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