Grand Prix & Goodbyes

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I arrived in Melbourne with hardly any money and knew that the champagane backpacker lifestyle or 'flashpacking' had come to an end. It was supposed to be the time to get work and earn enough money to contiune on with the travelling. A month-and-a-half later and i'm still in a similar position to when i arrived. The job situation is better (marginally) but unfortunately the promise of full time work for a backpacker is hard to come across. In such situations sacrifices have to be made - for one (as the pictures showed previously) my accomodation is pretty basic but cheap, drinking has to be limited and purchases of other items has to be logical. Food is one of these and since arriving back in Australia I have been on the pasta diet.
I was speaking to an Aussie girl at work who had just come from the cafe with a coffee. I said to her "how much did that set you back?", she replied "$3.20, its quite good for the size you get", I then told her that I cook meals for less than $3.20 - she just laughed in a disbelieving kind of way. If I was at home now i wouldn't consider such culinary sacrifices, but in the current position I have no option - am I enjoying myself? YES - without a doubt (i do miss the Sunday Roast & all of my mums cooking though)!! Travelling is by far the best thing I have done in my entire life and the one i am already proudest of. I may have done well at University but that compares little to what i have experienced over here. Some people back home say "its nice to go on a long holiday etc etc" and pass comment over how its a waste of time and that people don't get anything out of it. Personally and from speaking to other backpackers, I have learnt more from this experience that will hold me in better stead for the future than any amount of years at University. Initially I had said i would be back in time for the World Cup - this is still a possibility but only if I am financially forced into the situation. Now the World Cup is going to come to soon and i still have alot i would like to see and do. At the moment my 'in an ideal situation' would be to travel from Melbourne to Adelaide and then up the middle to Darwin when I have saved money at the beginning of June. At the moment this looks like it could happen and I am more likely to do this than come home at the end of May (flight booked to come home via Tokyo May 26th). Where I go from Darwin is another issue in which there are 2 choices - 1) I goto Cairns and then down the East Coast to Sydney where i will fly out of. 2) I continue on with Mikey where the plan is to meet up with Katie, Reece, AP and Amy and drive down to Perth. I am still undecided so this has been left open. Anyway getting back to whats been going on. The financial sacrifices that i have made have helped me to do activities - its all well and good having Subway's or Domino's Pizza every other day but if you cant do and see the things that you came here to see its a complete waste of time. For example, I would never have been able to goto the Grand Prix if i had swapped my sub-$3.20 dinner with a $9 BMT Sub...

The beginning of April brought the end of all but myself and Mikey's days in Balaclava. We all decided that Friday would be our final night out in town together. After having a few glasses from the box of wine we headed out into Fitzroy. Amy, Katie and Lauren were in a pub watching a live band play so we decided it might be worth a crack. At $15 to get in I thought it must be good but i would have rather spent $15 on ear plugs than listen to that load of tripe. The pub wasn't brilliant, but they say its the people your with that make the night and not the venue and that certianly was true of this night. After a few drinks there we headed out onto the street in search of another drinking den. As we were walking down the road we saw mikey up ahead talking to some bloke and then all of a sudden punches were thrown. Maggsie and myself quickly went over to break up the fight so that we could get on with our evening. Mikey was seething but we couldn't work out how it started - he claimed that the other bloke who was also Scottish said something to wind him up and it escalated from there. We continued on down the road and found nowhere that was worth going into - one place we came across refused us entry because "the place is busy and we are foreign" in the words of the kind bouncer. After a bit of searching we headed back up the road we had just walked and came across the Scottish fella who was in a bit of a daze. As soon as he saw Mikey he started getting abusive and it wasn't long before a few punches were thrown. The Scottish bloke came off far worse and was left with a cut and on the deck. Again this fight was broken up quickly before we went and joined the girls in a basement bar which was deadly quiet. After a couple more Mikey, AP, George, Reece and Katie headed back while myself and Maggsie escorted Amy, Lauren and a couple of their friends back home.

Saturday was uneventful up until the evening. Amy and the girls had been planning a surprise for us for a while. They came round with a Pinata of a sheep - a Pinata is a Paper Mache object that is hung up and the person is blind folded before being spun round and then he/she has to whack the Pinata with a stick. Myself and Reece wondered where we could hang it without causing to many problems, in the end we decided on a metal pipe that slightly jutted out by the ceiling. Unfortunately our living room has high ceilings so I had to climb up to the top rung on the step-ladder and try and tie a knot over this pipe - I was sure i was going to topple off the ladder! Thankfully the knot was tied and i lived to fight another day. We all took turns to hit the sheep in vain as the thing seemed to be as hard as rock. APs turn came round and he managed to break the stick instead of the sheep. I hit the sheep quite hard but then stumbled and the sheep returned the favour by swinging back into my head. Eventually the head of the sheep was knocked off and his body followed shortly after some rage filled hits. The girls had filled the inside of the sheep with some sweets which went down a treat. The living room looked like a right mess after that but nothing we were not already used to. As we were getting up early for the Grand Prix the next day we cut the celebrations short and got off to bed relatively early.

The Australian Grand Prix at Albert Park in Melbourne cost $99/40 pounds (for a general admission ticket. The cheapest ticket at the British Grand Prix is 200 pounds - you do the math!! On Sunday morning I was the first one up and our departure time of 9am was looking rather optimistic. Slowly but surely everyone else started emerging and it wasn't long before we were on out way - only and hour and a half later than we had initialy said. After a stop off at McDonalds for breakfast and to meet the girls we jumped onto the bus. Albert Park is a gorgeous venue with views of the city in the background and a big lake in the middle of a grassy area with some trees. It was a cloudy day and I thought rain may cause a few problems during the race, but it didn't. I was priveledged to see a few of the Fosters Grid Girls so i get a crafty picture and went on my way. The women there were absolutely stunning - you couldn't pick a fault with them visually (i'm not sure what opinions they would have on the current nuclear crisis in Iran though). We wandered around for a bit longer looking at some of the cars on display and checking out the other visual delights. Before the feature race there was a V8s race, a celebrity race (I didn't know any of the so-called celebs) and a couple of other little races to watch. Its like most sports, when you watch them on TV it looks easy and the speed looks comfortable. Its not until you see the sport live that you can really appreciate the skill levels of the individuals. We all thought the V8s were rapid but the F1 car it raced absolutely blew it away. When people say "I'm not paying that money when i can watch it on TV" i get frustrated at the ignorance. Live sport works on most of the senses and the Grand Prix didn't let down. The smell of the unburnt fuel, the sight of the cars rapidly going by and the taste of the beers on offer - just cant beat it.

With Jenson Button on pole hopes were high amongst some of the British people over here. Even the Aussie Media were building Jenson up. I on the other hand knew that he didn't have the race car to compete against the Renault's or the McClaren's. To spice things up we all put a $10 on who would win. A couple of the boys went for Raikonnen, Mikey went for Button and I went for the outside chance of Montoya at 10/1. We got a good spot right at the front of the barriers to watch the cars go by and sat there with our beers waiting for the event to start. Things didn't start well for Montoya when he took his time getting off the grid - i thought how bloody typical!! I was surprised when Button held the lead at the start from the fast starting Renault, but it soon became apparent that Jenson and his car were not upto it. It was a good race with all the incidents and safety cars but not as close as i would have hoped as Alonso romped home. The sound of those cars was amazing - i tried (in vain) to instigate conversation on a number of times and then a screeching sound would come along and put a halt to chat - in the end i just gave up. After the race the spectators were all allowed onto the track - most people were taking mementos such as bits of rubber back with them. We noticed Maggsie was over at the far side on the metal gratings trying to rip down the orange sign indicating 100m til the corner. I decided to go over and help him, after about a minute of wrestling with the sign we had loosened it and with one last blow it was released. We came back to the group proud of our trophy. Later Maggsie and myself had a walk down the track for a few pictures/on the lookout for more trophies. On the way back to the group we notciced a 'Warren Luff Pit Board' that had been signed by the man himself just lying there. We picked it up and headed back to the group. We thought Ebay would be a good bet for the signs but later on after looking at who Warren luff actually was we decided we wouldn't get much (our friend Warren came near enough last in the races he was involved in).
Outside the circuit, Channel 7 were doing a live weather report. Armed with my bright orange 100m sign i danced behind the weatherman while he read out the national forecast - I was on Australian TV (the weatherman wasn't to pleased but what did he expect?!?). We all proudly headed off with our recovered signs and had just left Albert Park when a morbidly obese security officer/marshall, without warning snatched Maggsie's sign. He then came for me but I side stepped him with consumate ease, as i started jogging off i ran into the path of another security person and so i though it was best i stopped. The brother of the Pillsbury Dough Boy was thengiven the sign i was holding and then radioed through to his boss, "I've recovered the stolen property". George replied to him "your mum must be proud of you". We then started arguing with him that the signed Warren Luff board belonged to us (he had signed it after all), at this point he started getting all worried before handing the problem over to somebody senior. Maggsie and I were told that our signs would be kept and that we had to claim them (they wrote us out a receipt) the following week (I have phoned through on a couple of occasions and got absolutely nowhere btw).

In a way it was a relief the signs were taken because we were all heading out one final time together to celebrate with a few drinks in St Kilda. We headed to quite a fancy bar where we had a few. Later in the evening Mikeys team, Hearts were playing in the Scottish Cup Semi-Final, so we went and saw them demolish Hibernian 4-0 to Mikeys evident delight. The drinks at the end capped off what was a brilliant day and my best day in Australia so far. Mikey didn't even like F1 before seeing the race, but now he is quite into it. It was a nice way for everyone to spend time together before they all headed off in there own directions (AP & Reece up the east coast, Katie, Amy & Lauren to Tasmania, Maggsie to NZ and myself and Mikey staying in Melbourne).

After a bit of a lie-in I had to get myself ready for an interview/selection day. I said my goodbyes to Reece and AP before heading on out. The job was for an inbound call-centre role - something about a share issue. I turned up looking the smartest i have managed since coming travelling (i'm still not very good at ironing by the way) and was given a typing test to do first. My phone manner was then tested followed by an interview. Eventually i was offered the job which started the following Monday with training on Thursday.
Two of our new flatmates moved in Monday night. Hamish from Tasmania is a landscape gardener and Chris from Scotland is a mate of Mikeys. Both guys are nice blokes and we have already got on well together. I think they were a bit shocked at the state of the flat when they moved in though (even though i had sorted the living room). Maggsie flight to NZ was on tuesday morning so Mikey said goodbye to him while i stayed up and watched a film before i fell asleep on the couch. I woke up to Maggsie's alarm at 5am and wished him all the best in his trip and then found my bed to continue my sleep.
That day myself and Mikey thought it was best to give the place a massive going over before our new flatmates arrived back. The kitchen alone took in excess of 3hrs to sort out but by the time it was finished looked great apart from the kitchen floor. I finished up with the living room collecting the change Maggsie had left behind (he must have left over $5 of change lying around). When the boys returned from work they were impressed and hamish even went to get a hoover - the icing on the cake. I am pleased to report that the place is looking better than it has ever done previously while I have been here.

My agency had got me a job for 6 days work helping set up a basement sale for a company called Country Road (similar to Debenhams). Fortunately Ritchie had also got this job so we would work together again. The Wednesday morning start was early at 7am and i commented that i hadn't seen 6am for a while (since staying out late to watch Spurs beat Blackburn). I met a late Ritchie and we made our way to find the place. Unfortunately we went to the wrong place first of all and ended up at the shop instead of the HQ/warehouse. We stood there talking to the manager of the shop for a bout 10mins before she realised we were not supposed to be there. We eventually arrived for our first day of work 25 minutes late and the boss wasn't happy (he was lacking sleep after flying in from Hong Kong that morning) - luckily i managed to blag my way out of the situation. We were informed that our job was to put out the stock (predominatly clothes) on Wednesday, Thursday and some of Friday and then assist with the sale on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Peter the boss thankfully left us under the supervision of Carol who was an absolute diamond. Ritch and myself were working with 2 other temps - Patria and Steph, we all got on really well. Fortunately Peter and Carol had decided Ritch and myself were better suited to clearing up and flattening boxes whereas the girls were left to sort out the clothes (folding etc).
On the Thursday I was supposed to be training for another job - an inbound call centre. This went a bit pear shaped as they had postponed it yet again. So instead i turned up at the warehouse and did a days work there. When the doors opened for the sale hoards rushed in and sprinted to the nearest clothes table. Within seconds the neatly folded and piled clothes had adopted a mountainous messed appearance. I couldn't believe it when i was told that the people who were helping out in the sale were just volunteers (i.e. UNPAID). They had to work a minimum of 4hrs and because of this sacrifice could get the first pickings of the sale clothes - I thought this was incredibly desperate and incredibly sad! Generally i tried to keep out the way of the sales and chatted to security for most of the time, but occasionally i was collared and asked questions i simply didn't have the answer for - "you dont have this in a size XXXL do you?". One women asked me whether the question was to difficult for me in a real patronising way so I just walked off without replying to her evident disgust. Ritch and I were in our element, we started talking loudly and starting sales rumours so that a panic would start amongst some of the customers. For example, Ritch - "I hear that they are going to slash prices by another 25%" and I would reply "It would be silly to be buying anything now - its a couple of hours time youy really want to be here" - we would discuss this entire fabrication in big crowds of customers who were obviously listening and would then wait around for hours in a day to wait for the prices to be slashed - it was cruel but absolutely hilarious!! While on one of our breaks we got chatting to 2 of the girls working there. We immediately got on really well with the girls and our break overun slightly - the boss didn't look to happy as he walked on by. Shortly after our break we found out who the girls were - The Boss's daughters and then the looks of mistrust we recieved all fell into place. Daddy is a rich bloke so he cant have been to pleased to see his princesses chatting to us backpacking scallywags.

I actually enjoyed working at the sale - mostly because of the laugh we had. They were long days but went relatively quickly. Monday was our last day and by far the worst. We were told we would be working no later than 2pm but had to get all the stuff away and it all tidied up. In the end it wasn't until 4pm with everyone tired and angry that we finally just threw in the towel and told Peter we were leaving. It was a hard day but a productive one - i was allowed to take some crockery back (finally our flat had bowls) and also towels along with the polo shirt we had been given.

The Call Centre job had told me that there was work on thursday from 9:30-6pm so I was quite relieved as the money from this would sort me out for a bit longer. I turned up and the task was to search for peoples phone numbers on the White Pages and then enter it into the company database. Because they were all NZ numbers, White Pages NZ had an influx of searches from our centre and decided to block our servers. Most of the morning was spent drinking cups of coffee while we waited for White Pages to come back online. By 1pm the company gave up and sent us all home, so in the end I was paid for 4hrs instead of the expected 8hrs! They told us we would be needed back next week for 2 days to complete the data entry when they had a software upgrade (technical term for asking White Pages kindly if they can use there information for a couple of days).

Alot of the Easter weekend was spent in the flat as the internet Cafe was closed. I did go and watch the football on Saturday and was a relieved man to see Spurs narrowly beat Everton. Next up Manchester UTD tonight - the nerves are already setting in.

I'm sure my next blog will be even more uneventful as work and spending as little money as possible is the call of the day. Hopefully the work situation improves - I have been informed that there is a guaranteed months work starting on the 1st May - after this i will be leaving Melbourne anyway.

Happy Easter - Miss you all.

Paul

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Photos

Unharmed Pinata
I had the job of tying it to the ceiling.

Pinata - Sheep
Mikey and Katie show it off

Albert Park
The track runs around the outside of the lake

Solo Racing Car
Made of Solo Cans

Group Pic
Amy, Me, Katie, Mikey, Reece and Lauren

V8s
A buildup race before the F1 started

JB races passed
It was virtually impossible to capture a picture - they were that fast!!

Comments

[Victoria]

The green eyed monster
I have never been so jealous in my whole life! I would give my right arm...scrap that both my arms to have been at the Grand Prix. I was chuffed just to have been on the track! You're soooooo lucky xx