Living in Melbourne

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Tour of Bryant St

We ended up staying in Melbourne till mid February. It wasn't what we thought it would be, disappointing both of us a little, but we still had fun.

We stayed with Goog for two weeks, before we moved into a place in Flemington (the next suburb over from Goog) with two girls, Lyn and Ali, who were both in medicine. They were not fun to live with. Don't get me wrong, Steve and I realised how messy and disorganised we can be, but they were very particular about a lot of things. And with Steve and I working shift work, coming in late at night, they weren't happy if we made noise...we would get in trouble for the dvd player being too loud!! But it was a good location, and we could ignore them if need be (by the end we weren't even trying) so we still put up with it 😊

Steve had a number of jobs. He started off with a couple of casual jobs straight away, and then beginning of December he managed to get a Head Chef job at Basque, on Chapel St in Windsor (he is very proud to say that he has worked on Chapel St). He enjoyed it there, and the chance to learn something different, as it was a Spanish restaurant, but it was an hour to and from work on the trains, so it was long days. He gave them a month notice in mid January, when we decided that we would be leaving, and they let him go straight away...Steve said he would have done the same thing in the owners position, but it was annoying cos we needed the money!! He found another job pretty much the next day, at a French Resturant in Brunswick...wasn't as far to get to, and much better money, cos he was on pretty much the same amount, but it was per hour and he started at 4pm every day because they weren't open for lunch. He only gave them a weeks notice, saying that I had been transferred with my job and we had to leave quickly, and they were sad to see him go but understood.

I got a job at Moonee Ponds Coles, which was a 10min tram ride down the road for me. I was only a casual (because I had become casual when I left Glenelg, with the hopes of getting another job and only doing a few hours at Coles), and didn't really get enough hours. I applied for heaps of other jobs, but wasn't even contacted back 😞 By January I gave up, and just did casual at Coles. I started off as nightfill (10pm-6am!!), and then started getting trained up for Meat 2IC until the position wasn't available anymore (manager was leaving, current 2IC (Suzy) was moving up, so I would become 2IC, but then manager decided not to leave). I drifted between checkout, meat, dairy, deli, duty manager andnightfill/grocery (which became better hours of 2pm onwards), and then beginning of January I was officially made Duty Manager, shared with another girl, Tracey. It was a massive honour, as I was running the store once the manager had left for the day. I had done similar in Glenelg, but it was so much more here in Melbourne. It meant that I was doing most nights, which was good, but only 5 or so hour shifts. I made a couple of friends there that I was able to mess around with while at work, mainly Tracey and the GR 2IC Justin, but no one that I met out once work was done.

Goog was really good to have around. Didn't see him as much as I would have liked too (cos I am just so disorganised and didn't have much money at all to spare). We quickly became friends with Matt, his housemate and friend, and the four of us had fun in those first two weeks making cocktails and playing poker (I got good!) and they taught us rummy. We had a couple of poker nights, where I even won money because I came second 😊 We became good friends with Goog's mates, and although we only saw them a couple of times, and didn't see them at all once Goog moved back to Perth at the beginning of January 😞 we still organised to meet up for drinks at our local pub to say goodbye when we left Melbourne in February.

Our local pub!! 😊 It was called The Quiet Man, and it was a 5 minute walk from our house. Every month they had a $5 pint special on one of the tap beers, and in Feb it was pints of Heineken! Then on Thursday nights they had $5 pints of all tap beers, which was really good. We didn't go down nearly as much as we would have liked, but it was nice having it so close.

We became really close to the Crofts, family friends with girls a little younger then me that we've grown up with, and that moved to Melbourne awhile ago, and have been coming to Perth for visits since. We went to their place for dinner the end of Nov, and met Brad and Alana, Debbie's nephew who had also just moved to Melbourne. They ended up becoming our closest friends in Melbourne, although we really didn't see them all that much, and it was sad to say goodbye to them 😞 The four of us celebrated New Years together at Sensation White at Telstra Dome, a massive white party that was absolutely incredible.

My birthday I celebrated at the same restaurant we first went to with Goog when we arrived. There was about 10 of us, a mixed crowd cos there was Brad and Alana, Ali (housemate) and her two friends, and then Brooke happened to be in Melbourne for her cousins 30th, so her, her brother and cousin came down as well. It turned out to be so a good night. Brad and Aland met at ours and we were going to tram it down, but were running late so we just caught a cab, and ended up being the last there 😊 Food was so yummy, we all had heaps of fun messing around, and it was BYO so it was cheaper too 😊 I brought a candle, which I stuck in my desert and everyone sung happy birthday. We then jumped in the cars that we had, and drove to another pub down the road from The Quiet Man and had a drink there, and then wandered up to The Quiet Man. Once it hit midnight Steve (who was so so drunk, as was Brad...nice little drinking buddies) got up on stage and asked the singer if he could borrow the mic, and then him and Brad sung me happy birthday...very drunken, out of tune version of 😊 But it was very cool.

Christmas Day we started off at St Kilda for what was meant to be a small breakfast, but we were disorganised and running late, so we just went and walked along the shore for a few minutes. It was something I wanted to do, it just seems really 'Aussie' spending some point of Christmas Day at St Kilda. We then drove to the Crofts where we had such a good day. It was really nice celebrating Christmas with another family when we couldn't be with our own. We started the tradition that night of watching 'A Muppets Christmas Carol' every Christmas 😊

We had visitors to Melbourne too! 😊 First one was Bradley, who was flying over with his aunty to see his grandma down near Warrnambool. We had to hire a car and pick him up from his grandmas, but we did the quicker inland route, not the Great Ocean Road route. We had fun showing Bradley around Melbourne, although it was nice and hot while he was there, and Bradley didn't really enjoy walking and catching the tram so much once the novelty had worn off, because of the heat...he kept asking us to buy a car 😊

Lish then came to Melbourne late at night on the Wednesday 28th Jan, and we hired a car again to pick her up from the airport. We showed her the house, and then brought her around Melbourne a bit - she absolutely loved the fact that we went to the Lucky Coq and you could buy yummy pizzas at 2am! And that my store was still open at 11pm at night! She came at the worst possible time though, as Melbourne was going through a heat wave, and it was over 40C for more then 5 days!! It meant that some things broke down because of the heat, and the trains and trams were a mess because the lines were buckling. And Lish isn't good with the heat 😊 But it was good fun. Her first day there we drove down to St Kilda (still had the hire car till the end of the day) and actually had a swim in the beach, it was so so hot, and then went on the rollercoaster at Luna Park (not the twisty one, the touristy view one around the border of the park). We then stopped at Belgian Bier Cafe for a much refreshing beer on the hot, hot day, before taking the car back. We did a bit of shopping at Melbourne Central before catching the tram back to our place and getting ready for a night out. Lyn helped us out with a handdrawn map of places to go, and we headed out for a proper night out in Melbourne (on a Thursday night). Steve and I hadn't even had a proper night yet, so it was good cos we actually got to see a view places. We went to a few places, including the Ice Bar, which was so refreshing considering it was still over 30C at 830pm! Then there was a couple of roof top bars, and for dinner we stopped at a 'Melbourne instiution' called Pellegrinis, which doesn't have tables you just sit at the bar on stools to eat. We then went to an awesome little bar called Croft Institute which is set up like a science lab on the bottom floor, and is hell dodgy to get to, down a darkened alley way. So much fun in it though, and we all walked out suddenly very drunk from the shots out of test tubes that we had. We ended up catching the last tram home, still sweltering in the heat. We moved the mattress into the main lounge that had airconditioning, and then put both our fans in there as well, as Lish and I slept on the mattress and Steve on the couch. Was sorta funny 😊 Steve had to work the next day, and I had a hair appointment, but Lish went shopping at the DFO at Southern Cross and then I met her there around 3pm. Stores were actually closing already because it was too hot and the airconditioners had broke down so they staff couldn't work 😊 Lish and I then walked through the Docklands to Harbourtown and the Southern Star, which had broken down in the heat. We then caught a tram into the city, where we were were hoping to go up to the Eureka Skydeck, but a lot of the actual city had lost power (heat!!) so the lift wasn't working...we felt very sorry for the people stuck in the lift when the power went out! We ended up going down to Federation Square where we sipped cocktails and got nibbles for dinner, and Steve met us there once he had finished work. We stopped off at the Quiet Man for more drinks on the way home, and slept again in the lounge. Saturday was a day of more shopping, and then Lish and I got all dressed up and headed to the Crown for dinner. The Chinese New Year celebrations were on, so we ended up just having chinese from one of the stalls. The next morning we were up early and the 3 of us caught the tram down to St Kilda where we met the Crofts for breakfast. Lish left that afternoon 😞

Ryan and Jess visited us for our last week in Melbourne, and we actually had a car by this stage because Paris Crofts had lent us her car while she had lost her license. They arrived early on the 14th of Feb, and we spent the week shopping and doing the touristy stuff with them, as both Steve and I had finished work. Ryan, Jess and I spent Valentines Day dinner at Steve's restaurant (his last night there). The next day was Good Vibes at Flemington Racecourse, which was the one of the reasons they flew over, and we had the best day. We were all very hungover the next day, but managed to get some shopping down at Highpoint before getting dressed up and heading into the city for another night out....we went to basically the same places we took Lish too, but it was still a good night. We ended the night the only people in some secluded club (Canary Club I think) at 2am, it was awesome the nightlife of Melbourne and how different it is! Tuesday we slept in before doing some more touristy stuff, like headed down to the MCG and did the tour (and watched some local cricket that was on), and then to the Belgian Bier Cafe. We splurged and bought a very expensive dinner that night at a restaurant in Crown Casino, and the plan was to have a night out there, but Jess and I shoes were killing us, and I wasn't good company because I felt sick and had ulcers in my mouth that were hurting even when I wasn't moving. ugh! The next morning we were up early to head on a road trip on the Great Ocean Road, we were doing the inland road, and coming out just after Warrnambool so we could see all the sights along the road. Luckily it was a much hotter day then the first time we did, so it was really good. We decided to drive all the way to Lorne to set up camp, which was a long drive, but we're glad we made it all that way. And just before we hit Lorne, we saw koalas in the trees! Everyone had just said how they had never seen koalas in the wild, and then suddenly Ryan yells out that he had seen one, so we pulled over on the side of the road (a windy and bushy road) to get out and look. We stood there wandering up and down looking at all the koalas, causing people to actually pull over themselves and get out to look. At one point there were 5 cars and 11 people just standing there looking up was quite funny 😊 We then set up at the same campsite we stayed at in Lorne, and bought nibblies, bbq stuff and a carton (Jess and I have decided we like ourselves on Stella) 😊 It was such a good night, sitting around getting drunk and getting to know each other again, having honest conversations as you do while your drunk 😊 We all then crammed into our tent, 4 of us lying next to each other on two mattresses, and actually had a really good sleep. Up early to drive back to Melbourne, stopping at a winery on the way, and an icecream in the surfing town of Torquay. We were all so tired when we got back into Melbourne, needing showers, and ended up going out for late dinner, cos it was their last night, that was so much more then we wanted to pay cos it was the only thing that seemed to be open (we couldn't be bothered trying very hard). Drove to Chadstone Shopping Centre the next day cos Ryan and Jess wanted to do some more shopping, and to see the Toys R Us store there. Saw them off that afternoon.

Left Melbourne two days after Ryan and Jess left, on Sunday 22nd Feb.

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