A Thirty-Oneder Down Under

On Saturday we had a party a my house. It was sort of a mix of a housewarming since Briony and I just moved in, a b-day party for me (even though my actual b-day is not until this Thursday the 25th), and a goodbye party since I am leaving to head up the East Coast in a week or so. Here are some pics from the party...

One of my flatmates, Kate, making Mulled Wine...


Damien and Mari (Estonia) enjoying the fire...

Chaz and 'Lil (both from NZ) sharing a moment...

Nerys and her best mate Lisa (Brady) who I will hopefully be travelling down the West Coast with in August...

Me and Carmi (who made an appearance despite having an exam on Monday to study for. Thanks Carmi!)

My unsuccessful attempt at taking a pic of me and Damien, who happens to be 6'7"...

Nery decided it was dance time and Chaz was her lucky partner...

Nery had some fancy moves, including running and jumping into Chaz' arms.

Not the smoothest landing but definitely could have been much worse...

Ashley (Baltimore) breaking out the Passion Pop. Things always get interesting after the Passion Pop comes out.

Kara deep in thought...or at least pretending to be...

Me and Daniela (who I met at the Red Cross)...

Me and Georgia (who I met a Cirque)...

Me and Laura who came all the way from Sydney to party with me!

Me and Molly (Damien's flatmate who I very much adore)..

Conrad and Mr. Lobster (remember what I said about Passion Pop?)

Yeah...well...this is what I mean...

Me and Nery (my favourite Melbs girl)...

I think I might have it on backwards. Maybe.

So what's next? Well...the plan as of now (things are always changing when you travel so this is just the plan for now. I'm 100% sure that it will change...that's part of the fun!) is as follows...

-Buy a bus pass that will take me from Melbs all the way up to Cairns, valid for 45 days and costs $400

-Leave Melbs in a week or so (my room has been rented as of the 1st of July so I have to be gone by then but might leave a few days earlier). Side note: originally I had planned to sublet my room for a few months and then when I had finished travelling around OZ, come back to Melbs for the last few months of my visa. But after much thought and a few sleepless nights I have decided to let it go. I feel very comfortable here and really enjoy my flatmates so it was a hard decision but I have been in Melbs for 6 months (which is half of my total time here) and if I am having an amazing time on my travels, I don't want to have the obligation of coming back to get my stuff and rent the room.

-I have a month or so to do the East Coast which will include lying on many beaches, hopefully some couchsurfing, sailing for a few days and seeing some beautiful parts of Australia.

-If all goes as planned I will fly from Cairns to Darwin and meet Nery, Lisa and Lisa's boyfriend who will be visiting from Ireland and we will travel down the West Coast in a camper van for the month of August.

-From Perth I think I will fly to Bangkok (it only costs $200 so really, how can I not?) and hopefully meet my friend Lindsay who I met at Cirque (see last post). She is a fellow Canuck and has been to South/East Asia many times.

-When I'm finished there I will travel to New Zealand (which I now have a Working/Holiday makers Visa for) and hopefully miss yet another depressing Canadian winter.

-After NZ it will be time to head home. I miss my friends and my Bro sooooooooooooo much. Even being away for so much longer feels unbearable so I am trying to just take it a day at a time.

So that's the scoop for now. I'll keep you updated on my new adventures and my itinerary as it changes.

Just finished reading: He died with a Felafel in his hand by John Birmingham. Very funny, especially if you have ever lived in a share house and had a weird/bad experience. Apparently there is a movie as well but I haven't seen it yet. What I have seen recently is Twilight. Has the "Twilight" craze already happened in Canada? I reckon it has since everything comes out so much later here. Totally the Buffy for the next generation. I will probably read the books while I'm on the road.

P.S. It's winter here, like officially, and it was 16 degrees today and sunny. Dried my clothes on the line no problem. I'll take this Winter over Canadian Winter any day. Although it still get's quite chilly at night (goes down to between 5 and 10 degrees). This causes some confusion as to what season it is, as you can see...

xoxo

~e

I'm going to sleep for a week straight!

Sorry it's been so long since I've updated. I've been working an average of 60hrs/week for about 6 weeks. The good news is that my 9-5 contract with The Red Cross has finally ended, I only have a few weeks left at Cirque, and thankfully the wages is Australia are so high that I have managed to save enough money that I won't have to work any more while I'm here. Hooray for vacation and adventure time again! Woot!

I mentioned a few posts ago that I had had a bad experience with a flat mate while I was here (which ended in her telling me to "F*ck Off" in a note on my bank account statement when she transferred most (she kept $200 which I decided for my sanity not to go after) of my bond back to me. Yeah that's right, it says "NOW F*CK OFF" in my BANK ACCOUNT STATEMENT! Did I mention she was psycho?

Since then I was very lucky to find a great house with 3 great flat mates...Kate, Briony and Marcus. We all get along amazingly and the house is huge for the 4 of us, plus my rent is super cheap.

This is my bedroom. It's a Granny Flat. It's super private because you have to go into the back yard to get to it. The only annoying thing is when you have to get something from the house and it's raining. But since there's a draught here, that doesn't pose a problem very often.

This is what my room looks like inside. A little bare since I don't have my stuff from home but it's pretty cozy. There is a big window by the way, you just can't see it in the pic...

A few weeks ago I made plans to go see a hip hop/funk band from Melbourne called Jackson Jackson (with Harry Angus who does vocals/trumpet for The Cat Empire). I was so excited and then the night before everyone I was supposed to go with bailed. I contemplated going alone but shows just aren't the same by yourself so I did what any traveller in this situation would do...I posted on the Melbourne events page on Couchsurfing that I was looking for people to go with and this guy Mark and his girlfriend responded. Hooray! The show was super fun and I danced my ass off (something I don't do nearly as much as I do at home).

Here's a pic of the band...


and the lovely back-up singers they had as their support...



My friend Carmi from Israel who I also met on Couchsurfing (I think I would have about 2 friends if it weren't for that site. Thanks to Micheal for telling me about it:) also came along and shook his booty with me...

One of the perks of working at The Red Cross is that we were constantly offered free stuff. Last weekend we got to go to this super cheesy amusement park called Luna Park (designed by the same dude who did Coney Island) for free. Unfortunately, the oldest wooden roller coaster in the Southern Hemisphere was not running that day. But we still had fun. Here's the entrance...

Me and Nerys (Nery) about to embark on a very scary ride that may or may not take our lives.

and me and my friend Arlynne on the Pirate Ship...

So Arlynne and I were friends way back in the day, lost touch for quite some time and then got re-acquainted through the wonders of Facebook. We met up for the first time in about 8 years a few weeks ago in Melbourne. She is here for a while and she is now working at Cirque with me for the last few weeks. Here's a pic of us and her boyfriend Todd at Luna Park...

After Luna Park Nery's flat mates and I went to China Town for dinner. A lot of restaurants in Melbourne are BYO (Bring Your Own) wine and they charge you $1 or $2 for corkage (which actually means giving you a wine glass since the wine here is screw top). Notice we took full advantage of BYO...

That's Lisa (Brady) and Chaz in the background. Lisa is from Ireland and travelling with Nery. Chaz is one of their many flat mates. He's from New Zealand.

Chaz is awesome. Here he is with some of his friends he won at Luna Park...

On my last day at The Red Cross I was very exhausted. I had worked 2 doubles in a row the previous 2 days and still had 3 days of work before a day off. When it came time to drink beer and eat pizza at 4pm, I felt like this...

This is my good friend Kara from the Red Cross. They kept her on a few extra weeks after they let us go because she worked so much harder then we did. She was the go-to gal if you had any questions...



After my last day we went to a bar in Fitzroy called Lambsgo Bar. Get it? Lambs Go Bar (works very well in OZ since Aussies don't pronounce the letter "r" so bar actually sounds like "bah". Here we are at the bah...

Our Welsh friend Amy (craziest accent ever) and her boyfriend also joined us at the bah...

Since I spend so much time at Cirque Du Soleil, thought it might be appropriate to dedicate some blog space to what it's like there. Here's the Food and Beverage tent where I spend most of the time I am there...

This is Karine. She is the best Barker (someone who tries to sell food and beverages to patrons on the circus grounds by walking around and yelling). She even makes up songs to sell certain items. Might as well enjoy yourself if they make you do it (unlike me who usually just pouts and holds whatever item I'm trying to sell in the air and therefore doesn't sell too much).

This is Josh. He has since gone back to England but he was by far the best trooper at Cirque, which usually involved yelling things out very loudly in an attempt to sell more overpriced beer, popcorn and hot dogs...

Here's some other nerds I work with. Look at how much fun we have! Ha!

This is Lindsay. She is a fellow Canadian and makes me laugh all the time. Her eyes get sore and dry when she makes pop corn for too long.

This is my uniform at work...



Kidding! Here's my real uniform. Look how happy I am to be at work!

Last night was Cirquador appreciation night. We got to hang out in the Tapis Rouge tent where people who pay about $250/ticket hang out before the show. They had some food and drinks for us and they hired a magician. I love magicians!



Look how cute his bunny is. He just sat in his hat the whole time he was doing tricks and let people pet and take pics of him. Adorable!


They also had Fairy Bread which is an Australian favourite at kid's b-day parties (essentially white bread with butter and sprinkles). It's disgusting. Side note: Cotton Candy is called Fairy Floss here. Australians apparently have an obsession with Fairies.


After we went to a bar for some cheap drinks and fun. This is Lara, one of our Team Leaders. She's awesome. The driest sense of humour and doesn't beat around the bush at all. My kind of girl.

This is Sam, Marriella and Jack...

And this is Lucy who I found out (also through the wonders of Facebook) is also friends with Tom (see first like 10 blog posts). Such a small world!

So my plans for the next month include sleeping, researching my trip up the East Coast, having a great B-Day party (at which I will miss all of my friends from home immensely) and sleeping some more..

Speaking of my B-Day...you can send my pressies and cards to 24 Maghull Street, Brunswick East, Melbourne, VIC 3057, Australia. If you send it this week it just might reach me in time;)

xoxoxoxo