybody back in Auckland, but on the other hand... I'M WARM and nothing can ruin that for me;) My sister and Sam kep complaining about the heat, but thankfully I came at the right time. As soon as I landed, the long-running drought in Queensland and NSW ended and not there is torrential rain and killer floods. Hmm... if only immigration knew at the time, they may never have let me in! =)

Sorry it's been a while. I meant to update a couple of days ago, but my photos wouldn't upload and well they still won't, but the blogging bug is forcing me to write anyway. So I arrived on Saturday and I think my suitcase (officially named Kung Fu bag) has finally had it. Customs and bagage handlers finally managed to break my bag, the one that's travelled around the world with me. Tis sad, but a good excuse to indulge my bag fetish! Anyways, so Sam and I had been keeping this secret from Sharon for about 3 weeks and we planned how to spring the suprise on her. So Samu let me into the complex and I waited outside their apartment door while he buzzed Shaz and said that the auto lock wasn't working and she had to come out and let him in. This preceeded a conversation of:

Sam "Sharon honey, can you let me in?"
Shaz "I just unlocked it... pull!"
Sam "Honey, it won't open, I think it's broken"
Shaz "You're bullshitting. You lazy bugger, open the door yourself"
Sam "no seriously, it won't open!"
Shaz "You lie, you bull shit"

Hehe, anyways she ot overly annoyed and came out the stood there staring like a stunned mullet:) Cue screaming, crying and more OMGs! So overall it was fun and sooo fantastic seeing her again. Missed my shaz so much and it didn't take long for me and Sam to get back into our old routine of bickering and him making it his daily mission to annoy the hell out of me;) Awww, I missed them! So I'm making a point of crashing all their little couply things lie the third wheel that I am.


So it's been a good couple of days of relaxing, but I started getting bored so I decided to tackle the Australian Bureaucracy that is the Australian Tax Office. I worked in Australia a few years ago and have a tax file number (IRD number) so decided that I needed to get it back.

1) Call ATO to retrieve number

yeah, so this was challenge number one! After calling and progressivly moving up the virtual queue, I got this dude who I couldn't understand a word from. So he went into a long and indepth discription (told in stoy mode) about getting a tax file number and I reiterated after 5 minutes that I already had one and just needed to know it. so I gave him my name and he put me on hold for 10 minutes, came back (in that time I of course had vacuumed the house, been to the supemarket and painted my toenails) and just had to "reconfirm" that my name was spelt Frazier. Hmmm... strike one. Then my bad, I couldn't remember my mailing address from a random house in Eastern Melbourne from 3 years ago. So he said he couldn't give it to me. But then he established that I didn't have an Australian passport or Australian drivers licence and said "oh dear" several times... smooth. So I spent 10 minutes givng him the run down on Australian immigration policy and reciprocal rights of New Zealanders... we parted ways amicably;)

2) Go in person to the ATO Office

So I went along to the office with my NZ passport and and NZ drivers licence and guess what the lady said "well, we can't really geeve out your numba unless you can tell me the address that you had 3 years ago. No? Can you guess?" Well that is true class and top notch security if you ask me! So then I got to fill in an unbelievably long form only to get to the end and she said "yeah, I can't accept that weethout a cell phone number'. OMG my home phone was there, my next of kin's phone number was there, they knew my address, blood type, shoe size romantic history... but no, foiled by the bloody cellphone number! So after having spent 15 minutes filling in a form for a number that was on the screen 1 metre away from me, she reassured me that I could post it to the address printed on the front sheet that she had just thrown in the rubbish in (she gracefully searched through the garbage and got it for me... gee whizz, thanks). So now I have wasted a good 3 hours of my life trying to get a number that was only 1 metre away from me and will now be posted out in 4 weeks. God bless Australia and Amy.... just breath.

So aside from that it's really nice being over here and laughing at everybody;) Was at the wine shop across the road and a guy came up to me and said "you're that kiwi chick aren't you". Well I said tht was probably my sister, which was greeted by an over the top "well, you're a dead bloody ringer of'er". "I'm a twin" "Oh shit, did you hear that Darryn, she's a bloody twin mate". You'll be proud to know that I held my tongue and played along, feigning interest in their highly intelligent conversation.

So yep, that's about if for the moment. Have an interview tomorrow and till then I'm going to finish Dan Brown's Digital Fortress (wow computers have never seemed sexier!). So miss everybody but loving Brisy (Australians and all:) ).