Melbourne, Australia (Part 1)

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I was greeted at the airport by my cousin, Callum, who then took me back to his house about half an hours drive away from the airport. I say 'his' house, but it would be more correct to say My Uncle and Aunties house. They live quite away out from Melbourne, in a suburb called Wheelers Hill. Along with Callum, my cousin Skye also lives there (Brad, my third and final Aus cousin, no longer lives at home). Initially I was only planning on staying with them for about 10 days. I thought that would be plenty of time for me to find a place to stay and get a job. However, I had not fully appreciated how truly skint I was, nor was I expecting Australia to be so expensive (particularly with the Aus $ being so strong). Therefore, I could not afford to move out so soon. However, this was absolutely no problem at all with my Auntie and Uncle, who were and have been, unbelievably supportive since I landed on these shores. They said I could stay for as long as I wanted with them. Which was great to hear; nevertheless It was always my plan to get a place of my own.

Anyway, on my first day there, after sleeping for the majority of the afternoon, that night I was treated to a delicious roast which my Auntie Regina had cooked. It was the type of meal I had certainly started to long for since leaving Scotland. The next day, I took the 40 minute train journey into the city, and spent my day trying to suss out how much it would cost to stay in a hostel for an extended period of time (as at this time I still had notions of only staying in Wheelers Hill for a week or two) and handed out my CV to bars and restaurants in and around the city center. The next day, again I took a stack of CV's and went into town to hand them out. That night, after discussing my search for a job with Skye, she found an advertisement on the internet from a hospitality agency, who were looking for experienced bar staff to work during the Spring Carnival. This is a horse racing carnival, which involves about 7 or 8 races throughout the Spring in Melbourne. Anyway, one phone call later, I had an interview immediately the next morning. The interview proceeded without a hitch, which meant after just over 72 hours in the country, I already had a job (albeit a part time one).

In Melbourne, they love their Aussie Rules Football. Every year, there is the 'Grand Final', which the whole of Victoria seems to watch. So less than a week of arriving into the city, I was given a shift working at the venue of the final - the Melbourne Cricket Ground (which has a seating capacity of 100,000). On hearing this, one of my cousins actually commented that 'Some Melbournians try unsuccessfully to get to the Grand Final their whole lives, and here is me, a foreigner, going to the final after only a week in the country!'

During my first month in Melbourne I got the opportunity to work full time at my Uncle Gordon's work for three weeks. He is a manager at a Glass company, and managed to get me work in the warehouse. During these weeks, I also spent a lot of my evenings looking for a place to stay which would be closer in town. It was harder than I thought, finding anything that was in a decent area and for a reasonable price, which was not crazily over applied for (I found out later that there is actually a problem in Melbourne with a lack of available rentable rooms). Quite often I would work 0800-1730 then catch a train at 1800 into the city to view a room which I was interested in, to then get back to Wheelers Hill about 2100. I'd also work most Saturdays on the bar at one of the races.

However, in my first month here, it was not always work work work. A couple of weeks into my stay. I went to one of the Spring Races for the day. I went with one of my friends from the Vietnam part of the tour - Rhys. We arrived at the racecourse in the late morning sunshine, both dressed smartly ready to enjoy our day. Five of Ryhs' school friends were there, so we socialised with them for most of the day. They are all in their early 30's, so it was nice being the pup of the group for a change! Anyone who has witnessed my skill in the casino in Dundee, will testify that I am not the luckiest of gamblers, but for some reason, my luck was in that day. Unusually so, the vast majority of the favourites won their respective races. This allowed me to walk away from the races $100 up! Although, taking into account the price of alcohol there, I still finished the day in deficit. A few bars afterwards, and with the numbers dwindling fast, it was just me and Rhys left come 2100. Despite both of us earlier in the day reiterating our intention to make a night of it, come 2200. We were both absolutely knackered, and had run out of money, and so decided to go back to our respective homes. Nevertheless, I had had an excellent day.

That month I also met up on a couple of occasions with friends from my tour of South Asia, a couple from Bradford - Jake and Rebecca. One time we went to an exhbition in town on Tim Burton and his work. It was all very interesting and intriguing seeing both his well known work and some of his previously unseen stuff. I did think as I was traipsing around though that this would of been right up my art student brothers alley.

As November drew nearer and nearer, frustration started to rise within me as I began to fear that I was going to spend the entire of my time in Melbourne working and living far from the city. I therefore upped the intensity of my search for a new pad, but also widened my search. This change rewarded almost straight away. It is a suburb called Thornbury, and is about a 15 minute tram ride from the center of town. It is a little bit out of the city than I originally wanted, but it is certainly closer than my auntie and uncles place. I moved in on November 2nd, then meeting for the first time, the two girls who I would be staying with - both very nice, but rather bohemian in their look and beliefs. No matter, I now had a place to stay, and now hopefully could truly start to immerse myself in Melbourne life and tap into the social scene of the place.

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