My new life in the Southern Hemisphere had a bit of a rocky start when I touched down in Melbourne. After eating the much-anticipated avocado on toast and sleeping until a more reasonable hour (10am) I spent the whole of my first day vomiting into a sink, and then retching into a sink, and then trying desperately not to fall asleep while watching Friends and Seinfeld.
On day two I was keeping my food down (well, my popcorn and toast) but still not much was accomplished. I bought a crummy Nokia phone which I put my UK sim card in for emergencies, and stuck an Aussie sim in my older (but comparably better) phone. Lachy and I went to take a look at the flat we were going to be living in and gaped at the space we had no furniture to fill.
On Saturday we went to Ikea and bought a chair. That chair is currently sitting in the centre of a very empty-looking living area. We bought two desk chairs which we don't yet have a drill to assemble and a bedframe which it turns out doesn't fit Australian-sized mattresses, one of which we had already bought. We bought the basics, too, like plates and cutlery and salt and pepper.
Then it becomes sort of a blur of waiting for electricians and phone technicians who never arrived, waiting for post to prove my address and open a bank account, waiting for the mattress to be delivered... Celia came to visit (we went to school together, now she is also engaged to an Australasian and moving to Melbourne, yay team). Our mattress arrived and we started sleeping in the flat and it began to feel like we were actually living there. But only yesterday did it actually feel like we were properly living there, because we got internet, and were connected to the rest of the world again.
Job hunting is a pain, because it's sort of an urgent issue and so far unfruitful. Let's leave it at that. Over the weekend we bought some fresh veg and cheese at the Victoria Market and then spent an hour volunteering with Second Bite, collecting up perishable food from the stallholders who can no longer sell it to pass it on to people who need it. Fun was had all round. I also discovered the local library is around the corner. Books and internet and work spaces. I like it. The State Library is a more impressive version and fun if we're in the city, which is fortuitously only a tram ride away. As a matter of fact we're a short distance from lots of cool things, like my favourite restaurant, Vegie Bar, and a supermarket whose motto is 'eat your ethics'.
The other day on the tram Lachy and I sort of got trapped in this group of British travellers with dreadlocks and posh accents and it was a bit of an Inbetweeners 2 situation. They were talking about getting married to Aussies in order to get a visa and I wanted to laugh and shout at them because doing three months of farm work to get a second working holiday visa would be infinitely easier than trying to provide evidence of a phoney relationship and also marriage visas are expensive and they were just so dumb and I felt unusually hostile towards my countrymen. But we weren't actually in their conversation, just surrounded by it, so I kept zipped.
On a brighter note, this morning I set out at 6am to a nearby dance studio, which is in an attic, and did some barre fitness looking out over the rooftops of Fitzroy while the sun rose. It was a pretty damn cool way to start the day and I'm feeling hopeful. Melbourne is a very cool city and I think we are going to love living here.
Coming soon: pictures.
On day two I was keeping my food down (well, my popcorn and toast) but still not much was accomplished. I bought a crummy Nokia phone which I put my UK sim card in for emergencies, and stuck an Aussie sim in my older (but comparably better) phone. Lachy and I went to take a look at the flat we were going to be living in and gaped at the space we had no furniture to fill.
On Saturday we went to Ikea and bought a chair. That chair is currently sitting in the centre of a very empty-looking living area. We bought two desk chairs which we don't yet have a drill to assemble and a bedframe which it turns out doesn't fit Australian-sized mattresses, one of which we had already bought. We bought the basics, too, like plates and cutlery and salt and pepper.
Then it becomes sort of a blur of waiting for electricians and phone technicians who never arrived, waiting for post to prove my address and open a bank account, waiting for the mattress to be delivered... Celia came to visit (we went to school together, now she is also engaged to an Australasian and moving to Melbourne, yay team). Our mattress arrived and we started sleeping in the flat and it began to feel like we were actually living there. But only yesterday did it actually feel like we were properly living there, because we got internet, and were connected to the rest of the world again.
Job hunting is a pain, because it's sort of an urgent issue and so far unfruitful. Let's leave it at that. Over the weekend we bought some fresh veg and cheese at the Victoria Market and then spent an hour volunteering with Second Bite, collecting up perishable food from the stallholders who can no longer sell it to pass it on to people who need it. Fun was had all round. I also discovered the local library is around the corner. Books and internet and work spaces. I like it. The State Library is a more impressive version and fun if we're in the city, which is fortuitously only a tram ride away. As a matter of fact we're a short distance from lots of cool things, like my favourite restaurant, Vegie Bar, and a supermarket whose motto is 'eat your ethics'.
The other day on the tram Lachy and I sort of got trapped in this group of British travellers with dreadlocks and posh accents and it was a bit of an Inbetweeners 2 situation. They were talking about getting married to Aussies in order to get a visa and I wanted to laugh and shout at them because doing three months of farm work to get a second working holiday visa would be infinitely easier than trying to provide evidence of a phoney relationship and also marriage visas are expensive and they were just so dumb and I felt unusually hostile towards my countrymen. But we weren't actually in their conversation, just surrounded by it, so I kept zipped.
On a brighter note, this morning I set out at 6am to a nearby dance studio, which is in an attic, and did some barre fitness looking out over the rooftops of Fitzroy while the sun rose. It was a pretty damn cool way to start the day and I'm feeling hopeful. Melbourne is a very cool city and I think we are going to love living here.
Coming soon: pictures.
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