Dandenong Ranges!

We went exploring again!

I also went on a road trip last week to a lovely place called Mildura. It was totally typical aussie-ville and was pretty cool. Very close to the outback. 
I went for a walk one night when I was there because there was a meteor shower going on. I did end up seeing one shooting star even though I didn't stay out very long. I could also see a bit of the milky way, and the southern cross constellation!
Also, I saw a wild dingo on my walk! It was crazy cool. And made me a little nervous, as I was by myself in the dark.

On the train ride home from Mildura I saw so many animals.
- flock of pellicans & other birds
- kangaroos
- llamas
- camels
- donkeys
- rabbits
- sheep and cows
 lots of normal stuff, but I don't care. It was cool. 
I also got into a long 2.5 hour conversation with a complete bogan on the bus. He was brilliantly amusing. He said beautiful the same way as Steve Irwin did, only when he talked about it he was talking about "Those roasted rabbits were beautiful!"

Anyways.
The place we went to today is called the Dandenong Ranges. They are the mountain ranges that have a big national park as well.. It is hard not to compare all the natural beauty to the scenery in Cairns, but it was pretty nice in it's own way. There are practically no bugs and insects. It is winter as well, so there weren't that many things. We lucked out with the weather and it only rained on us for like 10 minutes while we were under shelter and eating.

Pictures!

 Sky High! Other than the clouds (it`s melbourne, it`s always like that) it looks pretty cool.

 Brr. So windy and freezing up there.

 That`s Melbourne in the distance.

 Cool wooden sculpture. Thats me in the background talking to a random guy. That seems to be my complete past time in Australia. Anywhere I go or on any transportation, random  people ALWAYS start talking to me. He told me about how his kids have their busy life, his wife passed away 8 years ago from cancer, and he is moving to Queensland. I`ve heard so many peoples life stories now it seems like.

 Kookaburra! He flew right next to us and went down to dig up insects a couple of time. They are like my favourite Australian animal.

 I like these red birds. They are really cute.

 A green version of the red bird!

Really weird looking statue.

This last picture is a very typical Victorian forest. 

Pretty cool stuff!

Slacked off in blogging again...

Oh man, it's been a month!

But listen, I've been working 6 days a week, 10 hour days most of them... so that excuses me. Completely. Right?

I have been doing a few cool things though!

Like right now, my aussie friend is sending me drunk texts. They are great.
Here we go:
"Too drunk it'd glide"
"Yespb"
"aw yiss i am fefbm go rsepvd"
"I want water"
"I'm gonna vkmrs"
"I drank to mx hop"
"I geoljuje vomiting"
"I qobgbn"
"I wing makeo"
This is my saturday night entertainment! Love it hahaha

 Enough of talk. Pictures!! 

 It was co-workers birthday! She is all dressed up pretty. This was on one of our road trips.
We went to a sikh temple for her birthday. It was a interesting experience! Everyone can come in and get free food at any time of the day. The way the temple is was completely different than any I've seen. It was so weird with the food too. The whole group (except for me) went in and filled up on random curries and breads and rice! 

That is my hand! As I said Priya has two traditions she does for her birthday: goes to the temple and does mehndi. She did the same design on both of her hands, but she was like "Give me your hand." "Okay..?" then all of a sudden this happened!

SO! My birthday came and passed. I actually had a complete shit day on my birthday, and the weekend immediately after I was bummed out and stressed out and way too busy to want to do anything. I didn't even have a cake or anything.
So last weekend I was like "Hey. I'm celebrating my birthday this weekend." and funny enough it was July 28th, so I had the date right just not the month! So I took both days of the weekend off instead of just Sunday (as I have been working almost every Saturday for the past 2 months) and did some cool stuff. Sean baked me a cake!

Lyn and I went to the coolest bar I've ever seen. By cool, it is pretty well the direct opposite of cool. It was a complete nerd bar. I loved it.
Basically, the way this bar is set up is with TV's hooked up to all sorts of gaming consoles. They had mario kart wii, super smash bros, 007 for N64, guitar hero, some stupid sport game, a fighter game, pacman and space invaders. Anyone could go and play anything! 
The drinks and shots they had were also complete gamer terms. I had a "Cloud Strife" shot and a "health potion" cocktail. Lyn had a "choco mountain" shot and an "elixir of fortitude". Soooo funny. 
The people there were also different. They were the type of people I generally like. Not like the Melbournians hipsters and business fancypants everywhere! Total nerds! Loved it.

The next day we took a tour that my dear parents paid for as birthday present:
Went to a small australian wildlife zoo, then to Victoria's oldest farm, to a koala sanctuary, to the point of Phillip island, to the place of the penguin parade!
Unfortunately we were not allowed to take any pictures of the penguins, and it was raining too much to bring out the camera anyways. The penguins were SO cute. They were little blue penguins, the smallest penguin in the world. Totally cuddle-able.

Pictures from the day:

 Neato bird! So cute.

 Emu!

 The dingos were so cool. Sean sat here for ages taking pictures. I also learned they are not in fact dogs, but descended from wolves. They aren't actually native to Aus. I also learned recently that they have wild camels in Australia! I had no idea. I got strange looks for not knowing. It just isn't an animal I expect here...

 Wombat! Sleeping, of course.

Wallabeee! I thought this one looked so cute the way it was sitting.

 Cute little guys, eh?

 These guys were pretty cool owls. They made crazy sounds when you went close to them.

 GEESE! and GOOSELINGS!

I thought they looked cool beans.

 I wouldn't have thought tasmanian devils could look so .. cute and peaceful!

 Churchhill Island heritage farm! It is the oldest farm on Victoria, and the entire island is the farm. The scenery was cool, but mostly what I liked is it's tranquil feel. It felt so peaceful and calm. There was also no stink!

Mr. handsome peacock.

 Mr. Handsome with Mr. Handsome Peacock.

 I adored this chicken. I also think that is the perfect picture. I love it.

 Baby cow sooo cuttteee!

Next stop: Koala sanctuary!

It was a pretty cool place. They basically have this whole park only for koalas to be in their natural habitat. There aren't any fences, but there are little boundaries to keep foxes from getting in. So the koalas are safe. They also make crazy sounds. One of the koalas were awake while we were there! He sang an obnoxious song then climbed up the tree. It's a rare thing, to see a koala actually move other than to yawn or stretch.
That forest is also a typical example of natural victoria scenery.

Look at that face!!

The trip was pretty packed with cool stuff. BUT! I woke up with a headache that day, that turned into a super terrible migraine very quickly. The first part of the trip I also sat in the back of the bus, which was a bad idea. Very bad idea. I got super motion sickness and got really sick, I almost puked a lot of the time. The whole stop over at the farm I basically sat in the corner trying to settle my stomach and head pain. We went to this huge amazing chocolate factory, and I didn't even care. Sean afterwards said it was so disturbing. I didn't even look at any chocolate or want any, and it was all gluten free as well!
So I tried to enjoy myself as best as I could, but I was so sick. Before we went back home I was like "I'm feeling a little less nauseous hopefully I survive the ride back home"  But... 10 minutes into the drive I was puking my guts out. I puked the whole hour and a half trip home, in a bus full of 20 other people. So not only pain and sick, I was also sooo embarrassed! It was terrible.

But now I have memories of penguins that are completely awesome. They came up in groups of like 10, waited by the shore, then took off into the bushes. Some of the seagulls chased them too! 

And now for a nice scenery picture:

Bed time!

June!

Sooooooo excited. I'm back to having interwebs!! Finally! I can upload pictures and download stuff!

A lot has happened the past couple months. I don't know where the time has gone. My life has become work.

SO: 

After a massive amount of stress, Lyn, Sean and I are settled into our new apartment that we have leased until the 15th of December. The apartment is fine, but there have been SO many troubles with it. 
1. Dishwasher doesn't drain properly.
2. Heat is broken. Big problem, took 2 weeks to fix.
3. Large heating element has the spark thing burnt out, so we can only use the tiny elements at the moment.
4. Washer makes very loud breaking sounds when it spins, ultimately turns its self off.
5. Dryer sucks too.
6. Just got internet, had a huge problem setting it up. Spent 40 minutes on the phone with the technician and no good. Decided to give it one more go and I FIGURED OUT WHAT WAS WRONG SO I'M EXCITED RIGHT NOW.

I feel the correct phrase for this situation is: "Hai Bhagwaan" which is Hindi for "my god/my lord"!

After all these problems though, it is SO NICE to just settle for a bit. The location we are at is great and travel time is at a fraction of what it was before. It takes about 15 minutes to get to work and 5 minutes to get home.
We are right on the Yarra River in a very nice area called Southbank. It's kind of upper class-ish where a lot of business professionals live. There is ALWAYS something going on and something different every time you leave the house. Either it is markets, crazy people, buskers, events, whatever.. always something. 

Some night time pictures of right outside our apartment: 

 The panorama picture didn't really turn out but I still  think it's cool. Right across from us is the main train station, Flinder's Street.

 There is crazy artwork like this everywhere in this city.

 The yarra river.

The small, square, uninteresting building that is beside the blue one is our building. 

Work is okay. Sean got fired from telemarketing as well so he is working with me again. I don't mind the work and I love the people I'm working with. We have been doing a lot of road trips which are extremely tiring and time consuming, but good and fun at the same time. 

 The first place we stayed at was a cabin in the middle of the country. It was super cute, but they didn't have enough heat and that week was soooooooooooooooo coooooooold! It was like 2 degrees and rainy and windy all week and I hadn't bought a coat yet. Two degrees here feels way colder than it does at home. 

 My crazy work team.

A lot of our team is from India, and as a result my accent is now half indian, half australian and half canadian. I've been learning how to speak Hindi and it's hilarious. They make such good food, hence this picture. They're always cooking! And sharing. Nomnomnom. 

So we've been around a lot of the countryside in Victoria which is pretty cool. One location we went to had a lake and we went to visit:

 There were black swans everywhere! So cool.

 Looks cold yeah? I was freezing, and it had actually stopped raining that day.

This is the size of a decently sized lake. I made fun of it quite a lot. I was like, "isn't this a pond??" People actually had sailboats out on the water. SAIL BOATS. 

We are headed on another road trip next week again. This time we will be on the border of NSW so it will be real countryside. They talk about roadtrips all over Australia, so it's pretty neat.

Also, this past week I was within 10 feet of kangaroos while I was working, and there were a ton of them in the field. It was so cool. The way they move is so weird. I also saw a possum for the first time! Yeahhhh wildlife. 

That's about it!
Oh, and my birthday was yesterday. My mom has given me the gift of going to Phillip Island which was one of my main "must experience in Australia" goals. They have PENGUINS THERE! I'm stoked. I don't know when I will have time to go, hopefully soon. Those will be the next photos to see! Except you're not allowed to take pictures of the penguins...
But they do have a huge chocolate factory there!

May update

"Nicky, you have not updated your blog in ages".
Oh yeahh!

So I have pictures of our new place, but not many other than that!

New stuff to talk about:

I'm about to be fired from my job. Am I upset? Noooo wayyyyy. My goal was to reach the 5th week so I get paid for my training and guess what. I achieved my goal. So I'll be done with energy sales. Thank goodness. It does suck a bit that I failed a bit at this job, but it's okay to not be perfect at everything, right?!

I have a trial for a job tomorrow that is basically the same thing but outside: fundraising for charities. Not as terrible as telemarketing because of two things: it is not over the phone and it is actually for a good cause. It's not as dishonest as energy sales is so that will sit a lot better with me when the day is done.

I have another trial on Thursday at a pizza place for a part time job. Cool but the guy I talked to on the phone seemed a bit spun. So I'm not sure about that one.

But my most EXCITING news is that I got an interview for a picking and packing position. I would be SOOOO EXCITED for that. Monday-friday, 7:30-3:30, $21/hr. Keep fingers crossed for me. Interview is on Thursday.

I don't think I'll be unemployed for long. Tomorrow is supposed to be my last day but ... cough... I think i feel sick so I guess I'll have to go to my trial instead.

Speaking of sick for realzies though, Sean and I have both been sick with a cold for AGES. I've been sick going on my fourth week now. Sucks, hopefully I'll be better this weekend.

Now for pictures of my cute little bungalow we're at right now:

Is cute, yeah? Cozy area all for us. The gas heater is wonderful too.
The area we're in at the moment is called Newport. It's a fairly quiet family type suburb. I like it but we haven't explored near enough.

I'm starting to miss nature quite a bit. Hopefully this weekend if Sean and I are finally feeling better we will be able to go explore a bit. Any type of naturey thing is about an hour away, but I want to go! So hopefully I will have better stuff to update about soon.

Hope everyone back home is doing well!

Telemarketing... blah!

Not much to talk about today!
My job sucks!
Well, it's okay I guess.

Sean and I are both working for an electricity company doing telesales. To focus on the positive here, Sean is actually really good at it. He's been there 3 weeks now and I've done two and a half weeks. He actually topped the charts this week in sales and (he got 15 sales!) and as a result he gets a $50 bottle of booze! I was really really hoping he would win that so we can share it. Arrhharr. I only got four sales this week... I'm learning my weaknesses. I am no good at knowingly manipulating people. I hate things that are partially dishonest to get people's attention, and I don't like pissing random people off! I am too understanding when they say "I am so sick of getting these phone calls!" But Sean is really good at talking with people. It's pretty cool.
It gets very tedious doing that for 8 hours a day though.
"Hello?"
"Hi I'm calling from People Energy --"
"NOT INTERESTED!"
Next call
"Hello?"
*click*
Next call
"Hello?"
"WHO IS THIS AND HOW DID YOU GET MY NUMBER"
"I'm calling to offer you a discount off your elect---"
"DO NOT CALL ME AGAIN."
click

for 8 hours a day. You do well if you get two sales out of about 260 calls a day.
I will never be mean to a telemarketer again. Not that I ever was, but I will at least listen to what they are offering.

However, we will be getting paid soon! I'm soooo excited not to have a budget of potatoes and eggs for food shortly! We could buy CHICKEN!

We are changing living spaces again this weekend. We've been in Footscray for 5 weeks now, and though it has grown on me a little bit Sean says he won't miss it at all. All the rest of Melbourne is kind of the same... it's all white people and nice white malls and stuff like that. There are billions of cafes that all sell the same stuff. Here there is such a large population of Africans (and a lot of Asians) that the vibe is totally different. It definitely isn't boring.
When I go out into the streets of Footscray, I say to myself, "what kind of weird person am I going to see today??" Well, I don't actually, but I definitely could. I won't miss not being able to walk around by myself at night, but sometimes it is funny when crazy people yell obscenities at no one.

We are moving to Newport which is about 10 minutes further away from the city as Footscray is on the same train lines. It is a very nice area with green space nearby and a very nice beach about a 10 min train ride away. We are renting a bungalow at the back of a nice family's home for $360/week. That is a very good deal!! We will be living by ourselves for the first time in 5 months! I am very excited to have a bit of our own space, even though it will only be for a month while Lyn finds a job etc. It is very cute! I will upload pictures soon.

I don't have very many pictures... we haven't really done anything exciting. Except for a brewery for Sean's 30'th (!!!) birthday!

 Lyn, Me, Vin, Alice & Sean. Good friends = good times!

The brewery mechanical stuff. It was cool to see that.

And of course, beer! You got to sample all 5 of their types for only $15. Pretty good price.

We went out for dinner on Sean's birthday to a place that does gourmet pizzas. It was pricey, one large size pizza for between $22-25 each, and they have a thin crust so it's not like they are filling. But I enjoyed mine soooo much! It had pancetta on it. I looove pancetta.

That is a view of the city from our apartment's balcony. It's a cool view.

For the weird picture of the day! Check out this advertisement!

It says "own a townhouse for only $499,500". they aren't even semi-detached townhouses. They are fully attached to all the neighbours. Pretty intense housing prices here!

Seven more months until our visa expires! Almost halfway through the year already. Time is flying.