MelB, the working weekend and Wilsons Prom

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Almost two months have passed since I arrived in Melbourne, and man has it gone by fast! Time does really fly when you're having fun 😊 I am really glad I chose MelB to stay for this long. It's a very easy city to get to know and it has a lot to offer. Like movie nights in the Botanical Gardens for example! We saw the movie 'Room' (beautiful movie!) while laying in the grass, drinking cider and with bats flying over every once in a while. Really cool 😊

I've also started running again. The hostel where I live is close to the Yarra River, which is a great spot for some physical exercise. Or to drink goon or beer at night 😉 Apart from the river, there are a lot of parks around the city, which are great for hanging out and playing Frisbee.

The craziest thing about Melbourne is probably the weather. You can go to the library on a sunny day and get out an hour later with rain pouring down like crazy. We've also had a couple of days of more than 40 degrees. I spend one of those days at the beach. Swim. Dry. Drink. Repeat. And by drink I mean water, cause it was simply too hot to even think about alcohol. I usually go to South Melbourne beach, but I've also visited some other beaches. Like Brighton Beach, which has lots of cute colorful huts along it. Unfortunately there were a lot of rocks in the water, so it wasn't great for swimming. But I did find some really cool seashells 😊

One of my busiest weekends was also one of my last weekends in MelB. On Friday me and Dan, my vegan colleague/roommate, made a vegan carrot cake and it was amazing!! Maybe even better than the cakes I've made with with eggs and dairy 😊 after that I packed a small bag and set of for Geelong, which is about an hour by train. I'd be spending the rest of the weekend there, selling healthy slushies at a festival. My boss had rented us a really nice apartment for the weekend. After dropping off my stuff we went to the mall for dinner and to do some groceries for the rest of the weekend.

The next day two more people joined us and we worked and lived together for three days. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't great, so the festival was a lot quieter than we thought it would be. We still had fun, but it would have been better if we'd had some more customers. Luckily, we had another festival lined up on Tuesday. We got up at 6am, drove to their storage unit and packed two trailers with everything we'd need for that day. Fully packed we went to Dandenong, where we'd work at an Australia Day festival. (pronounced by the locals as Straya Day) At this festival we went all out and besides healthy slushies, we also sold chips and nuggets. We had two girls at the registers, my boss was pouring slushies, his companion did all the frying and I was in between it all. Helping customers, answering questions, pouring the occasional slushy and preparing all the food orders. I don't think I'll ask this many people if they want tomato sauce in one day ever again. It was quite busy, but it all went really well, so it was a great way to end the weekend 😊

I got back to the hostel a bit past midnight and before going to bed I really, really, really needed a shower to wash off all the salt, grease and tomato sauce. About five hours later my alarm went off, but this time it wasn't for work. No, I was going on a day tour to Wilsons Promontory! I had won this trip (worth 130 Oz dollars!) a little while ago with heads and tails and this was the last day I could do it. So at 7am I went to the meeting point, to meet up with the peaps I'd be spending the rest of the day with 😊

I sat all the way in the front, almost next to our driver/guide: Jeremy. Next to me was a couple from New York and behind them a Dutch/Canadian couple. The six of us spend the three hour bus ride talking about all the places we'd seen and still want to see and singing along to Jeremy's playlist. When we finally got to Wilsons Prom, we drove around for a bit and saw wallabies, kangaroos and an emu! Then we hiked up Mount Bishop, to have lunch with a great view. After that we went to Squeaky Beach, where the sand squeaks when you walk on it :p We went for a swim in the icy cold water, hung out in the sun and then it was time to head back to Melbourne. Our guide dropped a bunch of us off at the Night Market, which is a weekly food truck event at the Queen Victoria market. Here you can get any kind of food, for really good prices. Dan joined us as well and we shared a falafel wrap and some really good Indian style nachos 😊

So yeah, that was a pretty good long weekend 😉 Melbourne has been extremely good to me and I'll be back for a bit in march!

But right now it's time for a new chapter in my adventure: New Zealand!! After the longest flight ever my parents have arrived safely on the other side of the world and I'll be giving you guys more frequent updates on our travels. For now I'll just say:

Oi! Cheers mate!

Ps. I just figured out that my flight to New Zealand was the 50th plane I've been on! What WHAT!

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