1. December

'Tis the season!!!

Oh, how I hate people saying this. But it actually is the season of cheer, love, coziness, giving and snow - wait, snow?!, says the Australian citizen. Damn it, we just can't get it right. The christmas trees on Federation Square do look a little lost. First of all, they are tiny. They are pathetic baby trees for quokkas to dream it because this country can't even serve with Donald's chipmunks. Just for the 1st of December the weather decided to rocket up into higher twenties and make us all feel really christmassy.
Am I making it sound worse than it is? They are trying their best at being American though. Decorations everywhere but at least they haven't started obnoxious christmas carols. After all THAT is my job! Christmas songs all the way from now until the celebration. I have to do my best at making christmas work for me. It is just so confusing. Instead of baking a ton load of cookies to fatten everyone up I am worrying about my bikini shape and looking up zumba classes for the time I am here. I mean, bikini shape and christmas are paradox. They don't work. That is also the reason why I did not get an advent calendar although Owen did his best to convince me. But they are all with chocolate! And I can't make use of chocolate at the moment because I haven't even dared to visit the beach yet.

I got all of these. For myself. Because I am lonely. (The truth is even worse: This is a cake shop window.)

Instead I started my day with an avocado on toast to go 30 minutes after I got up. After working yesterday and having to turn down working until 2 in the morning because there was no way to get back to Newport I was glad I had made a few appointments for share house inspections in the area.
The first one was pretty promising. It's a little further from Yarraville's center and the landlord would actually prefer someone staying for at least 6 months but he said I have a very positive attitude and I am exactly the kind of person he was looking for. I would be sharing the house with one vietnamese (I think), one French and one Italian. My room is very spacious and would have enough storage and room for Anja to come stay when she visits. The kitchen looked much cleaner and newer than in the second house and the bathrooms seemed suitable. The lounge room was big as well and appeared comfy.
Rent is higher than in the second house, but includes all bills and internet, as well as no weird smell and is still cheaper than a hostel. I will probably do it like Florian and buy a pushbike to save horrendous public transport costs (it sucks the money right out of your pocket) and be more flexible.
I meant to go to Footscray for an inspection but it was canceled and so I used my spare time to apply at a few cafes in Yarraville, which sounded very promising. One in particular i would be glad to get a job at.

Lane way paparazzi. 

House by Yarraville station.

Yesterday was a little more stressful than the beautiful beginning of December today. I took off into the city after a coffee with Halia and Chris (in my case a chai latte) and applied for jobs there before I met up with Johanna Post for an afternoon coffee. Yes, my dear family, Johanna Post who I was friends with in elementary school is now in Melbourne for about a month :D I couldn't stop laughing about it.
From the city I went straight into work which Anthony had only asked me to do the night before. I started at eight and I must say time does not fly by at all! Maybe that is also because I am concentrating and worrying still and especially yesterday was very overwhelming. It got extremely busy and I feel like I met almost all the staff yesterday. We had three guys behind the bar (Aaron, Jordan and Maddie), our chef Natasha, her three kitchen hands (John, one I didn't really meet and one I feel so bad I forgot his name!) and three waitresses (Emilia, Claire and me). Emilia knows everything about floor work and always helped me with the till. She also made sure I could get home earlier as I explained to her I cannot expect Chris and Halia to stay up for me and buses stopped running at 9pm.
In the beginning I worried the other staff didn't like me but then they quickly warmed up and explained to me and asked me about myself and my home. Claire is very easy going and funny and is convinced she speaks great German because she lived near Strasbourg when she was a baby. She actually isn't bad and must have been a very talented baby ;) She also had me try her kiwi apple margarita which was absolutely amazing! As I hadn't eaten Emilia also organized free dinner from the kitchen for me which tastes even better than it looks! I know it had mashed potatoes, eggplant, rocket and onions but it was so much more delicious than I can describe. Yummi! At about ten a live band started dishing out some Bob Marley songs and with time I got back into it. Just the payment method is completely different on weekends. I have sooo much more to learn :)

As we are going back in time I had a nice day with Owen on thursday, except we chose the worst weather. Who could expect it to be windy cold and rainy the next day when it was hot and stuffy and not standable before? This seems to be Melbourne and I had to keep Owen from buying a brolli for me (umbrella, I know, it's ridiculous), because the wind was colder than the rain. Due to this we could not go to the night noodle market, where apparently good Asian restaurants make sort of street food that is good and affordable. A good tip, which I will definitely check out sometime. We did visit the acmi though, which had a free exhibition on the history of film. I didn't take much away from it as we were chatting more than we were paying attention. That wasn't enough culture for one day so we went on to the Arts centre where we discussed all the different paintings, their beauty and artistic value and the definition on art (a hopeless discussion, as I find). My favorite part was a huge salon filled with paintings, which reminded me of Hogwarts, where we tried guessing painting titles - another hopeless attempt. They are either too simple or abstruse. The christmas windows at Myers apparently are a great attraction in Melbourne but all I took away from it were the decorations and that the protagonist was a ginger bread baby, but the story telling voice was so obnoxious that I didn't just couldn't listen to it.
So maybe I have made a friend which is another step in the right direction! Way to beat the rain. (I must say after that day ruining my lovely boots I was quite thankful for today's weather shift.)

It is not only the first of december but also the first of four advent sundays. Be merry and enjoy the season! I am celebrating with my pathetically small advent candle! Her and I through thick and thin ;)
Season greetings just for my most loyal fan, Frajo!

Cheers,
Skipper