Sep 07

For those who don't know what a Fringe festival is, it's basically where artists of all types can showcase their work in venues around a city, usually for a rather cheap price. I think the first Fringe began in Edinburgh as an alternative to the main arts fest, but then it became huge. Now cities all over the world have their own Fringe fests and Melbourne's is quite large with hundreds of performances going on over 3 weeks. I grabbed the program a couple of weeks ago and bought some tickets to things I was interested in. There were a couple of comedy performances, one solo stage play, then some circus and puppetry things, which sound really bizarre, I haven't gone to them yet, but I'm looking forward to them.

This weekend I went to the first couple of things I had bought tickets to. First up on Friday was something very fitting for me: a short play about backpackers in Australia. It was performed by 3 girls, though one in particular played a few different roles with different accents. She was very good, and then it turned out she's friends with someone I know. The play was quite funny, esp the look at life in a hostel where some people never leave and just look forward to the nights when there's free food. I only lived in a hostel for a bit more than a week, but I know those kind of people well.

Saturday night I went to a stand-up comedy sort of thing. It was pretty funny, and it had a good audience. Both of these first two performances were in rather tiny venues, only holding about 30 people or so, so if the audience is a bit cold and unresponsive, I think it would be even harder for the performer, but so far all the audiences I've been in have been good and enjoyed the show.

I ended up seeing two things on Sunday, though they were unplanned. I had lunch in Fitzroy and then I just happened to pop over to Federation Square before deciding if I wanted to go home or not, and I stopped by this free sculpture installation that's part of the Fringe. And as I waited to see it (it's under a tent), out of the tent comes Jana, this girl I've met here who's the friend of a friend (thanks for putting me in touch with her, Frances!) She asked me if I was doing anything and I said no, so she invited me along to a dance performance she was going to in a couple of hours, and soon we were off on a tram to South Melbourne to grab some food before that. What luck to run into her! We went to an excellent cafe where she had a big bowl of yummy salads and I got a piece of trifle cake that was HUGE and we tried to help each other finish off the other's food, but we weren't quite successful. We then had to walk a good 15 minutes through the rain to the venue, Jana fortunately had an umbrella but it was very windy so we still got pretty wet. I'm not as keen on dance but this sounded intriguing, it was the story of a woman who's a little person who meets a tall, skinny, Asian guy online and can they accept their physical differences? It mixed projected visuals and spoken text and dance. The dance was amazing, I mean it's not often you'd have two very different body types like that and they danced together in very creative ways. In one part, the woman was curled up inside a small box, probably no more than 2 feet high, and the guy picked up the box and danced with it. She seemed even smaller than normal and he seemed even taller. It was an interesting effect. I think pretty much the entire audience was moved and impressed with the piece. I'm so glad I ended up seeing it.

Jana and I then went to the festival hub in North Melbourne and had a drink before she went off to a circus performance that I'll be seeing later this week. While we were sitting there, her friend from the backpacker show came over, along with one of the other girls from that performance. Jana told them that I went to their show and we talked about it for a bit. And since I'd said my name when I introduced myself, Jana's friend asked me "Are you Marie Diamond?" I was slightly freaked out that she knew my last name, but apparently the artists get a list of people who have pre-booked tickets (they take your name when you make a booking). I was like the only person, that night at least, who had bought tickets in advance and they were very excited that someone definitely planned to come to the show, heh.

Jana eventually ran off to the circus show and I went to something at the last moment after the artist came by handing out flyers advertising the show. It was a wife/husband musical duo (aw...), he plays guitar and she plays violin and they tell stories and then play these songs that are about different times of their lives. It was quite sweet and moving and also very funny (the guy also has his own comedy show). The woman was fun to watch as she played, she seems to really love being up there, and she reminded me of other violinists, such as the one in Seedling (Dutch band) and Sarah Beam from Iron & Wine. They said the theme of the songs they were playing was fate and destiny and it seemed a bit fitting since it was only because I ran into Jana by chance that I was there to see them. It was a happy evening.

On another topic, I'm planning now to travel a bit in Australia before I go to NZ in December. I have 6 days planned to drive from Sydney to Adelaide in January, but, after buying some detailed maps for that trip, I don't think I'll have enough time to drive it and actually see a lot of the things I want to see on the way. So I think I'll spend about 6 days at the end of November/beginning of December to take two trips. One will be to drive the Great Ocean Road west of Melbourne. Then I want to go to Wilsons Promontory and spend time there. The Prom, as it's called, is the most southernly point of Australia and it's filled with nature and hiking paths. I found at least one company that organizes tours there and it sounds pretty good, partly guided and partly independent and you camp there, not far from the beach, for two nights and all the equipment's provided. Doing these trips will make the road trip in January a lot less stressed and I certainly want to see the natural beauty properly and not have to drive past in a hurry.

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.

Melbourne is without a doubt a food-lover's paradise (and, no, that's not the main reason I decided to come here) and as I come up to almost a month's time of living here, I can see I have done well in some areas, but I've only made a small dent in all the good food on offer and I'm wondering how I'm going to tackle all of it in my remaining 2 months.

Asian food is huge here, it's on every street in some form or another. The most common is Chinese, but there is also Japanese (tons of sushi places), Thai, Vietnamese (some whole neighbourhoods are mostly Vietnamese), Korean and on and on. There's not as many Indian places as I hoped for, but they're there. Then there's the lunch food: sandwiches, salads, baked potatoes, pasta, pizza... There are a couple of malls in town, I'm sitting in one right now actually, which have extraordinary food courts which I've mostly only ogled as I've passed through. And there's the cafes all over town with cakes and other goodies, not to mention that brunch on the weekend is practically a required event for all Melburnians. How am I going to get to it all?!

Unfortunately I have made a few bad choices in my time here: one really bad Chinese place, giving in to Burger King once (which is called Hungry Jacks here), getting some "American" donuts which had a weird, heavy, yeasty taste to them that I didn't really like. But I have found some good things as well: an Indonesian restaurant that makes an excellent chicken sate for a good price, a French patisserie where I got a little custard tart with caramelized apples that was heavenly, and a place that made me very happy this week: Vibe Cafe in Fitzroy. I went around Fitzroy looking for a cozy place to have some food, and sit and read for awhile, get out of the house, and Vibe fit it perfectly. I had some French toast (they serve breakfast til 5 pm, an admirable hour in my books) drenched in maple syrup which was very yummy (though I think you should leave the syrup dosage to the customer, but better too much than too little). I sat and read for almost 2 hours and they left me be and I was happy and at home there. Plus there was a friendly waiter who I chatted with a bit and who told me I was always welcome to come back. Very happy find that afternoon.

There are still some neighbourhoods I haven't even eaten in yet. There's Lygon St in Carlton which is the Italian area of town; more pizzas being tossed there than you can shake a stick at. I wouldn't even know which one to go to first... Not far from where I live there's Footscray which is one of the Vietnamese areas. There's Acland St in St Kilda by the bay which has lots of cafes with cakes. I'm afraid if I decide to eat there I may go all rabbit-in-the-headlights and see so many good cakes I end up not going anywhere because I can't decide where to go. I'm convinced I will get to at least some of these places eventually, but I know when I leave the city, there will be too much still on my list.

In the next installment: festival season in many forms is upon us and I plan to get out there and experience it. Hopefully I'll have some stories to tell about the Royal Melbourne Show and the Melbourne Fringe.

My housemate, Wendy, breeds horses, which are kept on her mother's farm about a 2 hour drive west of Melbourne. She has to go there pretty much every weekend to check in on them and spend time with them, esp since her mom doesn't really know anything about horses and mostly just feeds them during the week. On Friday night, I came home and said I was rather bored and had a boring weekend to look forward to, so she invited me out to the farm with her. We left Saturday morning and drove west of Melbourne, heading towards the town of Ballarat, but then on past that to a smaller town called Beaufort. The region has a lot of French descendants, in fact the mountains near the farm have the creative name of the Pyrenees. I found the drive interesting, even if it wasn't really that exciting or pretty, just because it is new to me, and this was only my second time far out of the city. There was a lot of farm land and fields and sheep. Sometime in the early afternoon we finally arrived at the farm which is still almost half an hour from Beaufort. The house is on a hill with brilliant views of the mountains. The best photo I have is here, though it doesn't do the view justice, it's only part of the mountains. It was a gorgeous, clear day, so we got to really soak up the view as we munched our lunch of toasted cheese sandwiches. Then Wendy and I fed some animals and walked around the property. Her mom also has chickens (which Australians call chooks) and ducks, though they really have to fight off the foxes who live just up the hill within sight of the pens. The chickens actually like a bit of a cuddle, which Wendy likes to give, but the ducks run away from you as soon as you head their way.

We wandered down to see all the horses she has, about 20 in total, though I lost track of how many I saw and certainly lost track of their names. The stallions are kept on the complete other side of the house from all the other horses, and esp the females, though they still call out and rile up the females. There are some young horses and an old mare. One has some back leg problems and walks a bit like a goose, another is blind in one eye and thus gets easily spooked, as he did when we were saying hi and he stomped down on Wendy's foot, which she said has turned many fun colours after that. We went walking up a gully that a stream runs down (though the stream doesn't have much water at the moment) and Wendy informed me that this is the time of year the snakes start coming out, and yeah, pretty much any snake you'd see is poisonous. Great. She said though that you're only going to get bit if you agitate them or step on them, so as long as you're not stupid, and not looking up in the air, which you shouldn't be doing anyway on uneven ground, you likely won't get bit. I don't even like harmless garden snakes though, so I really don't want to come across one here.

Sunday was really windy, made worse by being exposed up on a hill, and it started out sunny and warm enough, but it later really rained, which was kind of impressive to see as different clouds moved through the valley and past the mountains. I helped Wendy feed the horses and also helped her move some of them around from one paddock to another, though there was a big drama at one point as one escaped up the driveway and then some people arrived at the same time who wanted to go riding. I was all happy to help drive the truck around the paddocks (it was a small pickup truck, which is called a "ute" here, short for utility, and thus pronounced "yoot"). It was, I think, the first time I've driven a manual since I had to give up my car back in 2000. I only drove for like 2 mins, but I had fun doing it. She went riding with these people who arrived, after taking ages to gather and saddle up the horses, and then it started raining while they were out there, but they got back just in time. I'm very glad I didn't go, heh, but I never was comfortable riding horses.

It was a great weekend away, I met some people they know out there, and got to see and do some things that are definitely out of the ordinary. It was so wonderful to be out in the nature and in the mountains, seeing some forests and just more of Victoria. Oh, and I saw my first wild kangaroos! Which is still definitely a novelty for me, esp since I think I had the impression before that kangaroos only live out in the outback, but there are many kinds of kangaroos and they live all over the place. There are koalas and wallabies out there too, but we didn't see any of those, though Wendy spotted a dead koala on the side of the highway. I first saw a whole... herd? of kangaroos (what is a group of them called? Hrm, apparently a "mob") on a distant hill. I couldn't even see what they were and thought they were maybe cattle until one of them moved in a distinct hopping way. This morning though on the drive back to Melbourne one hopped across the road and I saw more gathered in someone's field. It was so cool! I mean I know it's so common for Australians, but we only see them in zoos! Definitely a reminder of the very different country I am in. Quite dangerous though to come across them while driving, you really do not want to run into one of them.

On a different topic, as a follow up to my mentioning the hook turn, I thought a video would help demonstrate how it works. I found this little animation that shows a pretty accurate situation of trams and traffic going through an intersection, though it goes fairly quick, so you may need to watch it a couple of times to get it. Otherwise there are some real life videos if you search for "hook turn" on Youtube. I won't post links because I have no sound and I don't want to endorse something I can't hear myself. =) I hope it is all clear after this.

I had a job, but I don't anymore. I was hired at a place that does breakfast and lunch in the heart of the main business district, so a lot of people in suits coming in for their lunch, having business talks, etc. I was hired to prepare the food (they sell wraps, salads and baked potatoes with toppings) and also ring it up at the till because the person who makes the order also gets the money from the person who ordered. A lot of my training was just trying to explain to me their trying-to-be-user-friendly, but-not-being-successful computerized till. I hardly learned anything about the actual food prep. But I helped customers a bit and watched my coworkers a lot and then when it got busy just before 1, they had me help out around the cafe, mostly bussing tables and washing dishes (which made me laugh, in a grim sort of way, because I just read a book about a guy who tried to wash dishes in all 50 states). I did a shorter shift because I was training, so they sent me home at 2 and told me to come back at 11:30 the next day (Tuesday). I then found out that the shift they planned to give me if they gave me the job was only for 4 hours, so I left thinking the job wouldn't be enough for me, I'd hardly earn enough to pay my bills, let alone save anything. So I considered once again doing office work. Through the visa agency, they have contacts with an agency that helps get office work for working holiday people, and I hadn't planned to do office work because that's what I normally do and I wanted something different, but I was also thinking that work in a cafe making food wasn't for me. It would especially be exhausting to do full time and I was only doing it half time. I feel like a wimp, but I'd rather have energy for my off time and not be dead all the time.

I called this work agency and made an appointment for Tuesday afternoon. In the meantime I worked at the cafe on Tuesday and they gave me cash in hand for the whole 6 hours I'd worked. Hey, it's some money. I am a bit sad to leave them, even after just two days, because everyone who worked there was so nice. There was Maria, the girl training me (heh); Lila, one of the managers; Nick, the cute and sweet Greek-Australian who made coffees (but he's married and has kids, damn); and Cynthia, the Indonesian girl who was the other dishwasher who I got to chat with a bit as we hid out in the sink corner. The only one I was afraid of was Lila's husband, Tim, they're both Chinese and working for him was like gaining a gruff Chinese dad I never asked for, maybe it was just because his English was not very good, or it's just cultural differences, I know he was only trying to help, but I did feel quite timid around him. Anyway, the plan was that I would fill in dishwashing while Cynthia was gone next week and they'd call me with details later in the week, but I called this morning and said I wouldn't be working there anymore. So I'm unemployed again.

The meeting went pretty well with this agency though, a whole group of us talked to the guy who works with working holiday makers and he took details of when we could work and what we wanted to do. He said he wouldn't be surprised if we were all employed by the end of the week, and I hope that wasn't just a fake promise. I got a call this afternoon, but it was for a call center job which I had said I didn't want to do. But there should be enough admin and general office jobs out there that I should get one fairly quickly. The pay is much better (I should get $20 an hour vs only $15 or so in hospitality work) and this agency does some fiddling with your pay so that you get less taxed and more take-home pay. Anyway, I hope I get a job that works well for me.

Never fear, Northern Europeans, our weather went to crap this week as well. It was fairly rainy and gray and miserable yesterday. Today got sunny eventually and tomorrow should be ok, but rain again after that. Thing is, they have such a drought here, they are happy to see the rain. I still can't be happy about being cold and damp. And a slightly weird Australian thing is that in weather reports, instead of just saying it'll be sunny, they say it'll be "fine". That just seems to take all the fun out of it, like, yeah, it's not bad. It's ok. Can't complain. Maybe it's because they get so much sun, they just get bored of it after awhile.

I shall try to explain something that is uniquely Melburnian, not Australian, and that is the hook turn. It is a strange traffic maneuver that is designed to keep the cars downtown from blocking the tram tracks in the middle of the street when turning to another street. It's a bit hard to explain because they also drive on the left here, so everything is all turned around, but for you people who drive on the right: imagine that to make a left turn, you don't go to the left lane, but to the right lane. You then move forward til you are in front of the cars waiting at the red light, and then, when it's about green for them and clear for you, you make your left turn. If it helps, try reading the entry over at Wikipedia. Even though I knew about it, I was still confused sometimes to see cars sitting in places you don't normally see them. One of the first times I saw a hook turn going on, and actually I didn't really know what was going on til later, a cab was hook turning right in front of a police car and I was wondering why the police were allowing the cab to sit blocking their lane like that. Another thing to get used to with them is that you can be crossing the street and suddenly have this car sidling up alongside you as they wait to make their turn. You have to be careful to not stray too far out of the crosswalk.

I have uploaded some more photos, including ones of the house. It's been a pain uploading them this time, the program I use to edit them was slow so I gave up and uploaded many full size to Flickr, which still took a lot of time. I only meant to be here an hour and it's going to be much longer than that. You can view the new photos starting here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/m-gem/1365469682/