Hey everyone!

Sorry its been so long since my last blog, almost 2 weeks I guess....time flies!

So the wait in Singapore airport was surpsingly easy....I love the free massage chairs...England really needs to think about that in their airports too. The flight was ok, watched some movies and had the tastiest in flight food ever, and then landed in melbourne pretty early. And were totally shocked cuz it was pretty cold. I was so upset! It hadn't been cold since HK, and even then it was only in the evening. Got the bus to the city, and then managed to work out which tram to get to take us to St Kilda...when we got there though we had a bit of a problem. On route, it had decided to start raining and we got the WORST thunderstorm I have ever had the misfortune to be outside in. We were getting proper soaked, and stupidly ahd only briefly looked at a map of where our hostel was, and not looked at any road names etc. You think by now we would have learnt but no no no....so I knew vaguely whereabouts it should be, but wandering around in the rain, you don't really fancy traipsing up and down....so there we were, in the rain we spent anhour looking for an internet cafe, and couldn't find one (unlike asia where you keep tripping over them).

After about 2 hours, we finally saw a building that had a rooftop bar....figured that could be it....got soooo disappointed when the name on it was "hotel barkly" and were about to turn back when paul luckily remembered he'd seen something about that on the net, and it turns out our hostel was the same thing....

This hostel was a bit of a disappointment to be fair. the rooms were nice and spacious with balcony, and the bathroom was really nice, but the kitchen was pretty small for such a big place, the bar was pretty expensive, and the social atmosphere wasn't great. made some friends with 2 guys staying in our room, but otherwise people pretty much kept themselves to themselves which sucked.

But whilst there we did things like check out the beach, went to the melbourne aqarium, wandered aroudn the city and the riverand the cbd, checked out the shops and the cinema, walked through albert park to town and back, and hunted for jobs (which we still haven't got its so much harder than home!!!)

Christmas was a bit of a disappointment....when your so far away from home....the reason i got so diasppointed was also because there had been an advertisment for a christmas dinner-i quote "turkey, chicken, ham, salads, and cold beer, everything you need for christmas" and it was $15. Ok we thought, we have no other plans. So we go down, and pay our money and get our stamp...and our chistmas dinner was cold packet ham, turkey and chicken i.e sandiwch fillers, a pasta salad, and the worst potato salad ever. Iheard some guy arguing over the beer with the guy running it-"it says on the poster you get a beer" "no mate, it doesn't".

I felt well and truly ripped off, what a crap christmas dinner. so we treated ourselves to a roast at the pub in the crown complex, and it was cheaper and absolutely gorgeous-don't trust the lies of st kilda beach house!!!!

So that was pretty much the excitement from there, we had a power cut one night which was pretty funny but me being me just got scared *shame*.

Then we moved onto our new hostel, on chapel street. its so different. like the dorms are smaller, we have no space for our stuff, and the bathrooms aren't great, but the kitchens easier because its such a smaller hostel, and the atmosphere is so much better. Been chatting to the people here quite a lot, watching our 52" tv, staying up to watch the footy and stuff. so that meant new year was actually pretty cheap. after stressing it would be really expensive (the old hostel was having a party but the entry fee was....$150?? at a backpacker hostel??? no thankyou!) We stayed at the hostle for a wee bit having a couple of glasses of wine, then went out with a big group to federation square. we watched the fireworks, hugged and sang auld langsyne (sp???) and then came back to chapel street and then back to the hostel. it was nice and cheap and good making new freinds woop woop!

So now, its serious job hunting time, as I am completely skint!.

Miss you all, will try and write a more interesting blog when I have time! HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

love and miss you all,

xxxx