Hello again!

Hope you haven't all stopped checking for new entries, we've just been busy flying to the other side of Australia and settling in. There are still a few days to catch up on from Perth though, starting on the 14th...

We were invited round to the Brown's (some friends of Amy's family) for dinner and did eventually get there but missed 2 buses, very nearly the train and went the wrong way from the station twice - could say it wasn't our day! Dinner was lovely though, and we entertained ourselves at Stirling station while waiting for the bus by singing songs as noone else was around.

On the friday we decided to nosey round Subiaco as it was on the train line to Freo where we were going to meet Chuey, James, Gareth, Louise and Mylinh for dinner at Little Creatures. We didn't get very long in Subiaco before all the shops shut and there was nothing to do! Very early (espeically as our friends were very late) we arrived and were waiting at the restaurant, so long we actually got chatting to the guy on the door who said he'd tried to find work in Melbourne and hadn't so came to Perth and found lots, this filled us with a lot of hope for finding a job. So we had a lurvely meal and they got icecream but we went home for Smores :)

Saturday was our au revoir night out. Au revoir because we will for sure see them lots again before we fly home. Again, everyone was kinda late, so by the time they arrived we were rather more drunk, which we found hilarious. We went out to somewhere new this time! The Brass Monkey, and as we went in Mr Brightside was playing!!! But there was no dancefloor so we just had to bop along. We moved onto The Shed afterwards which was lots of fun, though Mary-Ann got upset because she lost her make-up bag at some point. We had such a great night and it was a really nice send off!

We grumpily woke up on Sunday quite early to start packing up and tidying the house before Ellen picked us up to take us back to Amy's Grandma's house, who shouted us pizzas that night. The day was about 42 degrees so sleeping, or rather trying to, was fun! It went on like this til we left reaching 42.7!!!! Unreal heat.

Monday morning we had to pack up our bags in order to weigh it before the scales were picked up. Luckily we found we were about 15kg each with a 20kg limit so that was easy. Later that day Chuey and Mylinh came to say goodbye.

On Tuesday we were taken out for an early lunch by Amy's grandma so we should have been nice and stuffed for the plane (of course 9 hours later when we got off the plane we weren't.) We got a taxi to the airport and said our goodbyes, the plane was a pretty standard trip except the poor lady sat next to Mary-Ann had discovered minutes before boarding that the money from her account had been stolen :( The only other notable thing was that Mary-Ann was walked in on in the loo!!!!! When we got to the other end, the Skybus that was meant to take us part of the journey to Mary-Ann's relative's house was an hour's wait instead of the promised 2 minutes! Public transport and us clearly do not mesh well. Anyway when we were finally on it was packed and there was no room for us to sit or for our bags, so Mary-Ann tried to make some room by putting the smaller bags on the top shelf and some very rude lady had a go at her, which made the rest of the trip interesting! We took a taxi the rest of the way, scoffed some toast and then went to bed, all at about 3 in the morning.

Our first full day in Melbourne was more about finding our feet in the city and in the hosue than anything else. About mid-afternoon we took the tram into town and paid a visit to the tourist information centre and found a 'travellers contact point' where we took down a few numbers that were asking for workers.

The next day we submerged ourselves in the job hunt, taking cvs to all of the agencies we could find and popping into all of the backpackers in Melbourne to check their noticeboards. It was a very long and tiring 6 hours! Friday was very similar as we were online applying for jobs and phoned all the numbers from ads we had, disappointed as all but one turned out to be door-to-door sales. The exception promised that they had 2 positions in a call centre but after a trip to Richmond and an interview later it turned out it too was door-to-door sales, which everyone just about told us we weren't allowed to do! Luckily, as this was our second time being drawn into the idea of a not-so-great job.

On Saturday we went to the Koorie heritage turst building which had an exhibition about the Koorie aboriginal tribe which was very interesting. As the Hellenic museum we had wanted to check out was closed we made our way home, via Little Cupcakes!

Sunday was a very relaxed day again, since the job hunt had to be on hold as everything seems to stop at the weekend in Oz. We went to Richmond again where there was a festival celebrating the Chinese new year. It was very lively and loud and lots of fun but incredibly hot, we actually realised later in the day that we'd got burnt during our time there. Afterwards we went down to the Docklands to find the sand sculptures we'd read about and found a nice walk along the side of the water, people watching and lined with shops/cafes/stalls. We got an ice-cream and sat and watched a good band who were playing on a stage - very relaxing Sunday afternoon!

Monday was back to the job hunt, applying for everything we thought we could turn our hand to online and then later walking up and down Bridge road (famous for having lots of shops) handing out about 9 cvs overall, but not bad for a day's work. We felt quite positive about everyone's reaction to them but we still haven't heard anything.

The next day was Australia day so a long list of options of things to do. We started the day at the flag-raising ceremony which turned into the people's march. After grabbing some fruit to keep us going we joined the end of the parade and headed to the King's Domain Gardens to see Government house which opens the private quarters to the public one day a year. On our way to lunch we walked past a stage where police men and women were singing 'I got a feeling', quite funny. We got a Boost smoothie for lunch as it was so hot and then mooched round the shops for a while before heading back to the gardens where, as India was celebrating it's republic day also, there was a music festival happening. After an hour or so of watching this we headed home via the Aboriginal festival. We were very tired after a full 9 or so hours and when we got back we toasted Steve and Fiona's 2 year anniversary of becoming Australian citizens with Fiona's parents too.

On Wednesday morning Beryl and Keith left to Queensland. We did more job hunting online, but the mos productive thing of the day was being put in touch with Steve's friend who is helping us find work. As the bedroom was now free we moved from where we had been into the larger space which was luxury! We went to try and find the 'ctiy baths' thinking they were an old Victorian thing, and if they ever were at some point, they're not anymore. We instead found a leisure centre. We also popped into the Victoria State Library and found an exhibition there which was nice.

We were up bright and early on Thursday morning for Amy's orthodontist appointment. We then headed into town deciding we would do some touristy things. So we caught the city circle tram and had a bit of a tour of Melbourne CBD (though we couldn't hear much of the commentry) we then got off at the Old Treasury which houses the City museum. It was quite interesting but Melbourne is relatively new so it was quite little content stretched out. After lunch we went to the Hellenic museum (which was open this time) via the ANZ gothic bank. We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing in the garden and doing a food shop.

Yesterday it was more of the job hunt (surprise surprise) before heading into town to see the state Parliament. We had a lovely free tour which was very interesting. That evening Steve and Fiona took us to Sofia's - a restaurant that doesn't know the meaning of a small portion (but no complaints of course.) Very stuffed we settled down to a film that evening.

Today we had another laid back Sunday, took a trip to Southgate (basically just over the bridge south of the river) where we walked alongside it, got another Boost smoothie and sat on the grassy bank under a tree (it's so hot!) listening to a saxophonist and people-watching. It's a very hard life. We explored that area a bit before deciding it was simply too hot to do anything so came home to FINALLY blog again.

Hope all's well, lots of love,
xxxxxxx