24/11/07 - 05/12/07 King Street Backpackers $24 p/ngt

05/12/07 - House share Albert Park

Hi all!!!! Well I am currently living and working in Melbourne and seen as one of my lovely housemates has left me with his laptop I thought I would catch up on the last few weeks here in Melbourne!!!

We arrived around 8pm at the airport and pretty much jumped straight on a shuttle bus into the town centre where we had already booked our first couple of nights accommodation.... this choice was based mainly on the fact that King St backpackers have free pancakes on Sunday... and I suppose also because they were pretty near the central station.

As we hadn't really been out much (er... at all!) on an evening since getting to Oz we decided to head straight out to the bars... only to find that we appeared to be in the middle of all the gentlemans clubs and couldn't find much else. Eventually we settled on a bar across the road called La Di Da... which looked ok... although we've since found out that apparently it's a strip club upstairs, hehe!!! Anyway... it was a bit of a rubbish bar and they only served small beers (terrible!). We eventually got chatting to a group of guys who seemed nice and we were really amused by the fact that the one who started talking to us first (matt I think) tried to put us at ease by saying he was getting married soon... so wasn't trying it on. Which was good to know! He explained to us that they'd just been at a footy match and that the bar was something to do with the football club and the guy about to make a speech about the game was the club owner and often announces free bar... so we stuck around a little longer. The guys matt, stuart and murdo (scottish) then took us out to Brunswick Street... a much nicer area of bars.

We went in heaps of bars down Brunswick Street, which was much more our thing... and you could even get a pint instead of a pidly schooner! It was election day and labour have now taken power over here. As voting's compulsary here it is really weird to see how into the election everyone gets. You would never see groups of youths in England getting so animated over politics in the pub on an evening (well none of the youths I know anyway!).

I'd already sent my CV off to about 20 agencies before leaving Coff's so both me and Mel had managed to wangle interviews for the Monday after we made it into town which was pretty cool and both started our new jobs on Tuesday. We're working for vodafone taking inbound calls to cancel mobile phone insurance and using Siebel 7 (oh how the memories of npower came flooding back!)... only thing is that each call takes around a minute and a team of 9 of us have averaged around 7 calls each a day (8 hours)... so my god we get bored and the days seem to drag on forever. Sounds great to be getting paid to do nothing... but I feel like my brain is slowly melting and have read loads of books already and feel like a granny doing all these crosswords and sudoko's.... aarrrgh!!!!

The hostel we stayed in was ok, but no matter what time we tried to use the kitchen it was choc-a-block with people and no-one seemed capable of washing up after themselves. Also there was no bar or tv room or anything, so after a day of boredom at work we went home to... more boredom and couldn't wait to get out... but trying to find short-term accommodation here is a nightmare as it's in such high demand!

Because we managed to get our jobs so quickly between work and hangovers we haven't really done all that much in the way of touristy stuff and sight-seeing, but we have managed a few things. We had a day in St Kilda while looking for accommodation and went to the Luna Park, where they have the world's oldest wooden rollercoaster... although it's not working at the moment as it's riddled with rot... eek! We also went to check out Acland Street and The Espy, a big pub/music veue that's really popular where we had a cheeky beer to hide from the midday sun. We've also checked out most of the Central Business District (CBD) and have been to Victoria Market, etc.

One of our first roomies in the King St backpackers was an italian girl who randomly lived in Scarborough, England for a couple of years and recommended a windy grindy yo yo yo r'n'b / reggaeton night at the Amber Lounge on Lonsdale. So on our second weekend we decided to check it out and it was pretty good, but would have been better with a bigger crowd of us as there was only me and Mel. Before heading there we went to the Irish bar just around the corner (I'll add the bar name later as I've forgotten it) where we got chatting to a stag night who were all quite amusing. Although the next day when one of them text Melissa and called her Melanie she was less than impressed, hehe! That'll teach her to giver her number out to random guys!

Keeping it along an Irish theme... the following day, having nearly given up all hope of finding a place to rent, we went in search of a cheaper hostel with a decent bar in it or nearby and we found Bev and Mick's near Victoria Market. It isn't actually supposed to be an Irish bar.... but as most of the patrons were Irish (and drunk) you would be forgiven for thinking that it was. The place is a bar/hostel and the guy who showed us around (Matt) was great. It must have been just before noon we got there and the bar was already full... and there were some very hammered guys around... including one who kept showing us his gay hand... he had obviously let some ladies paint his nails pink and was wearing some huge tacky jewellery. Matt knew everyone staying there's names and introduced us to all of them as he showed us round the place and a few of the rooms (which mainly involved him waking up the pissheads sleeping off there hangovers in there... way for us to make friends!!!). The place was full but he promised us a call back later in the week when he had a room for us. We stuck around for a couple of cheap pints of Bev and Mick's homebrew... which was pretty good actually... then we reluctantly left. Matt did call us back as promised... but by then we had found something else, so have just promised to go back in fo a beer sometime instead... Although if I'm honest I'm not sure how long my liver could have coped with living there!

So... our house... I am now living in a gorgeous place in the suburb of Albert Park. I guess the house is the equivalent of an avenues place. It is near some nice bars and restaurants (that I guess would be princes ave) and is near the park (albert park is not just a clever name!). I'm also 10 mins walk from the beach which I went to check out the other day and it was absolutely gorgeous... and as a bonus there were lots of suntanned and stunning men around playing fiootball and swimming, etc, which made the view even better! ...Although my new housemates mate steve did try to convince me later that they were all gay... probably!

Our housemates are Mark and Tanya, both australians and really nice and I guess they must like us too as they picked over a few other peeps... although we did kind of have two, what felt like interviews with them first... eek!!

Our first friday here (just over a week ago) Mark invited us on a Santa pub crawl for charity. Basically there are 250 people dressed as Santa getting trollied. The charity bit is that you pay $20 for a wristband which means the pubs will let you in. Apparently last year there were 1300 santas and it was carnage on the street, hence the 250 limit this year.. check it out http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/boozing-santas-too-jolly-council/2007/12/06/1196812916100.html At first we actually couldn't get tickets as they'd sold out, but as Mark's friends are the organisors he managed to wangle some for us and even went and bought us a santa suit each... I'll get some pics up soon. It was a great night... even though we had to miss the first 3hrs or so as our shift at work is 12-8pm. We met a few of Mark's mates and even managed to somehow find our way home... although Mel did lose me on the way and found me and one of the other santas playing like 5 year olds in a park... what can I say drink and swings are a winning combination. The day after I couldn't have gone in a park if I tried!!!

Speaking of drinks and hangovers... I decided to give the main UCMS christmas party a miss, but thought I would go to the Vodafone one as it was on the terrace in our building and there was free booze and a bouncy castle... well it would have been rude not to. Anyway, a few cheeky ones on the terrace turned into going to another bar for jagerbombs and to cut a long story short... we got drunk! I passed out in the taxi on the way home and after our being helped into the house, then falling out of bed I rather attractively was sick...yuk!

Anyway, needless to say work yesterday was not fun... luckily I had managed not to embarrass myself in front of anyone... although it helped that management was already plastered well before I got there... but yesterday I actually felt like I might die. Luckily I managed to snag a desk in a quiet corner and as our job is so easy I managed to sleep most of the day and only got woken up once by a call and when I got home I went straight to bed (after cleaning it and changing the sheets of course!) to continue recovering!!!

Amusingly Mark came in hammered last night (luckily we didn't have to try and carry him into the house!) and Mel found him passed out in his boxers on the sofa this morning... so I didn't feel quite so embarrassed when I had to face him this morning... although I did apologise profusely of course!

Well, I think that is about as much of an update as I have for now. Today I feel much less hungover and our other housemate Tanya has invited us to a party in Southbank tonight which should be good... although I'm not sure my liver is ready for alcohol again yet!!! Next time I write hopefully I will have met Dr Karl Kennedy and the other neighbours stars... woohoo!

Take care... oh and Merry Christmas everyone!!!

x x x