News from the past week

Wow, I haven't posted in awhile. I was trying to keep my internet costs down... Anyway, so I've moved into the share house and it's gone pretty well so far. 4 of us live there: Wendy, the woman who contacted me about the room, Travis (Trav), who works in a bar, and Nick, the other new guy who is a co-worker of Trav's. They're all really nice, I feel most comfortable with Wendy, but then I hardly saw her all week. We caught up though last night (Friday) cuz she finally had the night off and we had some girly chats while moving some furniture around. It was a bit annoying this week because there weren't spare keys for me and Nick. So we shared one key, leaving it under a plant at the front of the house. But then it turned out that to get out of the house you need the key as well, there's no handle or anything to get out the front door. So I usually had to resort to going out one of the sliding doors to the porch and then squeezing out a gate to the front of the house. I finally have my own key as of yesterday, it's nice to not feel like I'm sneaking out of the house like a robber.

I'll hopefully post photos of the house next week. It's huge and rather quiet, though the fittings are all a bit old and 70's looking. Still, the view is worth it and being along a river and being connected to a bunch of parks and bike paths. The quietness freaked me out at first, I moved in and no one was home and for most of the evening I sat in this big house in the suburbs on my own, after being used to a hostel with people around all the time and music playing in the common room and being in the very center of the city. I'm a bit more used to it now, but it is almost too quiet, plus the TV isn't hooked up, so I can't put that on for a bit of noise/vegging out. There is a DVD player though, I watched the Big Lebowski one night...

Oh, so in other news, I have a job! Yay! I got a call Friday morning making an appt for an interview at 4 at a place I'd applied to but couldn't remember specifically cuz I'd applied online and sent in my resume to so many places. But I was hired on the spot, well, I have a 3 week trial period, but I think it'll be fine. It's at a sandwich/wrap place in the center, so it's aimed at serving business workers, meaning I'd work only Mon-Fri and have weekends and public holidays off. I start Monday for a few hours to start training and see how things go. I think it'll be good, the boss seemed nice at least, hopefully the co-workers are as well.

In the midst of handing out my resume to places this week, I took the time to go up to an obvservation deck in one of Melbourne's tallest buildings. I had a free voucher given to me by the visa agency. I chose a perfect day to go, it was an absolutely clear day and not hazy, so I could see probably about as far as possible. Melbourne is not on the ocean, but on a large bay called Port Phillip which eventually connects to the ocean. I could see all the way across the bay to the two pennisulas which almost close off Port Phillip, and then in other directions you could see various mountain ranges, plus all of Melbourne in between. It was gorgeous, I hope to put up some photos I took soon.

Also this week I met with a friend of a friend, a Croatian girl named Jana who lives her with her Australian husband. She was very sweet and invited me to her place for dinner, which was very yummy, then yesterday we got together for a fancy Italian lunch at one of the poshest places downtown. It was very good though, I had steak which I never usually order, but it was great, very tender and well grilled, and for dessert a really nice, dense and slightly crisp chocolate cake. But yeah, I was great to get together with her, and she lives out near my end of town, so hopefully I'll see her more.

Today when I left for the city, there was mad traffic around where I live. I'm in an area called Ascot Vale (sounds very poncy and it is a little bit) and the house is practically across the road from the Flemington Racecourse where the Melbourne Cup is held in November, which I mentioned before. But another race was on today and there was a steady stream of cars going towards the parking lots. My housemate Trav got special tickets from a friend who works at the track, so he was off for a day at the races.

So, some of the weird cultural differences I've noted in my two weeks here: instead of labelling the toilet doors as Men and Women, they say Male and Female, which to me seems to say that the toilets themselves have an inherent sex, not that they're meant for males and females to use. I don't know what's wrong with just putting Men and Women on the door.

Australia is sometimes a strange mix of things both American and British (though I guess Britain has it's own massive influx of American things). Going to the grocery store points this out, with a lot of things I am familiar with from the US, but also British things. Anyway, most of the cereals are from Kellogs, but they call Rice Krispies "Rice Bubbles" which is just wrong. The package still is blue with Snap, Crackle and Pop on the front, but "Rice Bubbles"? It makes me think of bubble tea, a weird drink with tapioca bits in it, something far removed from Rice Krispies.

I'll have to think of more weird differences... And I'll write about how the job goes and, if I can maybe bum some free internet next week, get some more photos online!