Pleasing the crowds

Hello dear audience, readers, listeners,

Have your popcorn ready, keep your glasses on, have a last gulp from your straw, the story is picking up! Finally something exciting happened. Finally a light of hope in this world of darkness.

Okay, never mind!

I went for my job trial today and will start working next week. It's only a teeny tiny job with few hours. But it is a job! And it is experience!

I do floor work so I am basically a waitress. Acqua & Vino is a groovy upstairs bar with lots of leather couches and dark wooden chairs. The tables are counted in weird ways (100-1000 on the outside, 1-6 on the inside and it goes 11, 111, 22 etc) so it is a little strange. They have hell of a big variety of drinks and i really have to learn my alcohols now, because how on earth would i know that if the guy at table 55 asks for a scotch with cole i have to chose the ... Was it Johnny Red? Exactly that. I am getting along quite well with wines though. And beers are easy too! But simply because they are quick to find on the cash register.

Summary: I wipe tables, take orders, serve, clean tables, work at the cash register, dry glasses and cutlery, and chat with Aaron who works behind the bar and helps me out especially with the alcohol.

He and Anthony, the manager, both said I am very intelligent and picked up really quickly, so I will start work next week when Anthony has made the rosters but as I said I wont be working much.

This means I probably have to live around Yarraville (shared houses are about 200 dollars less in rent than all those hostels) because no train or bus would get me back into the city if I work until late. My task now then is to either find another (or two other) job/s in or around Yarraville, preferably in bike reach, or find a day job in the city. Please don't send me job offers, thats not what I am asking for, I am just filling you in ;) no worries.

The other news: I sort of have a kind of job on top of this one. I got into contact with William Han from treephotovideo studios and he has "hired" me for a wedding gown promotion and his next short film about a girl who knows she has only eight hours to live. As he is a student trying to make his way into the business it won't be crazily well paid, but I have seen some of his stuff and at least the videos will be good show reels for when I do apply to a more formal acting job at some point.

Now I am just devouring a olive paste toast because I left to work without dinner four hours go. 

Tomorrow I am meeting with Owen (Phil's son) to finally leave my solitude again ;) Life just doesn't seem worthy without people to share it with.

Until soon,

Skipper

 

Ps: if it hasnt reached Germany, check out "What does the fox say" by Ylvis on youtube ;)

In your face (overload)

Hallow everyone who is living their exciting lives far away from me (shame on you).

Not many exciting things have happened here: I went to the Zoo today and might do a longer post on that when the sun hasn't sucked all the energy out of me. I found out that my childhood friend Johanna who is on world travels is spending a month in Melbourne. I have a work trial at a wine bar on Wednesday and I have been "hired" to act in a film students short film.

Nothing really to fill a post with. Besides blogging I also speak and message with many of you privately and throughout my facebook/whatsapp/email conversations every once in a while I took a photo for a family member or friend to send them. Since selfies nowadays are so popular and my fames is surely missed by many (please don't tell me otherwise, just let me thrive in the illusion ;) ) I decided to upload these fun and weird and sometimes pretty photos on here. In chronological order! Starting with the first photo I sent my parents after getting a hair cut.

Nadine (I believe)

Nate

Oma and Opa

Nick (wearing helmets in Australia is mandatory. You cannot believe how much I hated it)

This is a test photo for a photo shoot I would like to do. Published for the first time! -> excitement :o ;)

Hanno

Mama and Papa

Anja (featuring my new second hand jumper)

Aaaand absolutely exclusive, taken just for you just now ;)

                                 

I love all of you and wish I could see your faces more often!

Skipper

Melbourne 1.0

UAAHH!! THIS HAS BEEN INFECTED BY A WORM!

Honestly. I have written this whole post before and it just won't work! Whyyyyy Gooood??? (singing like Vincent).
Anyway, for those who still haven't had it explained to them properly a short recap on my current situation:
I am in Melbourne now which is in Victoria. All the way down by the coast - again! Here I live in Newport, the Western Suburbs, with Chris, his wife Halla and their kids Stefan and Luey. Chris is Robin and Deena's brother, who all are the kids of Hilla, who is my Oma's (grandmother) sister. Here I am staying to get to know my family, figure out the city, find a good hostel find a job!

Last photo of Robin! :o

Guess what, this is a dead bird that looks like Rudi von Siebenstein!

This is a paper bark tree! It's outer bark sheds off like laarge pieces of paper :) We have a bunch of those right around the corner from here.

Ever since Robin left on Tuesday, which I miss him very much, I have taken on especially those two last parts. So I went running around with my CV around the areas of hostels. First I went down to Windsor/St Kilda. It's southeast of the CBD. St Kilda is pretty popular as it is so close to the beach but there really is only one street with cafes called Acland St (or so) and no really good places for me to work. Yet they make more than decent cake down there! Windsor is not at the beach it's a little higher up closer to the city. (Oh yes, short note, Melbourne is built around the huuuuge Port Philipp Bay, so it's shoreline is somewhat of a half circle.)

Williamstown

 In Windsor you can find one long street called Chapel Street. We went there because one snuggly little hostel called Back of Chapel is just off that street and I loooved it! Op shops (thrift store, second hand store), cafes, cute restaurants, classic bike shops, bookstores and vintage window fronts all crowd along this street and you can imagine how quickly I lost my heart and how eager I was to apply for jobs. The location of Back of Chapel is perfect, but as I said it is very small and not as well equipped as many other hostels. Due to its size it is also fully booked until at least the beginning of December.

Opposed to that the other two hostels I checked which are located closer to St Kilda are more "sophisticated" so to say. They are both rather large, with proper bathrooms (one even has all en suite bathrooms), lockers, spacious kitchens, multiple lounges, etc and so forth. I might check into one of them until the other one has a vacancy? I am scared to end up in a party hostel, where everyone is just loud and drunk the whole time. They all cost about 190-200 a week so there is not much difference concerning the price. Both the "nicer" hostels are right above a pub and a bar so noise can be expected.
Today I went to the two suburbs Carlton and Fitzroy. Carlton is close to the Uni so lots of young and hip people hang out around there. It's a quite nice area with a cute park that I walked through over to Fitzroy. It's pretty grungy there but way to expensive for my budget. If a shop calls itself "Vintage and Contemporary" it is to be expected that the prices will be far above budget.
In Fitzroy, however, I had a conversation with one cafe owner that I offered my resume to. He is German, as is his only employee and he told me specifically to lie on my CV. He also said he doesn't need someone, but if I don't have a job by next week he will teach me on his machine, so I can put barista down on my CV. Pretty nice and awesome!

The largest one is the Eureka Tower.

What happened before Robin left though?
We went into the city on Saturday and my highlight were two guys playing the guitar and singing in the street. We bought their CD and if you want, check them out -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZfDXb4-f00
Before we left the city we took the free city circle tram back to our car and I sat next to a young guy, had a chat and found out his name is Esben and he studies in Aachen! He was sent here by work for two months, which I find rather amazing.

With him I spent my second day (Sunday) here. We got some breakfast stuff at Wooly's and then ate it by the river with a black swan with a red nose. Afterwards he showed me the inside of a big casino which was very impressive! I definitely felt like I should be wearing a long evening gown and nice hair.
His next stop: the Eureka tower! It is the highest building in Melbourne with its 88 stories and gives a great view above the city. The elevator rises so quickly my ears started to act like I was in a plane. Just not as bad. In general I wasn't very interested in going up there, but Esben insisted and so we went. I must admit it was fabulous and gives you an even greater view of the Port Phillip Bay, a park close to federation square, funnily formed bridges over the brown river and of course all the skyscrapers. We spent lots of time up there enjoying the view and chatting away until at about three we went for lunch and then sat down on federation square to enjoy the sunlight. Turned out to be a pretty nice day :)

The blueish hue was created by stupidly tainted windows. But this is Melbourne looking out southeast from the Eureka tower.

Monday evening then we were invited to Robins longtime friend Philipp's house, where his family had a barbecue and where we spent about six hours until Robin was so drunk I had to drive us home. I must admit it was a pretty funny drive! He gives out so many compliments, when he is not sober ;) What a nice man. His friend and their family were amazingly kind as well and very welcoming. Everyone in Australia just present their open arms to you (although with some people one would prefer not to, remembering the Indian Australian guy.)

Although I haven't been here for long, Melbourne seems to live up to its expectations. It is a fantastic city. Small lane ways are plastered in street art. The graffiti is almost Melbourne's signature.
The city is much fuller than Perth or Adelaide. Everything has weird shapes or crazy statues on it. The Eureka building (I think) is decorated with huge golden bees for example! And literally everywhere you go you see interesting formations and decorations and even along the train line they put an effort into making the scenery pretty.

There is also lots to do! I would like to check out the acmi (Australian Centre for the Moving Image) which has exhibitions on movies and Tvs and shortly seems to have had one on music videos. The aquarium is supposed to be nice as well and even just walking around and discovering little oddities is lots of fun.


Skipper

Success Great Ocean Road

After the first rather disappointing day of driving mainly through never changing landscapes and with the sea nowhere in sight our second road trip day took off with a better start. As I mentioned we had made it as far as Port Fairy, which is already in Victoria, so not too far off from Melbourne. Since we had gained some time this way on Friday morning we visited the information center for some maps on the Great Ocean Rd and advice on what to do in Port Fairy, before heading home. It is a rather sleepy little town with lots of old looking buildings. We didn't really care about those and instead took a walk over to... Griffith's island I think? to take in the sun and have a look at the lighthouse, which was nothing special. The water, however, ranged from a beautiful turquoise to a deep, dark blue hue (throughout our whole trip) and at the end of a jetty we watched a a little seal merrily catching fish.
In two days I took about 200 pictures, so be ready for them ;)

The little stick on the end of it, is the lighthouse.

This was our motel's sign.

A bird, just for Mama! I don't know which one it is though.

There is not much to tell about the Great Ocean Road, it is more a matter of looking at it! As soon as one has reached Apollo Bay the road actually leads right along the Ocean revealing spectacular bays and beaches, which only sometimes could be accessed. Before we got to Apollo Bay we pulled into a few gravel parking lots when we saw the sign for a "scenic" lookout and enjoyed different views. The twelve Apostles I must say we skipped, because it is a horribly obnoxious tourist attraction! Instead of just having a parking space on the ocean side of the road, there is a huuuuuge car park on the other side with a tourist information center, a ton of cars, and a helicopter base, in case you are a nutcase and think it's worth it. I don't know if they actually made you pay to access the path underneath the road and back towards the sea, but as soon as we saw this commercialized nonsense we quickly lost our appetite to see the seven (or how ever many are left) Apostles. They also only got two stars in our road atlas, whereas the Gibson Steps were rated with three! Why is that? You can actually walk down steps to the beach instead of staring down at it. Before I keep moving on to other excitements, here are some photos from the Great Ocean Road.

Oh! and guess what I saw way earlier on Thursday! :D Those who have read Frühstück mit Kängurus / Down Under by Bill Bryson will recognize the magnificent cray fish in the third picture! I certainly got very excited when I saw it. The first picture shows a salt lake .

The Great Ocean Road before passing Apollo Bay.

The London Bridge, whose second arch collapsed a while ago.

What a strange plant! I made Robin pull over for this one. Mama, do you know what it is? :D

One Apostle - sure good I didn't pay to see them ;)

The landscape changes a lot after leaving Apollo Bay, because the road starts leading through forests. I only have one good picture of it though.

A few spiders live inside Robin's car mirrors who create these beautiful webs over night.

On our way to Apollo Bay we took a drive through Cape Otway which instantly became the most exciting part of my journey! We stopped underneath a tree where I saw two Koalas hanging about, so I got out of the car to photograph them, until I heard a very distinct grunting behind me and saw two more Koalas! And then more and more! Overall I saw 14 Koalas in that area, including a mum and her baby! It was amazing, because they were so easily to see and so close, that I could have touched them if I had wanted to.

This one is the grunting one and his friend.

Although he looks like he is doing chin ups he is actually just scratching his other leg.

Sadly there was no way of getting a nice view, but this is the mum and her little one. 

As we were driving along we saw a sign for Sheoak Falls and pulled over to have a look at them. The walk itself is only ten minutes long but because of the many steps going up and down it feels way further. On our way back we met two groups of people each asking "Is it worth it?" to which we replied with a confident Yes. On man was carrying his daughter on his shoulders and asked us after the first set of steps, sweat covering his face. "Good god, I feel like my mother-in-law!" I don't actually know what that means, but it was hysterical.

The Great Ocean Road is a very windy street with lots of curves and due to all my singing and some luck I did not get sick. Unless you are starting in Adelaide anyway, it is not really worth it to do the trip from there but rather do one or two day trips from Melbourne. This way you also save motel money ;)

Otherwise, bring a camera and take in the landscape. Burn a few good CDs and make sure you buy food at a cheep Coles, because you won't find one along the way.

I had lots of fun on this little trip and was welcomed in a very friendly way by my other Great Cousin Chris, his wife and two sons, who I will be staying with for... I don't know how long yet. Our plans for the day are uncertain, but I would love to head into the city and pop my head into a few possible work places, although the thought does scare me. Last photos for the end of this post.

Hope you enjoyed,

Skipper

If a huge wave approaches you, don't fall - RUN!

I knew they had strange animals in Australia, but these species are new even to me! 

Beware of snakes with pointy heads. 

Beware of Florian.