ONE WEEK!

It feels as though I’ve been here for one month already, not one week! Things I have learned about Melbourne:

• the city is HUGE! Suburbs sprawled out for miles and miles and in a month I don’t think I’ll be able to experience all of it LOL


• there are too many restaurants/cafes/pubs here. More than Montreal, if that’s possible! I definitely won’t make it too even one one hundredth of them….although it’s very tempting to go out every night, it is certainly not budget-friendly ;)


• don’t ask for something ‘to go’, ask for take-away (something I need to remember, obviously hahahaha)


• surname, not last name. Similarly in Montreal I had to ask for family name (nom de famille) instead to last name (dernier nom)


• I don’t know if it’s just the house I’m living in, but I’m not sure if Melbourne homes have central heating :/ it will be good in the summer, but unfortunately when i arrived it was colder fall-type weather, and I found it absolutely freezing! I packed a few sweaters with me, and my MEC windbreaker-type thing, but MAN O MAN! Which, of course, lead to comments like ‘but you’re from canada’ etc… in response I always say that in Canada, everywhere we are is heated (homes, offices, cars, transit), and when we go out into the cold, we’re prepared for it! This girl here should not have started in Melbourne (although I’m loving the city - vibrant, young, great architecture) -- I should have started in Brisbane or somewhere that is already experiencing summer conditions. Aw well what can you do? The weather, as of yesterday, has started to turn, and today i walked around in a TANK TOP!!!! let's hope it stays this way for a while.....the roommates are having a bbq this evening :)


• The Simpsons were full of crap. the water in the toilets doesn't go the opposite way! in fact, all the toilets are eco-friendly so they have the demi-flush or full-flush option, so the water just sprays and is sucked back into the bowl. but "good on" the aussies for being so environmentally conscious! there are recycling bins EVERYWHERE and water fountains all over the place so that people can refill their canteens (which you need to have at all times since a bottle of water can be up to $3 for 500 mL...eek!)


• If you require a regular coffee, you need to ask for a long black. Melbourne definitely has a coffee culture, but European coffees are the norm. Since I don’t particularly like milk, I stick to black coffee. All the coffees have this cool swirly-type leaf-thing on top, and baristas are in high demand. A short black is an espresso, of course, and a flat white is a coffee with milk in it.


• It is a 15-hour time difference from EST, and when you guys turn the clocks back, it will be a 16-hour time difference! If anyone wants to text or call me, feel free (because anything incoming is free for me), but please remember the time difference. Drunken phone calls are ALWAYS appreciated, since 3am EST is 5pm here :P the number from north america is 011 61 45 700 1781, i don't have a fancy phone (it's a basic, basic phone), so no picture messages please. My Montreal number will no longer be valid on October 27. I will no longer have any canadian phone number.


• Not as many hott guys as everyone kept telling me about. Maybe they only come out in summer….we’ll see. I won’t be staying in Melbourne the whole time, and am looking forward to working on farms and seeing the rest of the continent.


• The public transportation system is AMAZING!!!! The TTC can lick it. Seriously. Melbourne has buses, trams, trains, AND a subway! Fare officers come around quite frequently, though (both in uniform and plain clothes-like the one I got yesterday) so if you don’t have a valid ticket it’s a fine around $250 or something. Each ticket is valid for 2 hours, on as many forms of transit in the same zone (something the TTC should implement). I want to be a plain-clothes fare officer. Don’t know how to go about doing that, though….


• I went to the grocery store the other day to pick up a few things, and the most expensive item I bought was limes. LIMES!! Generally 3 for a dollar, or something like that. The three limes I bought cost me $4.5, or something like that. Hilarious.


• I miss pitchers of beer. Here they have jugs, which are smaller than the pitchers, for $17. Everything is more expensive here, so budgets are extremely important (well, for me anyways).

I have become an avid rugby fan, seeing as it’s the semi-finals of the World Cup of rugby this weekend. The match of the decade will be Sunday evening, with New Zealand vs Australia. We’re going to a Kiwi pub to watch the event, and it’s sure to be a good time.

Mick has been an absolute gem and I’m forever indebted to him and Deb (his gf) for helping me out this first week. The rest of the housemates are very nice as well. There’s Josephine (who has a cat named Squinty who is very fluffy, gray, and anti-social), Belinda (firecracker!), and JoJo, who I will probably meet this evening (she was in Germany and Spain and just got back last night). I’ve met Mick’s buddies Rhys (and his gf Natalie), Guy (who has to get used to the French pronunciation of his name LOL), Tyrone and Steve (2 South Africans) and everyone gets along really well.

I started a temp job yesterday at the Alfred Hospital, and today is my last day. This is actually where I’m writing from! (on a Word document, to be emailed to me and posted later when I get to the house. And YES mom and dad, I have been asking repeatedly if there’s anything I can do and I sent a fax but besides that everyone is good.) I’m eager to start a real job, so that I can meet some more people, and I *really* hope that the cherry-picking contract comes through next month.

The housemates were nice enough to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving with me on Monday night, and I met another one of their friends who has just finished working on the farms (she agrees that cherries are the way to go--and nothing else!). As the only one not working, I made the majority of the dinner and we feasted on wine and (too much) food and apple pie with ice cream and custard (yuck) for dessert and played a game of Bible Trivia. pure gold.

I called and got my tax file number today, which means that the agency will be taking off the regular tax (dunno what that is) instead of 45% when they pay me on wednesday. let's hope that i get something for next week asap.....gotta keep working!

so keep your fingers crossed for me that i get a job soon, and i'm signing off now.

much love and all that jazz xoxoxoxoxox