I've been in Australia for 11 days now and I feel like I've done tons and yet, nothing at all ;) My goal has been to alternate, one day looking for work/apartment, etc.. and one day out site seeing because otherwise I fear that I may go stir crazy...
For a quick summary of the practicalities: I have acquired myself a new cell phone (or mobile as I've been told I must call it) which actually sends text message (I'm in love :-). I have found myself an apartment with a guy from NZ. It has a shared pool and I've been told it's in a great part of town. I move in tonight after a quick stop at IKEA for a cheap ass mattress. (The bed frame will have to wait until I have a job ;) I have a couple of meetings with head hunters scheduled this week which I'm quasi-excited about as I'm getting slightly bored with myself. My one big oops has been applying for jobs with a CV using Microsoft 2007; they don't seem to have it down here and no one can open my CV ;( All in all, I feel like it's all coming together fairly well; it's empowering ;)
I have been out and about exploring and am finding Melbourne amazingly easy to navigate (though I must confess to using google maps a lot). I'm in love with their transit system compared to ours... :-) The major difference is that Melbourne is all about its suburbs in a way that Toronto isn't ;) A small two block by two block area can have it's own name and culture which is kind of interesting. The one flaw, I've discovered is that you can have the same address is two different suburbs, so you have to know where you're going :) I've done Brunswick St (very similar to Queen West about 10 years ago when it was less mainstream/corporate), Chapel St (very like Bloor West Village - high end shopping and sophistication), Lygon St (very like College St with great restaurants and a strong Italian influence), Queen Victoria Market (very like St. Lawrence Market but with clothing in the back area), the City Center (very like our downtown)...all same, same but different ;) I have yet to get to the beach as it's too damn cold and I need to look for a bike as they seem to have a myriad of paths (Ash has offered me an old one of his); I'm missing my regular cycles....
In addition to my aimless wanderings where I'm attempting to get myself oriented and get a feel for the areas, I've also been out socially a bit. Ash took me out to meet his girl's field hockey team (he coaches) which was fun. From there, I met up with a bunch of artists through a photography meet up group on Wednesday night for drinks. I had a great time and it was cool to meet a bunch of artists. I made a friend (with an interest in photography) named Nicole (isn't it a great name Nickki ;) and I spent Saturday afternoon with her before going to a night photo group. We wandered around downtown Melbourne, taking photos of trains, chatting and eating. Sunday, I met up with the "cave clan" (Sean - you should be so proud that it only took me 10 days :) and we watched a community charity football game outside (great fun!!). The players were absolute crap and the commentators were hysterical. We went from there to explore a local drain (yes, that's storm drain exploration). It was a huge cavern with little to no light and lots of grafitti. We took a couple of photos until we were discovered by a security guard. We took off down a storm drain, finally shimmy our way out through a tunnel about the 1 foot in diameter. Quite the adventure!! I got home, energized and excited from the adventures ;)
Anyone interested in checking out my photos, they can be found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/decouvert2001/. I've posted a few today and I will post a couple of the apartment once I move in tomorrow.
(My apologies for those on Facebook as there's an occasional bit of repetition ;)
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