Blogs from CBD, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Oceania - page 12

Just back from a weekend in Melbourne and I can confirm that they do have trams, tree lined streets and a dirty great cricket ground. Wasn't sure what to make of it at first: it is a lot different to Sydney (as people never tire of telling you) and the wide boulevards do make it feel a little more European, but it's all a bit more complicated than that. I guess it's true that it's a more stylish place (I fitted in wonderfully, obviously) and the food was good, but there's something above and beyond all that that slowly creeps up on you and makes you realise that you love the place. Walking along the Yarra is as good in it's way as ambling around Sydney Harbour. St Kilda is much better than anything Sydney's got ... read more

It's nearing the end of October, and February 2 seems like a long way away when I look at the (mostly empty) pages in my diary, but consulting my 'to do' list it seems like I barely have any time at all until I leave Melbourne, destination: Amman, Jordan and beyond. There are passport photos to get, visas to apply for, currency to exchange (not to mention currency to be saved!!) and that mystical and confusing language of Arabic to grapple with. No, I'm not expecting to be fluent by Feb, nor am I even expecting to be able to construct meaningful sentences entirely on my own. Basically, I need to cram a whole lot of useful phrases into my head, have a good go at at least being able to recognize numbers and begin the ... read more

Hey all! So we haven’t written for a while, partly because we have been busy sorting out somewhere to live partly because we have been having too much fun and partly because we have been lazy! Since we last wrote we swapped high rise luxury living for a backpackers hostel.. Bit of a culture shock there! We booked 2 beds in a dorm room for 7 nights, giving ourselves that long to find somewhere to live. The hostel was actually a nice place to stay, only 5 beds in our dorm and the hostel was always lively with organised trips and tours and had pretty good facilities for cooking and stuff. I am not going to bore you all with what we did everyday but some highlights include, getting lost trying to find a bar and ... read more

Photos from Kat's visit to Melbourne.... read more

Hi Everyone! For those of you who have been on tenterhooks awaiting the next thrilling instalment of 'Pork', I can only whole heartedly apologise. There are many excuses though for this monstrous oversight. Actually, oversight is the wrong word really. Pretty much the reason is the in the title. Since getting the job here I've been doing the full time work, including last Sunday as well, which are fairly big system shocks after 8 months with no routine, except for forcing myself up early for the latest plane, train or auto mobile. Over the past 5 weeks I've spent most of my free time unsurprisingly with people from the hostel, here's a few of the long termers: James (Australian), Bert (Belgium), Ricky (English), Kevin (Irish), Johan (Sweden), Dan (Sweden), Jess (Sweden), Christoph (France), Nikki (Holland), Marye ... read more