Melbourne Life, Week One (and a bit)

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.

Melbourne Calling

So, tomorrow I am moving to Australia.

This is, first of all, not something I expected to be doing with my life. All St Bees students were aware of the idea of doing a gap year in Australia but it never even occurred to me that I would want to go there. I didn't know anything about it and there were too many places I did know about that I knew I wanted to visit for it to feature highly on my priority-visit list. The reason for the change in circumstances is a certain ginger from Melbourne, but that's another story. And the current chapter is this - me moving to Australia.

There has been a lot of organisation involved in this move which is possibly my favourite part but also the part I am sometimes shockingly bad at. For example until a few hours ago I was labouring under the belief that my flight was at 7.20pm tomorrow when in fact it is 9.15pm and always has been. Fortunately not a particularly dangerous mistake. Finding a visa has been my biggest headache so far. Currently, I am entering the country under visa subclass 417 - Working Holiday, which entitles me to work no longer than six months under any one employer, nor study for more than four months. This does limit my options somewhat. I am going to be applying for a Partner Visa, but since Lachy and I are not currently married nor will we be in the next nine months (very suspicious specification, Australian Immigration) we have to prove that we are in a de facto relationship, which really isn't as easy as explaining the whole 136/Laurelbank/Lion in Winter backstory (unfortunately). So that won't be going through until we have some official 'proof'.

Another minor/major headache has been searching for a job from a different hemisphere. Carefully selected search engine keywords and Google Maps can only get you so far when you don't know a city very well. I've applied for a handful of things that have taken my interest and I'm hoping that once I'm actually there with a bag full of CVs the process will become easier. At least I'll be able to start finding the sort of job that's advertised with a STAFF WANTED sign and that might be able to make me some money in the short term. On that note, I've also got to set up a bank account once I arrive, get a Tax File number, apply for a Medicare card, and move into a new flat with my fiancé.

Moving into my first flat! In a city! Actually I lived in a flat in London when I was a baby but that's like when a random family friend claims to know you because they met you when you were a toddler. As far as I'm concerned, it never happened. I don't know what the flat looks like yet but I already bought a coaster and a metre of fabric. In other words I'm totally prepared?

I have also been spending a lot of time on Pinterest, which is both a wonderful place and a dangerous one. I have been looking at chalkboard paint and having ideas.

Currently I am mid-Coke because last night I stayed up until 2am (not an achievement by the standards of my night-owl friends, but it is for me!) and slept until noon, with a brief interlude where I said bye to my parents, who have abandoned me in London with my cousins. I am feeling very fatigued but also like it is about 2pm. I don't know whether this is really going to help or not but tonight I aim to stay up until 3 or 4am and sleep most of the day, until my aunt comes to collect me for some last-minute sightseeing. Then I will very cleverly stay awake until it is an appropriate time to go to sleep in Australia and avoid jetlag all together. Yeah, right.

So. I'm going. For real. And it suddenly doesn't seem very important at all that I have no idea what I want to do as a career (or rather, too many ideas), which, for an unemployed graduate, is very refreshing. I'm going on an adventure!