This is my life as of late...

So far I am enjoying Melbourne very much. My flatmate Anne and I get along amazingly and have become good friends. Although her english is quite good, there are some things that she pronounces incorrectly and it's the cutest! For instance instead of saying "clothes" she pronounces every letter inlcuding the "e" so it sounds like "cloath-ez" and instead of "sweater" she says "sweeter" and instead of "Coles" (which is the major grocery store here) she says "coolez". Recently we went to a fancy bar walking distance from our flat and they had a $500 cocktail on the menu. $500! For one cockail! Needless to say, we went with other choices. Here is Anne enjoying her Mojito.


A few days later I met up with a girl that I had emailed on the Couchsurfing website who I had a lot in common with and we went to a rooftop cinema to watch The Breakfast Club (Sarah is the 2nd girl in).

They had these comfortable (although slightly hard to get in and out of) deck chairs to sit in.

It was so cool watching a movie and then looking up and seeing stars and sky and the tops of city buildings...

Then Anne and I went to a BBQ with the gang of Germans we have been hanging out with including our new friend Conrad...

and the girls who we have come to refer to as "the nannies" (because they are all working as nannies while they are here. Duh!)

Anne and I ate BBQ'd Kangaroo! It actually tasted pretty good.

This week in Melbourne there is a festival for everyone who is part of the Couchsurfing community http://www.couchsurfing.com/ (which I am), with different events going on every night.

One of the events was to take part in the Free Hugs Campaign: http://www.freehugscampaign.org/. So about 20 of us met up at Federation Square (like Dundas Square in Toronto) and gave away free hugs to strangers for an hour. You would be surprised how many passers by will hug a stranger.

These guys were all dressed up and coming from watching the Australia Open Tennis and they had plenty of love to give. They were crazy. Crazy awesome!

Another Couchsurfing event was a picnic in the Botanic Gardens on Australia Day. If you were to ask a high school teacher what Australia Day is, they might say something like this... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_Day. However, if you ask a member of the general public who is an Australian citizen what Australia day is (which I did) they might say something like "Australia Day is a day when you don't have to go to work and everyone get's wasted". Here's a few pics from the picnic...

So I have only been doing casual work in Melbourne so far. I had an interview for a 4 month contract with an inbound calling center for the Red Cross taking phone calls from people who want to donate money on Tuesday. It went very well and I would be very surprised if I don't get it but I have to wait until Tuesday to find out AND it won't start until February 16th. There is also a massive heat wave in Melbourne right now (the hottest since 1908) and the temperatures have been in the mid-40's for the past few days with only a slight dip expected in the coming week. This, coupled with the fact that I have a lot of free time at the moment means that this is my life as of late...

Although my bank account continues to drain, I am not yet needing to panic and try to keep in mind that a) this visa is called a working/HOLIDAY makers Visa for a reason and b) I worked my ass off for a year to get here so I deserve a little R&R. It's amazing how that North American mentality of working hard and making as much money as you can creeps up on me, even though I am so far away (and believe me, the mentality is not the same over here, and it's lovely!)

Also, my sublet where I am now is up Feb. 10th. Tomorrow I am going to see a flat in Fitzroy which is close to Brunswick Street where my friend Thomas and I went bar hopping a few weeks ago (see last blog post) and the CBD. I would be sharing it with another Canadian girl the same age as me and could stay there as long as I am in Melbourne. I'll keep you posted on how that goes...