There’s a national library conference happening in Brisbane in September, and I thought I’d go!  I’ve never been to Queensland, so I’m going to tack a two week holiday on the end of it.  I know a few people over there and I’m looking forward to catch up with them.

My wallet smarted at the conference registration fees, but then breathed a sigh of relief when I noticed that Virgin Blue’s happy hour sale today included flights to Brisbane – only $189!  Whoo!

Anyway, photos will be plentiful when I come back and I’m sure I’ll be tweeting and foursquaring my way across the state come September.

The past two weeks have been reasonably eventful.  Some of the stuff I’ve gotten up to:

• Offered a job as a walking tour guide
• Commenced training as walking tour guide
• Stopped training because I realised the job was utter shit
• Showed a friend around Berlin
• Incremented my age (in years) by one
• Invited to an interview in Vienna

The biggest benefit of doing the training to become a tour guide is that I went on a few tours and visited a few parts of Berlin I probably wouldn’t have, normally.  These include the Sachsenhausen concentration/work camp.

Sachsenhausen was not specifically a death camp,  although many thousands of people still died there.  It was initially set up to be a prison for political prisoners, and a way to encourage German Jews to leave the country.  It was also the site of experimentation into efficient methods of killing.  Most of the dead, though, were Soviet soldiers (The USSR never signed the Geneva Convention, so Soviet POWs were not treated humanely by Nazi Germany).

A quick visit from an old friend resulted in a whirlwind tour of Berlin’s Greatest Hits including the Brandenberg Gate, a Bugatti Veyron, the Wall, Checkpoint Charlie, Schloß Charlottenburg and some other places I can’t remember.

We also attempted some urban exploration.  We hopped over a wall surrounding an old 19th century building called the Eierhäuschen.  We spent about an hour trying to find a way into the main building, but only managed to enter some cellars that didn’t lead up to the rest of the house.

We wanted to visit the Spreepark – an old East Berlin amusement park that closed down a few years ago.  Unfortunately, our visit was short-lived as we spotted some other people and didn’t want to find out whether they were legitimately there, or just exploring like us.

On Saturday I celebrated my 28th birthday (my 2nd birthday in Germany – the first was my 18th) with my family.  It was a fantastic evening; one cousin gave me a bottle of vodka which we managed to empty over the course of the night.  My other cousins gave me a bottle of Cointreau, which will not be wasted in a similar manner.

This morning I was, once again, woken up by a call from a potential employer in Vienna – they had already called last week to make sure I was really interested in the job.  I managed to score an interview, so I’ll be visiting Vienna on the 11th very quickly.  A lovely Kiwi couple I met here will also be in Vienna that day, so we’ll wander around the city after the interview is finished.

I’ve also planned a trip to visit my grandmother in the Rheinland.  It’s a supremely beautiful part of Germany – there’ll be plenty of photos.

The Airport Express I brought is a boon, as I can leech my uncle’s wireless from every room in this rather large house.  Incidentally, my new camera arrived, which is why I’m able to show you these lovely photographs.

I’ve applied for a wide variety of positions, including:

• English language trainer (already been rejected)
• Librarian
• Library technician (sort of)
• Library assistant
• Tour guide (and pub crawl guide)
• Customer service representative
• Web analyst

All of these jobs, other than the Customer service assistant, are located in Berlin itself.  The three library jobs are the sum total of library jobs for which I’m actually qualified.  There’s a couple more, but I would need either a degree in agriculture, be able to speak some eastern European languages or have years of experience leading a team of people.

The Customer service representative position is with an international games company, and is situated in either France or Ireland.  I was going to wait a little while before applying for it, but I’m starting to go stir crazy.  Can’t go out without money, can’t get money without a job.

Wish me luck!