|
|
TRAVEL BLOG ENTRY
|
|
we landed in sydney and spent a few hours hanging out in the airport waiting for our next flight to melbourne - during which time we noticed a guy with a permed mullet which made it seem a little more real that we were now in Oz
also on our flight to melbourne we had window seats and we saw the sydney opera house!
we arrived at Avalon airport in melbourne, it's pretty much a shed and only used my budget airline jetstar, outside the shed it was crazy hot and we were surrounded by nothingness
gareth came to pick us up and we headed off into what looked like the outback - it seemed to take forever and we couldnt beleive how far out of the city we were, then gareth realised he'd missed the turning - easy to do when you're driving along a straight road and there's only one left turn and you need to take it! the second time he missed it we began to fear for his sanity!
what seemed like an hour later we finally approached the outskirts of the city, Melbourne is quite a small city but with lots of self contained suburbs stretching for miles.
we headed for gareth's house in brunswick - 20 mins north of the main city centre - for an afternoon of catching up and chilling out.
even though we had great intentions of getting out there and sorting out a place to stay and jobs we managed to spend a few days doing pretty much nothing and it didn't help that our first weekend was a long weekend so everything was shut on monday - coupled with the fact that our second night there gareth and elelanor had a small party to celebrate the screening of eleanor's television debut on "Temptation" a quiz show on which she won a persian rug and some designer jewellery!
so before we knew it we'd almost been there a week and were no closer to jobs or a home - then ben's dad arrived (after a few days at a training course in the nearby mountains) and we decided to take a few days of from failing to get anything sorted to do some touristy things
so we took a river cruise along the Yarra and went up the Rialto Tower to the 55th Floor viewing platform and then headed for St Kilda beach for a delicious seafood dinner mmm mmmm mmmmm - once again thank you trevor!
we had managed to fit in seeing some houses on our first weekend - we were a bit unsure as to what things should cost and we figured we'd try cheap so gareth took us to see a room in a shared house that was going to be $95 a week for the two of us
it didn't start well when we got to the address and found a derelict shop so ben rang the guy and he told us to go a bit further along, down a dark alley, through some garages and there we would find a wooden garden gate - which we did and as we entered the garden we met the guy ben had been talking to, he was in his vest and pants sat on a bench staring into the middle distance and simply waved us on into the house - and old man drifted out and went to stand in the corner of the garden. We walked into the kitchen and met another of the housemates - also in his pants - who looked like hugh grants flatmate in notting hill, he pointed us through the "lounge" which appeared to be a storage area for broken furniture and upstairs. The room available was small and had a prison style single bed in it and nothing else - apart from the bars on the window - and i noticed the doorhandle was hanging off and looked as it someone had recently taken and screw driver to the lock! As we hastily left a hunched over bag lady who was cleaning the floor of another room shouted hello
once we were a safe distance from the premises we all had a good laugh about how awful it was and gareth suggested we not bother looking at anything that's less than $150 a week - ben of course claimed he would have lived there if he was on his own but not with me, this is his way of making me look picky and refusing to admit something is a sh*thole
the next place we saw was a student house currently housing a girl who grunted at us when we came in the stomped off to her room and slammed the door and a strange staring girl who showed us round but told us we'd have to go back "when mark's in' as he makes the descions - i felt the only good thing about the place was i wouldn't feel i'd have to clear up anything i spilt, ben said he'd live there if he was on his own
then we saw the EuroHouse - a gorgeous place with 5 bedrooms, two of which were available, a fab kitchen, big lounge and conservatory leading out to a lovely little garden - odd people, a hungarian girl, a chilean guy and a french guy
they were looking for 2 couples so the house would have had 7 people in it and the only downfall was that it had ONE bathroom!!!!! ONE for seven people - it all turned out to be moo anyway as we were way to english for the euros
so the househunting started again and we saw a few ok places really near Gaz's then we saw a place really close to the city - 5 bedrooms (but two really small), big lounge, kitchen and dining area, balconly, garden - the room available was HUGE and had an ensuite bathroom (that sold it for me!!) and it was sharing with 3 girls, 2 nurses and an architect who all seemed really lovely
we both fell in love with the place and just spent all of saturday and sunday wondering if they'd ring and thankfully they did on the sunday night to say that we could move in the next saturday! woooo-hooooo!!!
so that took the pressure off househunting and it was back to job hunting and the agency circuit as our money situation was becoming dire, then i got a job for 10 days at a mining investment company - just the nicest people ever who presented me with a chocolate egg when i left!
on the saturday we moved gareth and eleanor were having a party for one of their friends who'd been awayy travelling for ages so we moved our stuff to our new place and spent the afternoon unpacking and getting to know Leeanne and Sarah - heather was away at a music festival. we were very much looking forward to our first night in a bed after 17 nights of me sleeping on a sofa and ben on an inflatable mattress!!!!
during which time G&E were the most gracious hosts and made us feel so welcome - gareth with his welcome to Oz pack and eleanor with her fabulous cooking
anyway before we settled down to enjoy our first night in our new room we headed to Gaz's for the party which started slow but then the tequila came out and before i knew it i was dancing on my own then ben took me home as he decided i'd had too much to drink, after a brief stop for me to be sick we arrived home and ben found two keys under the mat. We got in and i went straight to bed - ben heard a scratching at the door and opened it to find Sarah trying to get in, she had chips so they ate them together and had a bit of a chat then ben came up to bed to find me and a strange girl in our bed!!!
he got sarah to see if she knew who it was but she didn't so he figured what the hell and climbed in between the to of us and went to sleep
i woke up at about 5am in a panic as i remembered there was a key under the mat and maybe we should bring it in and ben took a moment to explain that a lot had happened since then!
by this stage strange girl had gone and we didn't meet her until about 10am when we got up to go out to breakfast, she turned out to be a friend of Leeanne's who was supposed to have slept in the lounge but had apparently been sleepwalking and found out bed - she also ate an entire jar of peanut butter "in her sleep"!!
a rather interesting start to our stint living in Oz and the perfect welcome to our new house!
previous travel blog entry
Would you like to comment or ask a question?
Sign up for a free account, or sign in (if you're already a member).