Cooee! On St Kilda

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whilst travelling round asia hannah and i met a few people who had already been to australia and, when faced with our excited chatter about things we were looking forward to (in my case, mayonnaise) would fix us with a beady eye and a gimlet smile and smugly inform us that we were going to find australia 'weird'. they then gleefully informed us that the fact we were expecting it to be just like home was going to make it even weirder...

we are now staying in melbourne for three months so we can earn money to continue travelling round australia then on to new zealand. (so this isn't so much a 'travel blog' as a 'travelled blog') we have found a flat in st kilda (amazing clothes shops, too many daytime hookers) and are both gainfully employed. in fact hannah is working right now and i start on monday, confronting unsuspecting people with the undeniable prospect of their own mortality by trying to sell them accidental death life insurance.

st kilda used to be a beach resort for the australian hoi polloi so is full of stunning mansions and is walking distance from the ocean. we are living near a mental asylum in a third floor flat (they're called 'units' which i love, makes me feel like i live in a warehouse) which is painted pink, yellow, green and orange. it's like living in a tube of refreshers and i suspect it has something to do with making the place look 'cheery'. i always feel more cheerful when not worrying that i'm going to have a fit if i look around too quickly, but it is incredibly cheap and there is a shop over the road, though we sometimes have to dodge maniacs to get to it.

we had been expecting pure sunshine but melburnites (that may not be right) have a saying, 'four seasons in one day' which gets bandied about a lot when asked 'why the heck is it raining?!' if anything the weather is scarily english, it rains, it's cold, it's windy, then it's so hot your can hear your eyeballs gently sizzling in your face. all in one day, obviously (it would be a pointless saying otherwise) but it has taken some getting used to now we're acclimatised to asia. (so.damn.hot.) the beach is really nice but it is scary going for a swim when surrounded by very jumpy bathers muttering about sharks!

i can honestly say i haven't encountered any australian stereotypes; i haven't seen one person in a hat with corks, nobody has said 'g day mate' and kids don't play down the park with those sticks that come back (the name has totally escaped me for some reason) the buskers don't play didgeridoos and do you know what? australians would give a castlemaine XXXX for something else. if i was going to generalise about an entire continent when i have only been to one place i would say that australian people are very friendly, funny and intelligent with a lot (i mean an awful lot) of national pride. if i was going to generalise further i would also say that they are mad for cricket, to the point of obsession. any sport in fact. slightly un-nerving for someone like me, with the althleticisim of a cardboard box.

the supermarkets and corner shops (milk bars) here don't sell alcohol (cheap vino is called 'goon'). you have to go to a 'bottle shop' (what we would call an off license). we were introduced to the terrifying potency of goon whilst staying at our hostel the first week we were here, 'cooee on st kilda', which by the way is a smashing place. (hannah wanted me to emphasise that) there is something so decandent about swigging wine which is sold for the equivalent of 280 english pence for 4 litres, out of a mug.

since being in melbourne, hannah and i have been to melbourne gaol, where ned kelly was held and executed, to the victorian art gallery (not a gallery of victorian art; the state melbourne is in is called 'victoria'), to brighton beach where we ate fish and chips and saw lots of jellyfish and a very creepy spiky fish and we have also aquired a local pub. yesterday we went to the zoo and were irritatingly blase' about it. ('look, an elephant!' 'i've seen better. in asia. remember that elephant we saw in asia?! gosh we're well travelled aren't we?' and so on)

we have probably done other things as well but i've left it so long to write this that i have forgotten.

australia (melbourne certainly) is such an amazing place and we can't wait to see more of it. i just want to get going and i must confess that the prospect of working fills me with horror and not a little rage. it'll be worth though when we see a wild marsupial for the first time. (hopefully not by mowing it down in our van). in fact the only disappointing thing about australia is that the mayonnaise i was so excited about tastes just like salad cream.

we will only be blogging occasionally from now on because really, who is interested in hearing about unwillingly domesticated goths on holiday? 'got up, went to work, came home, went to bed' is interesting to no-one!

please email if you would like to ruin your next six months of neighbours watching.

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Comments

[Matt]

Goon
me and mike once got terrible hangovers off of goon once. mine was so bad that, when on a 1hr train ride followed bya 3min bus ride, i was so scared of moving lest i throw up about 3 litres of dirty, red goon. good times. hope all is well my lovlies x

[sully!]

hmmm .i finally got on to goths on holiday,and i was very excited about that ... but after reading the whole thing, i began to wonder-where am i in all of this melbourne talk, surly i was the number one highlight of ur days in melbourne, not to mention the one to introduce u to the squat we all called home! you girls have broken my heart... :'-(