The plan - spend two weeks in Melbourne trying to find a job. If it doesn't happen, talk about going home.
So we arrived on a Sunday. Almost two weeks later, on Friday morning, neither Sean nor I had any possibilities of employment. I spent about two days sulking because I didn't want to leave yet! I haven't seen the outback, or penguin island, or Sydney, or blahblah etcetctetc.
So Sean gets a call up for an interview on Friday. I get invited to attend an information session on Friday.
We both get jobs! Not the greatest jobs, but at this point... job = money. Money = seeing penguin island!
Both Sean and I start tomorrow. His job is outbound telemarketing sales. He's starting off part time, as soon as he makes some sales he's going to full time. His base pay is $18.50/hour and he makes commission on top of that. My job is even worse! Door to door electricity sales... ohgod. But assuming I do what nearly everyone is able to do at the minimum, I'll be making minimum $800/week plus more as I get better at making sales. So really, I'll be having a 5 hour walk every day! Sounds alright. We will see how tomorrow goes. There is a possibility of other people calling us back with better jobs.
But that stuff is boring.
We went to the BEACH! And the MUSEUM! And we saw JURASSIC PARK 3D!
Jurassic Park was awesome. It was at an IMAX screen and the screen was huge. But I unfortunately had a bad judgement of how long it would take us to get there and we ended up with front row seats! But it was still pretty cool.
The beach! This one is about an hour train ride south of Melbourne city central. The sand is sooooo soft. We went here because Lyn is staying with a mutual friend of ours in Bonbeach. I knew him when we were teenagers on the internet and talked to him most often before I fell off the internet a bit, but Lyn has met him a whole bunch of times! It's actually really cool to meet up.
Sean, me, Lyn, Vinnie and Alice!
And...
The seagulls look the SAME here! We're halfway across the planet and they still come visit you for any scraps of food! They should at least look different, even if they don't act any different!
The museum here was awesome. I can't really remember the ROM but I really enjoyed this one. We spent about 4 hours there until we got tired and wanted to go home, but we could have spent a lot longer if we wanted to. Sean loved the bug display, they had dead ones and live ones. I think I actually liked the geology section better than the dinosaur exhibit going on!
On the way to the museum. Would you guess at those are maple trees?! They have gardens like this all over the city. Just random spots of trees and grass and benches.
They have nice stuff like this everywhere too.
The animal section of the museum. They had interactive screens where you can poke an animal and it gave you the details.
The ROCKS! I probably spent more time looking at all the different minerals/gems/rocks/formation stuff than any other part of the museum. I found it so fascinating on how all this different stuff is formed. They had a part of the "earth's oldest known rock" which was awesome. Sean walked through this section in like 5 minutes and he came back twice saying "you're still here?". But it's sooo coool the way it all forms and from all the different materials! Maybe I should study geology...
I also learned that my favourite dinosaur, pictured here with meeee, is actually not a dinosaur at all! Pterodactyls are in fact descended from reptiles and are only related to dinosaurs. Look how big and awesome it is though!
Cute little dead guys, huh.
FUNNY PICTURE OF THE DAY:
The picture if you have trouble reading it says "Feel the dinosaur poo. It would have been soft like cow dung before it was fossilised."
And the best picture:
The very scary and haunter of my dreams, the velociraptor! In the background there is the dear tyrannosaurus rex!
Awesome museum. I'm such a nerd.
So we moved to Melbourne!
Our flight went all smoothly and all was good. Our luggage came off the plane right away and ours was one of the first. Told mr.taximan where to go and he took us. Easypeasy.
We are staying in an apartment building with a gay couple for only $250 a week. We are very close to the city center, it's a 10 minute walk to the train station and a 10 minute train ride to the main station in the city. The apartment we're in is very nice! Clean to the point of being spotless and stylish.
That is the main room with the kitchen there.
Our beautiful view. But really, it's a nice balcony.
Our room. It's pretty small but it's alright. The bed is a bit small too but it is a lot nicer than the past ... 3? beds we've slept on. Very comfortable.
Most places that are this close to the city centre would be at least $350 a week for two people in a sharehouse. The reason this one is so cheap is because we're in a suburb called Footscray that really isn't ... so.. nice! It is a bit of a rougher neighbourhood (comparatively speaking, it's not THAT bad) and most the population here is foreigners. Mostly asians and africans. There is spray paint on pretty well any surface that can be spray painted. A lot of graffiti can be quite arty and nice, but this stuff isn't. It's a bit dirty and run-down. I wouldn't want to walk around after dark by myself.
Melbourne is quite spread out and each suburb seems to be quite different from what we've seen so far (which isn't a lot!) I've had two interviews, one to the southwest and one to the northeast. We've also just explored the city centre today and everywhere we've seen are quite different from each other. Everywhere we've seen is also quite a lot nicer than Footscray.
Speaking of interviews though, this seems to be the right area to be looking for work! There is tons out there. Hopefully both Sean and I will be employed soon.
So! I got to meet up with Lyn today! It was fantastic! But it really doesn't seem like it's been 2 and a half years since we've seen each other.
There are buildings and people everywhere in the city.
Right beside the train station here. Cool looking buildings.
Cute street! Every where you look there is a cafe or a restaurant. Buildings, people and restaurants. That is Melbourne city centre.
The docks!
So over all, Sean likes Melbourne. It's a very clean city from what we've seen. I'm not so much of a city person... so I don't like it as much. There are no bugs, no worries about ants and skeeters. There are these really annoying ravens that have the weirdest call! They sound like a dying duck.
Also, the weird picture of the day...
These bins are in the public toilets here.
Weird?
Very weird!
Oh, also, the worst thing is that it's so COOLLLDDDD! I'm wearing the warmest sweater I brought every day! It's only 15-17 degrees which back home I wouldn't need a sweater with that at all... but it's like 15 degrees colder than what I've apparently very adjusted to. This weekend is supposed to go up to 27. Yay!
