Half Way There

Hey, it’s my birthday…Not too excited about turning another year older, but it’s always nice to celebrate a birthday. I’m just not looking forward to next year’s big three oh. I was going to pick up a cake for the team before work, but Coles was not opened yet. Kevin and Ryan went out around lunch time and picked me up a caramel cake and tam tam’s. They were delicious! The whole team sang happy birthday to me, aaaaw.

After work, we went back to the PI and dropped our stuff off. Neil changed into his clown suit (his colorful Warhol ODB jacket) and we headed out to St. Kilda with Mary Beth to Uber for an art opening. We were invited by the “gallerina” when we did our gallery hopping last weekend. I think Neil has a crush on her. Not only is she pretty, she’s super nice. She talked to him for a while at the gallery. He’s hoping that she makes it to his art show on Friday. Neil has been networking and a bar invited him to perform his dance and display his art work this Friday. I’m sure it’ll be very interesting.

Kevin and Donna met us at the gallery around 7pm. I really like Kevin’s wife. She’s always so nice to everyone and she helped me with my camera settings. She even baked me a cake, but I didn’t get the chance to see it, haha.

The ceramic kangaroos and paintings were pretty good. The curator gave a little speech about the artist and his art. The artist was there, but he didn’t say much. There were plenty of champagne and snacks at the gallery. I started off with 2 glasses and was going to stop there, but the champagne people kept insisted I have another. Four glasses later and we were all hungry for real food. Well, I wasn’t very hungry anymore since I filled up on cheese and crackers. We walked over to a place called Felix and grabbed some grub. I ordered spring rolls which turned out to be pretty nasty. Neil had a little too much to drink and wanted to catch the cab home instead of taking the tram. How can I refuse a cab ride? Donna and Kevin lived nearby, so they walked home.

Domestic Living in Melbourne

Living in Southbank is pretty nice and the Pacific Internal hotel/serviced apartments aren’t too bad. Southbank is only a 10 minute walk from the CBD (Central Business District) where I can find lots of shops and restaurants. There’s an IGA express convenient store 2 minutes away. They have a restaurant on the main floor of the hotel, but it’s expensive. I haven’t eaten there yet. I saw a sign in the elevators advertising the full breakfast buffet for $19. They do have room service, which is good to have in case I ever get desperate for food.

My room rate is about $130 AUD/day and they come and clean it twice a week. There’s a small kitchen with a fridge, pots, utensils, dishware, toaster, water kettle, and a microwave/oven (it’s a microwave that’s also an oven, what a concept). Oddly enough, they didn’t provide me with a pan. There’s a couch with a pull out bed, TV, radio, hairdryer and laundry unit. Up on the 18th floor is the recreational area. I’ve used the pool twice already. There’s a dry sauna nearby that I hop into to get warmed up. It’s way too hot in there, though, I can hardly breath. So after about 30 seconds in the sauna, I would jump into the heated pool. There’s usually no one using it late at night or early in the morning. I’ll stop by the gym one of these days.

The weather here is as weird as it is in Chicago, without the snow. Since I’ve been here, it has fluctuated between 40’s and 70’s. I haven’t worn my winter jacket yet since it hasn’t been biting cold when the sun isn’t out. It’ll be coldest in the month of July and probably rainy.

One thing I have to get used to on the train is that the doors do not open automatically. My first time on the train, I stood and waited for it to open while Dave was wondering by I hadn’t pull the doors open. Then he called me a princess thinking that I was waiting for him to open the doors for me.

"Thank you, Shrek." I said.

Some trains have a button and some have a knob on the door and you have to wait for it to beep before opening it. I wasn’t the only one confused by the whole thing. The Canadians also didn’t understand the concept of opening train doors. I’ve been so conditioned to not touch the doors. I think I’ve gotten a hang of it by now. Another thing I noticed here is that people walk pretty darn fast. Have I lost my mad walking skills? I used to be the one passing people on the streets of Chicago. Here, women in high heels are breezing past by me like I was a turtle.

It’s one day before my birthday and I’m feeling old already. I want to bring a cake in tomorrow for the team, but there aren’t any bakeries nearby. I miss my Celica. I don’t feel like buying one at the grocery store and carrying it all the way in. My laptop bag is heavy enough, especially going uphill towards the office. Listen to me whine. You’d think I never lived downtown before. It’s different when it’s by choice. I didn’t realize the commute to work was this strenuous. Oh man, I should be ashamed of myself. It really isn’t bad. Exercise is good for me.

Well, since I’m whining already, I might as well mention how much I miss my filtered water and the internet. Bottled water here is too pricey, so I’ve resorted to boiling water and refrigerating it. Still tastes a little funny from time to time, leaving that lead-like after taste. They charge $0.55/minute to use the internet at the hotel with extra charges for uploading/downloading stuff. Needless to say, I don’t use the internet from home very much. I have to make a special trip to the office across the street to go online. It’s a hassle so I don’t make it there very often. The connection at work is a bit slow, plus I’m working most of the time so there isn’t much surfing to be done.

Just add sphaghetti

I’ve cooked for the first time here – yay. Nothing extravagant. In fact, nothing I’d invite anyone over to eat. I’d be too embarrassed to share it. It’s just spaghetti anyhow. For the sauce, I’ve added canned peas and canned lunch meat to the pasta sauce I picked from at Coles. Vegetables and meat, nutritious right? I didn’t get the chance to go to the market this weekend, so that was all I had. I’ve been eating it all week. Luckily, I haven’t had to eat it for lunch since there’s training going on next to our room and we take all the left over sandwiches. There will be more spaghetti next week, but I’ll switch up the sauce.

A lot of restaurants here do not take credit cards so I’ve been using a lot of cash. The Australians sure like their coins. They come in denominations of $0.05 (anything less is rounded up or down to this), $0.20, $0.50 (biggest coin), $1.00, and $2.00 (2nd smallest coin). It took me a while to get used to them. I think I inadvertently left a $3.00 tip when I bought my first beer. No wonder the bartender looked at my weird, especially when nobody tips in Oz. Somebody said that the service people make about $20/hour and don’t live on tips like they do in North America.

I had a laundry mishap and one of the dark shirt bled all over my comfy pink pants and sweater *sniff* The buttons on the washer are not very intuitive, so I think I had inadvertently did the cycle in boiling hot water. I did a cycle on the blue side, but it didn't wash in cold water. When I saw steam coming out of the door when I opened it, I knew it was not a good sign. I usually wash in cold water to help keep the color from bleeding and prevent shrinkage. At least that’s what I tell myself. I can still wear the sweater since most of the dark colors are on the front and I can wear a vest to cover it up. My no-longer-pink pink pants that I wore on the airplane are ruined. I’ll have to find another outfit for the flight home. The rest of the clothes in the washer were dark, so they’re okay.

Art Day

I had a good night’s rest and woke up around 10am. Saturday was art gallery hopping day. Neil and I headed out at 11am and shopped for a digital camera. He had an accident with his phone (which he used as a camera) so he needed a new camera. He ended up with a Fuji Z3, which I think I read about a while back. They make good cameras, so I gave it my approval.

Art

A lot of the galleries have shortened hours or were closed on Saturdays. I think we were able to see about 70% of the galleries we visited. We walked all over CBD following the Art Almanac looking for these places. There were many weird arts like scrap metal and broken ceramic plates. After we hit all the Melbourne galleries, we took a 15-minute tram ride to St. Kilda to the Uber gallery. The exhibit in this one was well worth the trip. The collection contained huge surreal photographs of people and animals in bright colors by an artist named Paolo Consorti.

I was hungry by this time so we stopped by a Japanese noodle shop. While I waited for my food, I looked through the sushi selection in the front glass display. I was immediately repulsed by the cockroach that was walking up and down the sushi aisle waving his antenna around like he owned the place. I was glad I didn’t order sushi. I wanted to tell the guy working behind the counter, but I didn’t want the drama of him trying to catch the bug to unfold in front of me. So I waited for my soup outside.

Should have stopped at this one

After dinner, we walked 5 minutes to take a look at St. Kilda’s beach. It was getting cool, so there weren’t many people by the beach. I took some pictures and Neil tested out his new camera. It was about 5pm by this time and I was exhausted. I went home and took a 2-hour nap. Neil and I meet Kevin at a Richmond bar around 9pm. 2 martini’s later and I called it an early night. Got home around midnight after a nauseating train ride then puked up the second martini. I should have known to stop at the first one. I felt a lot better after that and passed out for another night for good sleep.

Another Bar Hopping Weekend

It’s been a slow work week. I’ve been helping the testers with some of their questions and testing roster costing. By Friday, I didn’t have much to do and the client left the office by 4pm. We stuck around until 5pm and headed home. Neil and I dropped our stuff off at the apt. and met Kevin and his wife, Donna, at PJ O’Brian bar in Southgate. I was hungry at this point and held off on drinking before dinner. We went to a nearby restaurant and Donna left for her weekend trip to take mountain biking pictures. It must be fun being a professional photographer.

St. Jerome

I had Coopers beer and samosas for dinner. The food was good but the beer was too bitter. The first stop after dinner was St. Jerome bar that’s situated in the middle an alley way with tarp hanging overhead. There were people dressed as pirates, apparently for some girl’s birthday. One thing I learned about Australians, they love to wear costumes. Which then leads me to the question what I should dress up as for my birthday next week. Neil stole a plastic sword from one of the women pirates and yelled out “Give me your booty.” I didn’t hear them laughing, but maybe because the music was too loud. We were sitting next to the speakers blaring deafening hip hop music that I started feeling queasy from the bass. We left shortly thereafter.

Afterward, we went to find the fish crate bar called Sector 8. The actual bar itself was made out of aluminum fish crates. It’s another outdoor bar with wooden crates to sit on. I had a lot of layers on so it wasn’t cold being outside. I’d say the temperature was around 60 degrees. Then we went to meet Joe and his brother at Cherry. There was a cover charge at this bar and we weren’t sure if they were still inside. Kevin sent Joe a text and they came out. Most of the bars in Melbourne do not have cover charges, so we didn’t want to go to places that did have one. We walked around the corner of the alley and a bar was just opening. The bouncers were trying to get people to go inside, so we checked it out.

It’s called the Alley Bar and there were only a few people. I think most of them worked there. I sat down on a chair to check out what’s on tap when a guy approached me asking for a favor. He wanted me to check the women’s bathroom to make sure his girlfriend was doing okay. I guess she has been in there a long time. Well, by the time we walked over to the ladies room, his girlfriend was coming out. She was happy that her boyfriend cared so much to check up on her. How long could she have been in the bathroom if they just opened? They had a live band so we stayed. I tried a beer called St. Nanou and it was pretty good.

Joe was getting up early in the morning to catch a flight to Kangaroo island, so he left and the rest of us swaggered on. We found an Irish bar, evident by the huge Irish flag flying outside. They had a live band playing 80’s music upstairs. There was a hunched back old man dancing the night away right in front of the band and was later invited onto the stage to play the tambourine. I think that made his night.

There was a grumpy old man sitting by the bar who grumbled under his breath about my shirt. I was wearing my Amsterdam shirt with a cat on it. How dare he not like it! I held my anger and walked away. The boys had a beer and we left. We walked around looking for another place to go but a lot of them were closing. We ended up at another place called Irish Times that was playing house music, to Neil’s liking. I didn’t want to drink any more by this time so I drank water. We stayed out until 2am and headed home. I think I’ve been to more bars since I’ve been to Melbourne than I have in my lifetime.

Bar Hopping

Neil is in town for the next month doing training materials for the client. He’s a Canadian based out of the New York office. We went out for sushi dinner on Saturday night at the first sushi restaurant we saw on Swanston Street. They had sushi on a conveyor belt and they were pretty good. The salmon was fresh and tasty. After dinner, we met up with Joe and Andrew for a beer at an outdoor bar. It was starting to get chilly out, but I had a hoody on so I was able to keep warm. Joe and Andrew decided to go back to the apt. because they were tired at midnight. Normally, I would follow right behind them since it was way past my bedtime. But I had a nap during the day and I wanted to check out the scenes.

Neil had done some research on bars he thought were interesting, so we started walking downtown. Melbourne is all about bars with themes. First, we went to the Loop, which had video game images projected onto the walls. The people were friendly at the bars and they would randomly start conversations with us. I think one guy was Russian and he had a thick accent which made it hard to understand what he was saying. He was a sprayer so I had to keep wiping his spit off my arm every minute or so…gross.

Washroom at Croft

We met a group of locals that invited us along on their bar hopping trip. The second place we went to had death metal music upstairs, which was basically loud terrible noise. We didn’t stay too long and went to Croft. This is a medical theme bar that is hidden in a zigzag alley. It was scary and the thought of being murdered and chopped up into little pieces did crossed my mind. This place had test tubes in display cases around the bar. The bathroom upstairs looked like an operating room equipped with a hospital bed. The upstairs bar had real grass as a counter top, pretty strange. I don’t know how people find these places if they haven’t been there before. I'm so glad to have a personal tour guide with us. I guess the harder a place is to find, the cooler it is.

First Weekend in Melbourne

5/11 - 5/13

So we ended up going to a Thai restaurant, except it wasn’t anything like Thai food I’ve eaten before. It was more of a Thai-influenced restaurant. The food was pretty tasty. We all ordered a dish and shared. We had a couple of different kinds of curry, a noodle dish, and some other food I can’t recall now. The dishes were relatively small and it came out to about $20/person. Average price of beer at a bar is about $6 - $10 (and they apparently don’t import Miller Lite).

I went to bed at 9pm.

The team gets into the office around 8am. The client gets in earlier, but they leave around 4pm. We have been staying until 530p – 600p. The commute to work takes about 40 minutes. 7 minute walk to the train, 25 minutes on the train, and another 10 minute walk to the office. It’s been a while since I walked to work, so I’m getting plenty of exercise. Yes, there has been some complaint from my end about all that walking, but more of an observation than a complaint. Walking is good…

On Saturday, we WALKED to Budget and rented a car and drove a couple of hours to Torquay, popularized by the movie "Point Break." This area is at the beginning of the Great Ocean Road and has a beautiful beach. The guys went surfing (no thanks) and I WALKED around. It was sunny, but there was no way I was going into the water even with a wetsuit on. I was cold in my jeans and sweatshirt as is. I got some nice pictures of the beach and it was a good place to WALK around. There were a lot of surfers out and the waves were good...so I’m told. We spent the whole day at the beach. I did not see any roo’s.


After we got back, we went out to the bars. I was exhausted by that time, but I went out anyway since I wanted to see what the nightlife was like. We WALKED downtown searching for a bar Kevin has been to. The first bar we went to had a great idea. It’s called Trader Bar and it had TV monitors listing the prices of each beer (from different regions) and liquor. There were also marques around the bar displaying different messages. Depending on the supply and demand, the prices went up or down in 15 minute intervals. Like rum would be $5.50 at one point and if people start buying it, it’ll go up to $6.50 in the next round. We waited until certain beer got cheaper, and then we buy. It was fun! I drank an Aussie beer called Little Creatures, it was pretty good. I swear it’s weaker than Miller Lite since I didn’t really feel it. Or maybe my tolerance is up a bit. I think this place would do really well in Chicago.

After Trader, we went to Elephant and Wheelbarrel. They had a live band there playing pop music from the 80’s and today. They played "How To Save a Life" and "Chasing Cars", so they’re aight in my books. We stayed out until 2am and stopped by Lord of the Fries for some “chips and gravy” which is essentially French fries and gravy (them Canadians call it poutine). Afterward, I went home and crashed. It was a good kind of sleep. The strange thing was that I got a hangover in the morning. I rarely get morning hang overs, it was a nice change to having a headache right away.

On Sunday, I somehow thought it would be a good idea to join Kevin and Dave on a hike at the National Park. It’s about a 2-hour train ride from Flinders station. I had imagined a nice stroll through the woods and maybe see some cool animals. OMG, the first section was like climbing a mountain! I swear I was suffering from altitude sickness after 5 minutes. My butt was burning from trying to walk up this steep incline and I was sweating profusely. We ended up hiking for THREE hours. I have never walked so much in my life…yeah, great fun. I must admit the scenery was amazing. There was a section in the park that had a sad little waterfall flowing through it, but I imagine with a bit more water it would have been quite a sight. I’m going to have to look into jeep tours for my next outing.

I've Arrived!

Wow, that was a long trip! We were delayed in LA for a couple of hours. All I could think of was how I could have been spending those 2 hours on the plane, but was just sitting at the airport. My neck pillow ran away and I went to find a replacement at one of the airport newsstands. On my way back to the gate, I spotted my old neck pillow on the ground. YOU! Bad pillow. When I tried to return the recently purchased pillow, I was unable to since the supervisor wasn't around. How ridiculous! Now I have 2 neck pillows to take care of. I slept most of the trip comfortably stretched out across 5 seats. It's like being in first class...but with seat arms poking at my ribs.

The apartment is really nice. I settled in around 1pm. The bathtub is big and it’s weird that they it didn't have a shower curtain. The toilet has 2 flush buttons, which I later come to find out that one is for number 1 and the other for number 2. I guess they have a water shortage problem here in Oz. These 2 levels of flushing help to conserve water. Everything here is SO expensive! I went to get a 2 liter bottle of water and it was $3.50 AUD. I’ll have to learn to drink tap water.


I walked about 10 minutes into the downtown area which crosses a river. The view is gorgeous. The first order of business was to find a cellular phone store and see if my phone works here. I bought a RED Sim card from Vondafone and it worked! I have pretty good reception here (maybe even better than I had in the States). Then I went to get a Metlink card for the public transportation system and dropped by the visitor information booth to pick out some brochures. There’s a free City Circle tram that runs around Melbourne so I hopped into one of those. It’s about a 45-minute trip around. The city is full of colorful architecture and looks pretty clean. I did see a lot of Asians around the whole city. I was a bit disappointed that in the few hours I spent in Oz, I have yet to hear any real Aussie speak. There was a guy on a bicycle that yelled at a car that almost hit him, something like “Watch it, mate!”

I called Dave on my cell phone to see if the team is going out for dinner. He’s from the UK and I had difficulty understand some of the things he said. He and Joe came back around 6pm and we walked over to Southgate to meet the other two team members. Once we met up with Lorraine and Kevin, we went to a bar for a beer. I thought for sure I would pass out if I didn’t have something to eat soon.

Journey to Melbourne

I managed to drag my 5 pieces of bags with me through the airport to check-in. The contents of the bags should last me for 6 months. One over my shoulder, one on my back, one in my left hand, another in my right and the last resting on top of the big luggage. All at the price of breaking a sweat and a sore in my back. At one point, I felt one of my luggage resisting but I didn't want to jeopardize my momentum by looking back. Eventually, I gave in and saw that my neck pillow had lodge itself under the wheels of my big luggage. Why? As if lugging 5 bags isn't hard enough, you have to fall and slow me down. I’m just so glad 4 of the bags were checked all the way through.

I was able to use my free upgrade certificates collected over the past year for the first leg of the trip. Business class to LAX was the life. The seats were so big and comfy and equipped with its own TV monitor. I watched "Bridge to Terabithia" on the flight and started involuntary crying. [Movie spoiler coming up]. I usually don’t cry in movies, but this was like "My Girl' where the girl in the movie dies. It was so unexpected. You’d be pretty heartless not to shed a tear. Or maybe my eyes welled up from helping the old man sitting next to me plug in his earphones. He couldn’t see, even with his reading glasses on and was struggling for a while when I leaned over to lend a hand. Then WAM! Guess he didn’t see my head there either because he lifted his hand right into my left eye. I swear I could almost feel it turning blue. I got the earphones working for him, though. Of course, he only watched a few minutes of the movie before he fell asleep. Go figure. There I was balling my eyes out hoping no one else noticed.

They actually serve dinner in business class! I quickly wiped away my tears and stayed strong enough until the flight attendant passed. I had cheese filled shells and a cheesecake. It was pretty good for airplane food. That 5-hour flight flew by like nothing. If only the next 16-hour flight could be the same…I don’t know how I can go back to economy after this experience.

I have a 3 hour layover at LAX and am utilizing the Red Carpet Lounge. It’s really nice in here with snacks and beverages available. They gave me a voucher for a drink so I used it for Bailey’s on the rocks. Didn’t do much for me. This lounge is a lot more crowded than the one in Chicago. Guess there are a lot of people traveling at 10pm on a Tuesday night. Too bad they don’t have a shower facility because I am getting a little stinky. Hopefully, I won’t have anyone sitting next to me on the flight.

There are drug sniffing dogs all over LAX. One of them happily smelled my bag and went on his merry way. Maybe it was a she, but I tend to refer to all animals as males. He was kind of cute, but I felt used. I met this poor kid (20 something?) in the airport that had one of his bags stolen. He fell asleep and woke up to find his bag missing. Who would do such a thing at the airport? It had all his cash, credit card, and ID’s in it. Sucks to be him. I let him borrow my cell phone but I don’t think he got a hold of anyone that could help him. I felt bad for him, so I gave him a bag of cookies and left. I felt like I could have done more but didn’t. Hey, those were good cookies! He said he would be okay.

It’s been a long day already and I’m only in LA. I just hope I can get plenty of sleep on the plane. I’m off to floss and brush before I board.

Count Down to Australia

Here goes my first entry...

Tuesday is when I'll be leaving the windy city behind. I started packing, my suit cases are full, but I haven't finished packing yet. I may need to start all over again. My excitement for Oz has been replaced by stress and anxiety. I miss the cats already. Maybe I'll find a stray in Melbourne.

I'll be staying at Pacific International for at least the first two weeks...looks nice. That's where the rest of the team is staying. I had reservations at a Hilton so I could collect some more points, but I should say goodbye to my status right now. My new PM insisted I stay at the PI. I'm excited about the in unit laundry facility. There's nothing I hate more than going to a laundry mat, ew.