The Royal Melbourne Show

When I was moving into the house I live in, I learned pretty quickly that it is near the Melbourne Showgrounds, where the Royal Melbourne Show is held. None of that meant much to me, but, because the Show began on Sept 20, I quickly found out what it all was about. I thought at one point that it was a dog show, like where they judge breeds and such, though that may be one part of what goes on. Basically it's what I'd call a fair, like the Oregon State Fair or any of the county fairs. There's livestock on show, live music, carnival rides, and lots of greasy food. The Melbourne Show is one of the biggest and most well-known in the country, I think (correct me if I'm wrong, Australians, I do get a bit of a Melbourne-centric view here), but it was still way smaller than the Oregon State Fair, unless my memories of it are exaggerated. Since it was just up the street, I felt I had to go, esp since I'd been walking past it for more than a week, hearing people screaming from the roller coaster and hearing cows mooing from the cow shed and seeing the crowds. I finally went last night and it was quite fun, though I went later in the day which meant I missed some of the animal stuff which had closed for the day. I saw the cows and bulls and some sheep and goats and a duck, but I missed the dogs. There was a pet area where Whiskas had a cat display and Pedigree had a dog display, and the Whiskas area had a sign that said "Come and cuddle a cat here!" but there were no cats there to be cuddled. Moo. They'd all gone home for the night, and so had the dogs. Besides seeing a few animals, I went up the big Ferris wheel that I'd also seen on the showground for the last couple of weeks. Great views and perfect timing with the sunset. I couldn't quite see my house because the house is on a hill blocking us from the direction of the showgrounds, but I could see the river. After wandering around and getting some food (trying to stay away from the greasy stuff, though I was tempted to get a corn dog, which is called a "dagwood dog" here), I caught a show with some big 4 wheel drive trucks and then stunts from some motorbikers. There were supposed to be fireworks, but they were cancelled due to strong winds. One more note about the Show, something we don't have at our fairs, are the showbags, which also took me awhile to figure out what they were. Basically various vendors, like Cadbury chocolate, for instance, sells a bag with some of their stuff for a price that's less than the retail price. So you might buy a bag with various goodies in it like a backpack, some stickers, candy, etc, for $15 when it all actually costs $70, supposedly. It's more aimed at kids from what I can tell, but there're some for adults, like from magazines and stuff. Some people come away with quite a few of these bags, I think for some people it's one of the main reasons for going. I wandered into the building where most of the bags are sold and quickly left after being overwhelmed by all the people and kids and all these displays packed with things to buy.

There is no news in the work department, I am still unemployed. Mostly, I'm just bored to death, heh. I need something to fill my days a bit more, and yeah, I could use some money as well. I signed up with 2 employment agencies this week, but still no job offers. I'm trying to remain confident that I'll get something eventually, and I will, at least I'm not broke yet and panicking, I'm just tired of watching daytime tv on our tv that only has rabbit ears and very poor reception.

Part of what has been hard with having nothing to do is that the weather has been less than optimal lately. I was very lucky I think with the weather I had in my first week or two here, when it was mostly dry and sunny. Lately it's been very up and down, like Tuesday it was gorgeous, but Wednesday was gray and cold and it rained on and off. Today's been fun, gale-force winds and some rain; at the house, with the wind blasting rain at the windows and the river whitecapping, I felt like I was on a boat at sea. (So Niina, if you're reading this: don't come to Melbourne. It's been windy quite a lot here.) But we need the rain, we need the rain, I'm supposed to be happy for rain. But really I'm just happy to read that the weather report for next week looks much better. I said Tuesday was gorgeous and it was, about 22 degrees, perfectly clear, just a breeze. I took a walk up the river with Molly, one of my housemate's dog, she was so happy to get out for a bit. She's such a sweet dog, you can walk with her without a leash and she comes when you call her and doesn't even notice other people. You're supposed to walk your dog on a leash there, there are signs about it, so I was quite paranoid. Luckily we didn't come across any other dogs, I think that if the other dog went nuts, the owner would be evil-eyeing me for not having my dog on a leash and not be able to pull her in. Not sure how Molly acts around other dogs, probably just wants to go and say hi, sniff butts, that sort of thing. I should walk with her more if it gets sunny.

I put up a few more photos on Flickr starting here. Not many really, just 4. It takes too damn long to edit and upload them. I'm sometimes tempted by the cheap-ish used laptops I see on Elizabeth St, but I don't really want to lug a laptop around with me and have something else to worry about being stolen. So I'm thinking I'll be uploading just a few photos at a time while in Australia, and when I get home I'll add a lot more.

Tonight I'm going to the first Fringe performance I have a ticket for. It's fittingly a comedy about backpacking around Australia. I'll report back about Fringe stuff later.