Finally I get round to writing a blog! Hurrah! This is primarily for my family, as they don't really know what's going on in my life at the moment! I'm writing this a little late, so this is summing up my last 3 weeks in chilly Melbourne!

After a month of rainy weather, bed bugs and working for free accommodation, we decided to leave Brisbane. I'd had no real luck on the job front, and I had some friends in Melbourne who were having a good time so I thought why not! So that week, flight was booked and I was off to Melbourne!

As soon as I stepped off the plane, I realised that everyone who'd said to pack jumpers wasn't joking. It was freezing! Well perhaps freezing is a slight exaggeration, but it was definitely a lot colder than Brisbane; mainly due to the fact that there was basically no humidity! It felt like an English autumn than an Aussie winter! My hostel was booked in a part of Melbourne called St Kila, right near the beach, and it seemed really nice when I arrived - although admittedly it did seem strange, as I'd been in Brisbane for so long!

Svenja and I moved into room 42 (now infamous!) aka the natural blonde room, as we were all (as the name would suggest) 'natural' blondes. In the room were some girls who we'd met in Sydney - Anna and Julia (the swedes), Caren (the german) and Katie who was my only fellow pom! It was really nice to see the girls again, and we all had a long catch up that evening about the major gossip since we'd last seen eachother. During this catch up session, Katie told us that she had a job in a call centre, and would see if she could get us one too.

The next few days were spent exploring my new surroundings and reaslising that although I'd only been in Melbourne for a day, maybe everyone was right - Melbourne is nicer than Sydney? Although in the beginning, this concept seemed ridiculous to me. Sydney had always been my favourite city, with it's picturesque scenery, crazy night life and electric atmosphere. It seemed like the city had a pulse, and when you were there you felt like more than just a tourist. Needless to say, I'd always been under the impression that Melbourne could neve beat it. Which was why i found myself confused on my first few days; This was a city that somehow managed to remain charming, with it's fastpaced lifestyle. In the city is a prime example of this - Federation Square. Here, there is a real sense of old meets new, with it's more traditional museums and buildings, impressively tall skycrapers and the somewhat confusing tram system. And while the lifestyle is still fast paced, it's nothing like Sydney - here you can stop and think! The only trump card that Sydney has is it's beaches, and we all know that I'm not a big fan of just lying and trying to tan, as I'm fully aware that the sun hates me, and I'll end up going home still resembeling a character from twilight! St Kilda is really chilled out too, we went to see the penguins at the Harbour one evening at sunset, which was really nice!

A few days after arriving in the (still) cloudy suburb of St Kilda, I had a job interview for a telesales job. Yes, it really had come to working in a call centre, and after doing it I really admire the people who do it day in, day out - I can honestly say that I couldn't do it! The interview took place in the office in South Melbourne, and I could tell as soon as i walked through the door that this wasn't a job where I could exactly climb the career ladder. The structure of the 'interview' was as follows.

A 45 minute wait. An informal chat to a woman called Janet (in charge of hiring and firing. She was a very large woman who donned a very unflattering shirt and skirt combo, and a pair of kitten heels that I feared would break under the weight of her), about her move to Australia. A quick run through of what we'd be selling (the job was cold calling businesses and trying to sell them a new landline package. In premise it seemed like a good deal: unlimited local and national calls, no contract blah blah. Although it was clearly a very suspect deal, as the company kept having to change their name, offices etc). Finally, we were asked when we could start. Not even a glance at a CV and I had a job!

After my inital - and endlessly boring - training, I had a week of so called probation, where I would be paid $15 an hour, regardless of how many sales I made. After that, I would be paid on a commission only basis. From the start I was under no illusion that I'd end up working more than a week, I just needed the money! It's not easy being a backpacker after all, I need money to buy my noodles and alcohol for the week! The people who worked there included some tough indian women who refused to end the call until they made a sale, some skinny jean loving lesbians with short hair and multiple facial piercings, and some equally depressed British backpackers. None of us wanted to be there, but we all needed the job. So, with an already depressing 7am start, I began work. The routine was the same every day:

"Good morning, my name is Lauren I'm just calling regarding your current telstra business landline, is it possible to speak to the person in charge of that account?"

"No, leave us alone" or "this is harrassment" or "how do you know about my phone bill, that's breaking the privacy act" or my personal favourite "piss off."

Of course, nobody wanted us to ring them. Nobody cared about the product, and I didn't really want to sell them it when they didn't need it! So i quit, after a week! And i still haven't been paid, nearly a month later. Uh oh!

After a week of 7am starts, all i wanted to do was chill out. That week it was Anna's Birthday, so we decided to have a girly weekend. On the Friday night, we had a slumber party! We covered our bedroom floor with pillows and duvets, and spent the whole evening talking boys, fashion, and anything else remotely girly! We had a selection of magazines left at the hostel from 1995, some facepacks and some food so we were happy as larry! At midnight we gave Anna her birthday cake, and headed to bed in preparation for the next night - 80s night! The next day, we all headed to Cotton On (An Australian ecquivalent of New Look) and trawled the Sales section looking for cheap, 80s inspired leggings and tops for our fancy dress. I stumbled upon a pair of black and white leggings, which i teamed with an orange crop top and backcombed hair (a lear 80s essential!). We all headed to lazertag after that, which was really fun - basically quazar, running round shooting little kids with lazer guns. And we finished Anna's birthday festivities with a trip to the museum (very cultural), where the exhibition included a room that slowed down your movements into a matrix style routine! That night, we donned our 80s gear and started to drink our pasion pop - a cheap wine out here, a backpacker essential when fed up of the mandatory goon drinking - and do some karaoke in the hostel. Everyone was in the spirit of things, with fancy dress outfits ranging from the ghost busters, to 80s footballers. The night went well until the police came to shut down the party. They were met by chants of 'strippers, strippers' as we all thought that someone had hired them for the party, needless to say they weren't impressed and shut down the party due to the excessive noise. After that we all headed out to party some more, and a fun night was had by all, some more than others! Julia left at 4am to fly to Adelaide, and it was sad to lose one of the natural blondes! But we did pick up a new one a few days later when the other Swedish Julia (SS) arrived from Sydney a few days later.

The next day, hungover and not feeling the 14 degree temperature in the hostel, I went to see Rachel, a friend from home. We spent the afternoon catching up and watching sex and the city. It was really nice to see a friendly face from home, and to be able to sit on a sofa and not worry about being bitten by bed bugs!

The next week consisted of well...not a lot really, in my attempts to save money i came to the conclusion that sleeping was the best option. I didn't go out again until that weekend, as Katie won a $100 bar tab - which naturally had to be used. So, that night was pretty messy. Everyone got very dunk, memories were lost and that is all that needs to be said on the matter! But a good night nonetheless, and a funny morning with everyone trying to recollect what had happened! Not me of course, as I am a saint when it comes to drinking, as everyone obviously knows!

On the Monday, we finally went on our roadtrip! I should explain at this point that we had been planning on doing one for weeks, but it was too complicated to plan with everyone being in different places! A dutch girl called Marleike joined us on the trip, making it 7 blonde girls - which I guess must have been strange to see, judging by the number of people who stared at the car in an odd way when we drove past! It felt really nice to get out of the city, and have only what we needed with us. The three day trip was to the Great Ocean Road and the Gampions, and while the Great Ocean Road was more the Average Ocean Road, the Grampions were really quite impressive. More impressive however was how we managed to drive there, through a huge storm, on the edge of the cliff (the edge of a cliff part is only a guess, but as we couldn't see around us, i'm going to go with the most potentially life threatening scenario!), and we had to try and avoid crazy kangaroos nearly jumping on the car. When we finally got to Halls Gap, the hostel owner was shocked that we'd driven through such a bad storm. It really was bad, I will fully admit that I feared for my life. We had good fun though, peronal highlights of the trip include: "Excuse me!", our terrible attempts at jumping photos, our mammoth portions of pasta, seeing the koala bears, feeding the parrots and the general sing songs in the car - especially 'beep' byt the pusst cat dolls.

When we finally got back to th hostel that night, we were tired but made an effort to go to Cushion fo $5 pizza (it is amazing, and at only $5 it's a backpackers dream!). For the net few days, I tried to organise my life - my bag, my bank card, write some postcards, my university accommodation. Pretty much all the fun stuff! Alie, a friend from home arrived in my last few days so it was nice to hea r about her travels, and vice versa. Before I knew it, it was my last night in Melbourne! It was also Tom's last night, and he'd been in Australia for over a year so it was a biiiig night. We all had a BBQ at the hostel, and started drinking around 7. We ended up in white bar, with cheap drinks because of Tom's leaving. Everyone was pretty drunk, and Anna, Svenja, Julia and I decided that we'd make a mandatory mid-night-out bakery stop (oh yes, it was a 24 hour bakery, aka the bakery of dreams. Words can't describe how much we all loved this place!), on the way we got invited in as 'VIP's to a club, with a free drink. Still undettered by our lost time, we still made it to the bakery and had our chocolate croissant before heading back out to the infamousl Tongue and Groove. T&G is like the equivalent of say...Havanas, for any Norwich people reading this! In other words, it's a really bad club. But we all got in for free, except Katie who came later and had an argument with the doorman about it! It was pretty bad in there, so I decided to come home and go to bed! When I awoke the next day, it dawned on me that it was my final day in Melbourne, which was very sad! Spent the day watching Gavin and Stacey, before grabbing our stuff and very nearly missing our airport transfer!

After flying to Brisbane, I'm now staying with family on the Gold Coast! Last night I had my fist roast dinner in 4 months, and slept in my own room - both vey weird experiences! And next week i'm going to start the East Coast, with some friends!

Well, I've tried to remember as much as I can about my life over the last few weeks, but I've probably missed some stuff out! If you're reading this from home, all you really need to know is that I'm having an awesome time, and coming here was the best decision I ever made!

Love you guys!

Lauren

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