My Best Stories and The Worst Things That Ever Happened to Me
Alexandra Stuhr
International Experience Canada
What age were you when you first got your first visa with IEC?
I was 23 going on 24 the year I did my first visa.
The first one I did was in Australia. I'm from a smaller city in Canada, but we had a couple of Australians working in the hotel that I was working at. When they left, I thought, maybe I should go. Go have a visit and go on my own adventure.
I did a full year there and it consisted of a lot of ups and downs. I feel like I learned a lot of things the hard way, but then I was hooked. So then from there, I went to New Zealand for a year, and after that, I kept travelling... I spent nine months in Southeast Asia and then travelled around the States and then Canada.
On my most recent trip, I went to Europe and the UK, which was amazing.
What were some of your travel mishaps?
Ha! I feel like those are all my best stories and are the worst things that ever happened to me.
First, when I went to Queensland I had friends there and we (my partner and I) visited them. It was actually really difficult to find work in Queensland because it turns out we went at the wrong time of year.
It's very tourism-driven there and we went in summer, which is why no one wants to go there. It turns out, their summer because it's in the Northern part of Australia is so hot. No one wants to be there. It's very tropical and sweltering. It was the worst for us because at the same time it was winter in. So it was about negative 40 here. Then it was plus 40 there. So I thought it was going to die.
We couldn't find work, even though we were applying for the most pathetic jobs. Eventually, it was like, I will run the pizza counter at a backpackers at 4:00 AM, I'll take any job. I couldn't even do that. Competition was tough. So we were like, okay, we'll go on a road trip. We'll explore the rest of the country and see what's available.
Lots of like crazy things happened. We met lots of different road buddies. We had agreed to travel with an American girl and she basically just ditches us on the side of the road at one point. She had met this other guy from England who she really wanted to hang out with, but we'd already agreed to take her car with another girl. We're all going to go together to Sydney. Then she was like, ‘Oh, I met this British guy. I really want to stay here with him. So we're going to do our own thing.’ SO we’re stuck without a plan and on top of that it was raining. It was so miserable that day, so we just had to sit in a cafe across from the hostel and figure out what to do. We posted ads all over Gumtree.
Eventually, we just rented our own car and we made it fine to the next city over. We then hitchhiked with this weird Australian guy for a while. He was very interesting. I was actually terrified because we had just seen the movie, Wolf Creek. (if you haven’t heard of Wolf creek- it’s a scary movie about a true story where travellers were victims of a serial killer in the Australian Outback). One day there was a stop check at two in the afternoon on Sunday the cops are doing with breathalyzers. They pulled us over and we said, hi, no problems here. He took the guy's driver's license and then he left for so long when he finally came back he said: “did you know that your license is cancelled?”
The guy said, “Oh, what? I didn't know?”. So it turns out that he was drunk driving and had his license taken away and he definitely knew the whole time but was driving around the country, with all these backpackers, driving them around so that they'd pay for his fuel and his food.
At one point we actually just pulled off the side of the road and slept in like the middle of a forest, it was intense!
I learned a lot of things the hard way on this trip... like I never knew sandflies existed. I'm from the cold part of Canada. We don't have sand flies.
So one day we found this beautiful campsite and there was a beach next to it. We thought, Oh, we're going to camp on the beach tonight!! It's going to be so nice and magical, we'll look at the stars. When we woke up in the morning (I was wearing shorts), I woke up and I had hundreds of bites all over my legs! They just didn't go away.
Why did you want to be a part of the IEC ambassador program?
I had pretty bad social anxiety when I was younger. I actually felt so awkward at times. I'm sure all teenagers feel that way, but I felt paralysed sometimes when I had to speak with people.
I really, really feel like stepping out of my comfort zone and pushing myself to meet new people on the road and trying new things was what helped me to grow as a person. It really helped me gain confidence and discover who I am. That’s why sharing my experience and the program itself is so important to me.
I think IEC makes overseas experiences more accessible. It can be more intimidating because no one's helping you find work or accommodation, but also there are not all of those extra costs. So you don’t get tied down to a job. There are other visas where you have to find sponsorship, but not with IEC. It's very, very accessible.
Why would you recommend IEC?
For me, I see it as the right choice because it has a lot of freedom. There are no strings attached. So I usually recommend it to people who are considering work visas anyways. If you go through a sponsorship visa, there's a lot more strings attached, obligations, and commitments, and if things go wrong, or you don't love where you're at, you’re kind of stuck, or you have to leave the country.
There are other programs that provide you with more assistance, but it's quite expensive. So if you want something to a budget and you're willing to put yourself out there, it's just a really great way to explore the world and do it on your own.
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