Great Ocean Roadtrip, My first Footy game and a lesson in listening to your gut!

Sorry it's been so long since I've updated this blog but after you read this post, you'll understand why.


A few weeks ago 3 friends and I decided to go on a weekend roadrip to The Great Ocean Road. Here are the 3 lovely ladies who accompanied me. Karen (far left) I met at the Red Cross. She is from Leeds in Norh England. Nerys (middle) I met at the Red Cross as well and she is from Belfast Ireland and Andrea I met at the hostel where I first stayed when I came to Melbourne.


We rented a car and set off at 9am on Saurday morning. I was first to drive since I am used to driving in a city and although I was a little nervous about driving on the other side of the road, I am pretty proud of how well I did and how quickly I got used to it. I don't have an actual pic of me driving because I hate pictures of my profile so this will have to do. Even though I got used to driving on the opposite side of he road quickly, there were other things I couldn't get used to. When I got into the car I kept reaching for the seatbelt on my left side and turned on the windshield wipers whenever I was making a turn.

Just in case I forgot about which side of the road to drive on...we saw these signs every 20kms or so which seemed rather strange considering we were nowhere near a country border and if you had made it to the Great Ocean Road, chances are you've figured out what side of the road to drive on already.

It was the most perfect day for driving and beaching it up. It was about 35 degrees and the sky was clear. Our first stop was Torquay...

There were really cool looking rocks near the beach and one of them had a tunnel running through it.

This is what a lot of our view looked like on the drive...

Then we stopped at this place where we heard we would be able to see Koalas in the wild. The first one we saw looked a lot like me...

And here are the Koala's we spotted in the trees. How cute are they???

And here is a very pretty bird we saw. I forget what it's called.

These next few pics were taken in a town called Lorne where we stopped. It was very beautiful.

We got to Apollo Bay where we were staying the night at about 7pm and checked into our hostel which turned out to be more like a cottage.

The next day seemed like a completely different season. The temperature had dropped about 10 degrees and it was rainy and very misty. Thankfully we had seen most of the beaches the first day.

We went from wearing dresses and bathing suits to wearing scarves and pants and even then it was cold!

We decided to do a tree top walk and drove on a very curvy and narrow road to get there. A little nerve racking but Andrea somehow got us there safely. Despite living through the crazy drive, there were no guarantees against other elements. We are in Australia after all.

We even ran into some dinosaurs...

Most of them were friendly but Nerys wasn't so lucky...

The tree top walk was really cool. They built these walkways high above the ground.

One of the towers went super high. Karen is afraid of heights but she braved it and we all walked to the top.

I took a lot of pictures of trees but they are pretty boring. It's hard to capture something like that on camera but I thought this one turned out pretty good. I like the way the colours turned out.

Finally we made it to our last destination, The Twelve Apostles (more like 6 1/2 now) in Port Campbell. The forces of nature gradually eroded the softer limestone, forming caves in the cliffs which became arches and when they collapsed, rock islands as high as 45 metres were left isolated from the shore.

They are apparently the most beautiful at dusk or dawn but we needed to get back Sunday night for work Monday morning so we couldn't wait until dusk.

It was a great weekend but didn't end on the best note. My flatmate had been away for 3 weeks prior to this road trip and I had made a point of cleaning on Friday knowing that she would be home on Sunday. I found the place by answering an ad on Gumtree which is the Craigslist of Australia. She had mentioned cleaning a few times in the ad and mentioned it again when I went to meet her but she also told me how she had previously had a bad experience with a flatmate who never cleaned so I assumed she was just being overly cautious (this would be the first time I should have listened to my gut!)

Things seemed ok with us when I moved in but right away it became very apparent that she wanted things kept a certain way...a very certain way and I felt more like I was renting a room then sharing an apartment. So we are driving home from the Great Ocean Road and the first text I get from her says "the back door was left unlocked and open. Did you check it when you left?" This seemed highly unlikely to me since indeed I had checked it not to mention there are several other gates with locks you have to go through before even getting to the back door so the likelyhood of someone breaking in was very low. I decided not to respond and about an hour later I got another text that said "and I think we need to revisit the cleaning situation". Wtf? "Revisit"? Did I mention that I had cleaned on the Friday before I left? I felt like I was being scolded. I responded with "what specifically was not clean"? No response. Now I'm pissed. I mean, I'm a perfectly reasonable person and am willing to discuss any concerns like adults but could she not have waited until I got home? When I got home she wasn't there but arrived shortly after and I immediately asked her what was up with the texts and she was pretty hostile. She didn't understand why I found her text innapropriate and her complaints about the cleaning were INSANE. She said there was food on the walls (what? ok, maybe there was a one splat from like sauce that I made or something but Andrea...back me up here...have I ever left food on the walls when we lived together?) and she had moved my cereal from the counter into my cupboards even though it didn't properly fit because she didn't want to "see" it. I told her that I didn't feel at home there and she said that she felt the same because I always had my friends over. Again WHAT? I think she came home a couple of times when I had a friend over and we were in the backyard. Needless to say, the conversation basically ended with me telling her that I think she needed to live alone since living with someone else means compromising, something she obviously was not willing to do and with her telling me she wanted me to move out. Looking back on her gumtree post and initial emails to me, I should have never moved in with her in the first place. She was so obviously a control freak. I think I was blinded by not wanting to spend a long time looking, the fact that she was Canadian and the area where the flat was.

I moved out the following day and spent 2 weeks couchsurfing with friends. I felt so uncomfortable there and just wanted to avoid her as much as possible. During this 2 weeks I was also working overtime at the Red Cross and searching for a new apartment (hence why I haven't had time to update this blog). So exhausting! The good news is I have found a lovely, big home with 3 other flamates (2 girls and a guy) and I have a room that is detached from the house AND it's only $430/month. Amazing! The bad news is that my old flatmate continues to be a douche and has not returned all of my bond and has made it very difficult for me to come and pick up my dresser. She is the most passive aggressive person I've ever met! She's the kind of person who pokes and pokes at you and then when you can't take it anymore and finally react she says "Why are you over-reacting so much? Calm down. What's wrong with you?" Grrrr! I can't wait until I have my bond and never have to make contact with her again.

During my homeless bout I went to the first Footy game of the season and it was sold out. I actually really enjoyed it and the rules are much easier to follow than American/Canadian football.

I went with David from the Red Cross...

and Nerys and her friend Lisa (also from Belfast, they are travelling together)

As you can see...it wasn't much of a competition...

Thought you might enjoy this sign that I saw in Lord of the Fries with the "French Canadian" option!

These last 2 pics are mainly for my bro and Tiina. They were just in the middle of the street for anyone to use and take care of.






Other than that I start my job with Cirque du Soleil tomorrow. Should be super fun times but there is a lot of upselling that I have to do. Whatever. I can handle it for 2 months. Everyone who works there is in their 20's (and we all know I like to pretend I am) and I will be working behind the snack counter much like I did at my jobs with the cinemas in Toronto. Also on Sunday my friend Sarah comes to stay with me for a week. She is doing a semester of school in Perth and has a week off. AND my friend Troy who is in Stomp which is currently on tour in Australia comes next week as well. I am both excited and nervous that their visits will leave me feeling homesick.

If you want to send me anything I am now at 24 Maghull Street, Brunswick East, Melbourne 3057.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Critical Mass my Ass and a bunch of other stuff...

Working for The Australian Red Cross so far has been a "piece of piss" (British/Australian for "easy"). I pretty much get paid $22/hr to open and sort post, answer the occasional phone call and data entry cheque and credit card donations into the computer. I don't have nearly as much time to do fun things but what a great feeling when that first cheque got deposited into my Australian account. The most money I have earned yet since being here. Not to say that money makes me happy, just eases my mind and as my friend Damien says...provides me with more opportunities. One of the great things about working for the Red Cross is that we get free stuff that people donate. For instance, last week we got $60 concert tickets for free! On the roster was Ben Lee, The Music and The Fritellis. Here is a pic of Ben Lee that I took (dedicated to Andrea)...

and here are the people I went with. David (Australian) is from work and Nas (Kenya/England) I met through my friend Karen (next pic)...

and here is my good friend Karen from work who is from Leeds (North England). She has the best laugh!

This is my new friend Tim. He is from New York and he is wonderful. He has been a vegan for 8 years (started off as a joke and he just never stopped), he's really into bikes (brings his bike "Max" with him all over the world), has hitch hiked through Europe and almost all the way to Pakistan and he loves to go dumpster diving (which we tried with one failed attempt to do already although I'm sure there will be many more). I know you're probably all thinking "ew...gross!" but really it's a great way to get free, perfectly fine food that grocery stores and bakeries discard even though it is still totally edible. Most of the time the food is still wrapped in its packaging and therefore not messy at all. Here's some more info if you're interested. Don't judge me! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumpster_diving

Since Tim is into bikes and I finally have one, we decided to go to Critical Mass together http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_Mass. I was very excited since I ride in Mass in Toronto all the time but had not, as of yet, participated in an Australian CM. Here I am getting psyched to ride...

and here is Tim and his super sexy water melon painted fixed gear road bike. Look how excited he is!!!

Here is a pic of my super cute vintage ladies road bike (kind of reminds me of yours Andrea, only Red).

Here is a pic I took on the ride itself.

As you can see, the ride started out with a fair number of people (at least 100, I would guess) but to my (and Tim's) disappointment, we were down to about half that amount within an hour and the ride only went from 6:20pm - 8pm (in Toronto sometimes we ride for 3 hours or more). Also, a lot of the route we took (which is just indicated mostly by whomever is in front since it's technically an anarchist movement), was made up of back streets or bike trails (which if you read the wiki article on what CM is, kind of defeats the whole purpose!!!) To be perfectly honest, it pretty much sucked and was very disappointing, especially considering how many people ride bikes in Melbourne. So we went back to my house and Tim made me vegan peanut noodles instead. Yum!!!

A few days later Tim and I went to a free Music Festival and we saw this dude riding a tall bike (2 frames welded on top of one another, although they can sometimes be even higher). Tim was adventurous enough to take it for a spin. I decided to pass since I am accident prone and already have bruises all over my knees from a spill I took on my regular sized bike earlier this week! But it made Tim very happy...

On Thursday night I decided to finally get my hair cut for the first time since Savija cut it before I left. I was just throwing it up all the time and I needed some life put back into it. A bunch of peeps back home asked to see pics so here are 2. I know most of you probably don't care about my hair (which has appeared as a theme in more than one blog post), but it's my blog, not yours, so too bad.

If you didn't care about those pics, you probably won't care about these next few either so you can just skip on down to the end. I warned you that I would have less to write about now that I am working full time but people keep asking me to update so I have to try and make my escapades look like something you would want to read about.

I have been hanging out with my Australian friend Damien (also wonderful!) a lot lately. I officially met him in Melbourne although we discovered when looking at some pics I took at the couchsurfing event I went to on X-Mas eve in Sydney that he was also there, so it was obviously fate that we were supposed to meet at some point (either that or the CS community is just pretty small). He lives about a 5 minute bike ride from my house and he's usually up for super fun times. On Friday night we met up with some friends, shared some goon and laughs and then went to this bar called St. Jeromes (which is one of those funky bars tucked into a dirty alley way filled with rubbish bins and rats!) On our ride home we stopped off at this random art installation and decided to do a photo shoot. Here are a few of the pics that we took...

Then on Saturday night I had some friends over to my place (my flat mate is away for a few weeks) for some fancy cocktails before heading out to this soul/funk night called "Soul-a-GoGo" at this bar called The Laundry (same one as Karaoke on Tom's last night in Australia). Here's a pic of Nas (again) and Damien's butt and Trent (Alabama).

Here's Damien taking a moment's break from making Mojito's for everyone. Thanks Damien!

and then we have Matt sitting next to Trent and half of Conrad (Germany). The ratio of guys to girls was completely unbalanced that night. It wasn't intentional. I invited ton's of girls as well but Nas was the only one who could come. I swear!

and here is a pic of a Possum that was just chilling in my back yard one night. Neat eh? I suppose it would be the equivalent of someone from Australia posting a pic of a Racoon in their blog but, whatever.

Coming soon...Great Ocean Road weekend road trip with work mates. And yes, I actually say "mates" now along with "reckon", "heaps", "flat mate" (which makes much more sense cause we don't share a room!), "half whatever time it is i.e. "half 5, meaning 5:30", "bee-a" (how they say beer), "toilet" (instead of bathroom which coincidentally also makes more sense), "take the piss" (make fun of), "piece of piss" (easy), Melbin' (Melbourne), "whada" (water), "toe-mat-toe" and "toe-mat-toe sauce" (instead of ketchup), "rubbish bin" (garbage can), "goon" (boxed chap wine) "pot of beer" (smaller then a pint, they don't have pints much here), "ring me" (instead of call me), "post" (instead of "mail") and the list goes on. The 3 terms I have so far decided to try and bring to Canada with me are "pashing" (meaning "make-out with" i.e "I pashed with that guy from the party last night"...doesn't that just sound so cute?) and "cruisy" (meaning "easy" i.e. "my boss is away so my job is pretty cruisy right now") and "Rock up" (as in, "I rocked up to the party at 10pm"). Do you reckon I'll get the piss taken out of me?

Oh ya, also, they don't have pennies here. Brilliant idea. I wish Canada would do the same. Although their 50C coin is insanely heavy and huge.

P.S. I bought a new backpack that is 65liters, down from the gigantic 110liter bag that I currently have. Now to, quite literally, get rid of/send home, half my crap before leaving Melbs!