Day 39 - October 31

Australians don't celebrate Halloween!! What the heck?! Some of my friends here say that it's too American and they don't like their influence. Some of the stores had halloween decorations and sold halloween candy but it was just for attraction. I think in another 10 years it will fully catch on. The kids totally miss out on this one.

Worked from 11:30am-3:00pm. It was a boring day at work.

Came home and saw that Oscar wanted a shower. Stupid cat, I said "showers are for humans". He said "meow?". True story.

 

I had a heart to heart conversation with Oscar that night as well. Keep in mind that he lost his tail a few years ago when his tail was run over. It had to be cut off.

 

 

 

True Story.

 

 

 

Day 38 - October 30

Made some breakfast for once. I don't usually eat breakfast as I wake up too late for that. I made a scrambled egg sandwich. I also had my daily latte. I have conformed to the ways of the Melbournians and am now addicted to lattes and cappuccino's.

I had to get a haircut today. It's way too long! I took the bus to the CBD as I saw a lot of salons that advertised haircuts for $15. I went into some of them to ask if washing was included. Some of the people were very salesperson like. One guy I asked immediately took my hand to shake, then he steered me toward the chair. As he answered that a cut was $15 plus $5 for wash, I said I'm checking next door for their price and walked out. While I walked out, he said that everywhere had the same price. I went next door and the woman told me that $15 and she'll include the free wash for me and that it was just for me for a special price. They were all salesperson like. I agreed to the woman.
 
She asked how I wanted my hair cut. I felt strange as I haven't had to really explain how to cut my hair for awhile. Lindsay, at The Fringe, usually just does it. I explained it as best I could. She took a razor and a comb and buzzed through my hair like crazy. It was as though she was in a contest with the other hairdressers in the room to see who was the fastest. I was so nervous. I've never been nervous for a haircut. Heck I'm not even nervous for interviews, but I was really nervous and scared of this lady. I tried to calm myself by talking to her and asked where she was from. She answered Korea and her English was really poor. By the time I thought of another question to ask, she was done!! It took 10 minutes. I'm used to a casual and relaxing type of hair cut. When I see Lindsay, we talk and laugh while she cuts my hair. I was scared of the Korean woman. Then lindsay would wash and massage my hair then style it and made sure it was perfect. The Korean just rinsed my hair and that was it.
 
I went to the till to pay with a $20 for the $15 haircut. There was no way I was given this chick a $5 tip so I was hoping for some change back, but sure enough she gave me a $5 bill. At the same time though, people in Australia don't expect to be tipped, but she was also not very friendly at all during my 10 minute haircut. I said thanks and left.
 
When I went home, I checked my hair and sure enough there were some random long hairs here and there. That's what you get for a $15 haircut!

I bought some chocolate to calm my nerves.

RRRRR....I LOVE TIM TAMS!!!

Day 37 - October 29

Lazed around at home for the first half of the day since I didn't have to work till 6:30pm.
 
Today was Adams last day at work. It sucks since he was my go to guy and I could ask him anything without him being annoyed. He was also a lot of fun to work with.
 
There were 2 parties tonight: 1 party was a girls 21st bday for the outside pavilion and another girls (25th?) bday for inside the cafe. I met the DJ, Naomi, that was spinning for the inside party. She was a tomboy with cool, anime style hair. When I told her I was from Canada, she told me she was moving there next year to Vancouver.
 
After Adam, PK, Azrael, and I finished setting up the place for the parties, the guest started arriving. Grace told me that I will helping Adam with bartending tonight.
 
The girl that was having her birthday inside had a very nice dress on. It was aqua blue with bits of mirrors all over her dress. Think of a cannon with a disco ball inside and she stood in front of it when it went off, minus the blood and screaming. She looked very attractive with her hair did, makeup on and in that dress.
 
Julie dropped by to say goodbye to Adam. Grace jumped in on the opportunity to get her to work tonight as well. She begged Julie to work 3 hours. It was a good idea though as there was a lot of work to be done.
 
Julie helped grace bartend and bring out hors de ourves to the guests. I didn't get a chance to hand out the food this time, which I really like doing as I get a chance to talk to the people. I was stuck behind the bar as the party goers inside were all Greeks and they can drink like fish.
 
The birthday girl, for the outside party, bought a $500 tab for her guests while the Greek girls party had a $3000 tab. Obviously the $500 tab was finished in less than an hour. The $3000 tab lasted for most of the night.
 
I was super busy mixing and serving drinks, but it was also fun. The following were what I mostly mixed: vodka sunrise, vodka raspberry, vodka limes, vodka apple juice, Bourbon and coke, whiskey and coke, and lemon lime bitters. Adam says that the lemon lime bitter drink is out of date. It's an old English drink from back in the day, but Australians are ordering it like it's the new thing.

Doesn't look appetizing

The Greek party had their cake and baklava. I tried the baklava, it was pretty much pastry soaked in sweet syrup. It was way too sweet.












The cake looked nice, but tasted dry. I like the giant chocolate cones though. I find it very dangerous to work these events as I'd been eating a lot of cakes lately.

 
After work, PK and I went to grab a bite before we went home. We stopped by Halal Kebobs across the street from the night rider bus stop. It was literally a hole in the wall. There was a bum that asked if we could buy him a drink. PK ordered food and was asked if he wanted to add a drink for $1.10. PK said yes and then turned around and told the Jim he could grab any drink from the fridge. the bum was grateful and grabbed his drink. Weird, I thought PK wasn't the kind of guy to do that, but that was nice of him. I offered him my can of pop that I bought, but he wasn't thirsty.

Lamb Kebab

Once we finished eating, we both caught different buses home.

When I got off my stop and was about halfway walking home, i was passing a 7-11. As I was walking, a car was pulling out from gassing up at the 7-11 and honked at me as i was walking on the walkway as though I had gotten in her way. Really? You had to honk at me? Especially when it's 4:00am? I was clearly already walking on the path, why would I stop to wait for her to pass. Once she honked, I slowed down walking, then once I was out of her way, we had a staring contest as she stopped on the road. I was contemplating on throwing my can of pop that I had just bought, but then I restrained. She drive off about 5 seconds later. Sweet i won the staring contest, showed her who's boss.  I couldn't believe how Melbournians in vehicles think they have the right of way 100% of the time.

Day 36 - October 28

I came into work and there was another new trial worker, Megan from Regina. 'Shut up Meg', was all I thought haha. Cal passed his trial day as he was also working.  Near the end of my shift, after I stocked the bar, a new girl came in for her trial. Her name was Maggie. I didn't really get a chance to talk to her as grace was training her.

After work, I went home to drop off my laptop and went back to the Dennis train station to wait for the CBD bound train. I was meeting up with Jenn and her friends for cheap pizzas. While waiting at the train station, 2 guys that looked like Mormons were waiting there as well. They said hi as I beeped my myki pass, I also said hi. I walked a couple of feet away. Then they both follow me and the one guy asks me what I was up to, then asked where I was from. He was surprised where I was from because he's from Cardston, which is 2 hours south of Calgary. He's been here for 14 months on a 24 month mission. His name was Elder Olsen. Elder is the title for full-time missionaries with their surname to follow. I was waiting for when he was going to pitch god, then bam!, right on cue. I told him that I believe there may be a higher power, but that I'm more of a 'see it to believe' person. I told him that I respect that he's helping people see god, but that I wouldn't be one to rush to church anytime soon, and he understood that. He gave me a card with more info on Jesus and then he left. Very nice guy of course. It was a nice chat while I waited for the train.
 
I met Jenn at the Asian Beer Cafe where they have $4 pizzas and $10 jugs.

The pizza we got wasn't as sexy as the one shown, that's false advertisement.

 It was Amanda's going away party as she is leaving to go back to Niagra Falls, Ontario to take her dental hygiene courses. When I got there, I met Amy, Alison (from Ontario), and Luke (Australian) whom was dating Amanda.

We talked about blue waffles as only Alison and I have only heard of it. We showed the rest of the group and took their reaction shots.

Amy - Obviously enjoyed the picture

Jenn - Not sure what she just saw

Amanda - Thinking she may have saw that somewhere

Amanda, Jenn, Alison

Paul heard of it, but didn't want to see it. He also told about 'one guy, one glass' which I've never heard of (but it doesn't sound like it's family friendly material).

Paul, me and Luke

Alison and I talked about her job here as a school teacher. She was telling me about how the school system here is crazy different. I asked how it was different and she responded that even if kids don't hand in their assignments and fail all their tests, they still pass!!! Crazy!! That type of education system will surely collapse.

Day 35 - October 27

While I was walking to work, I got a missed call from Grace. I called her back knowing what she called for. It was 10:30am and on the schedule it said I started at 10:00am, but yesterday, before I left work, she said for me to start at 10:30am the next day. Anywho, I was there for 10:30am shift. They thought I ditched the job.

Just as I thought, Dolores was fired this morning at 10:00am. That's too bad, she was nice, but she did seem miserable.

A new guy showed up, Houston from New Zealand. It was his trial day. There was also another guy named Cal. Houston was friendly, plus he was really efficient. Cal didn't talk a lot, but he was a hard worker, but had an awkward posture. He looked like he was going to fall over forward when he walked.

It was sunny again for my lunch break. I sat by the water. While I was eating, seagulls were circling me. One of them came pretty close to my plate of food.  


Don't even think about it bird

I went home to drop off my laptop then head out to dodgeball. There was only 4 of us that showed up. We got the referee's brother to help us sub, he looked about 15 or so. When he told me his name was Genesis, I said "Like the Sega Genesis?", he probably had no idea what I was talking about, geez I'm old.

Released in 1989

He was pretty good at dodgeball though. I've seen him before last week watching us play. He did a lot of suicides (he would jump over the centre line and throw the ball to hit the opposing team to get them out but he would also be counted out as he stepped over the centre line (hence the name suicide). You would only do this if there was only one opponent left and we had 2 or more of us still in. I did a lot better than last week. I caught a lot more and got a lot of people out. I did so well that when I actually got hit and sat out, the whole opposition team was overjoyed and all yelled out that I was finally out haha. In the end, the score was 16-3 for us. Too easy. I told 16 bit, my nickname for genesis, that he is now a permanent sub for us.

Sara was nice enough to offer me a ride to the train station again. Sweet, cause it was pitch black outside and the gym was located down a dark street with no lights.

While I was walking home, about a block away from my house, I saw a van with its side door open and when they drove past me, they were throwing something at me. Two objects flew past me. In front of me were 3 guys at a bus stop and I asked them what those people were throwing and they pointed to the bus stop glass to show me that it was eggs!! I almost got hit by 2 eggs!! WTF? The guys told me that they may drive around again as that was the second time they drove past them. I said that we should throw stuff back at them, so we looked around, but couldn't find anything. I did think about running home to get my eggs, but then it might start something bigger that may lead to violence. No need for that.

Remnants of the eggs on the street

When I got home, Raul, Zeena and Nicholas were all sitting in the living room having a conversation with a Spain chick on skype about renting Rauls room. Raul is going on a trip for a couple of months starting on November 20. They thought that they might as well rent it out for the time that he is gone so that he can come back to live here again without having to pay rent for the months that he is gone. I said hi to Naomi on the camera. She was really friendly and cute. I hope they let her rent the room.

Day 34 - October 26

Got paid today, in cash. When Grace handed me my money, it was folded in a little baggie, like we were in a drug deal.

Had another delicious lunch outside. A ship also sailed by the Harbour. Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.

I helped Grace in developing a flyer to print out and hand to the construction workers that were working down the street to entice them to come in to our cafe.

Wouldn't be a work day without Burn complaining about Dolores of course. At the end of the day, Burn complained more to Grace.

Bought a tea leaves storage container from T2 for my chocolate chip chai. Also went to Coles to shop for some groceries, and by groceries, I mean junk food, lots of it. For those of you that thought I would lose weight on this trip, you thought wrong. 2 bags of potato chips, 3 chocolate bars: Nougat Honey  Log, Cadbury Whip, Cadbury Flake, 2 Tim Tams: Dark chocolate Rum and Raisin and Dark Chocolate Mint. Anything chocolate and mint is one of my favourite flavour combinations.

I passed by some Coke bottles that now have a new tagline on it: 'Share a coke with ___'. They have the weirdest names like Lachlan, Bianca, Hayley on them. Are these popular Australian names? Or does Coke not want you to share at all? I see they have Jake, the only common, normal name. I looked for my name, but apparently it's not weird enough to print. Close by the coke shelf was the a lot of vegemite bottles. I haven't tried it myself, so I can't comment on it yet.

Really? Lachlan? Of all the names in the world

 

 

 

 

 

While waiting at the bus stop, I saw some of my old friends. I haven't Soju in awhile. Mixed with apple juice, the alcohol is deliciously dangerous. Finally, something that is cheaper here than in Canada. I think it's between $12-$14 per bottle back home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pasta, the staple food for poor people

I wanted to spice up my pasta sauce tonight, so I added minced garlic, diced onions, diced tomato, sliced mushrooms and added ground beef. All that was poured over penne pasta, then I added shredded cheese on top and chilli flakes. I microwaved the bowl so that the cheese would melt. It tasted soooooo good.

Day 33 - October 25

Started work at 8:00am. Soooooo early. Todays roster included Sylvia, PK, Burn, Dolores. Nothing too much happened today. Just Burn being bi-polar and commanding at the same time. She's nice sometimes, then just super bossy and bitchy.

PK and I had a conversation while he was making a latte for a customer (PK fills in as the barista if Burn is on a break). He was telling me how Burn freaks out randomly, can't take any criticism and that she's very anal about certain things. For example, she likes the salt and pepper shakers facing a certain way on tables, or always being clean and tidy, yet she doesn't put the lids back on the milk jugs and honey bottles. He wants to let her know that she should put the lids on the milk and honey bottles to prevent ants and other bugs from contaminating it, but he feels that he can't even mention that to her because she'll freak out. Just then, she walks by and she asked him what he was doing and he said 'making a latte' and then asked her to pour the rest of the milk into the cup to make the latte art, but she kept asking him what he was doing and he said kept replying to ask her to make the art and she freaked out. PK and I just turned to each other and laughed. 

Why is it so hard to work with these women?! Seriously! I was talking to Adam when he came in at 12:00pm and I was telling him what happened and he just smiled and nodded his head while saying 'I know man, I know'.

For lunch today I had the chicken avocado focaccia sandwich with salad. It was actually hotter outside than in the cafe, even though it rained in the morning. The sun finally came out and I had a fantastic view of the harbour again.

I wanted to get off work early at 2:00pm instead of 4:00pm so that I could shop around a bit at the Donsbury Westfield Shopping mall, so I switched with Adam.

I took the bus from where I worked to the shopping mall. It was about a 50 minute bus ride. Part of the route was even on the highway. It was freakin far.

When I arrived at the mall, I passed by a giant ass cricket bat and ball.
Melbournians love this sport as well.

I picked up my shoes that were the last in Melbourne. My mission was finally accomplished and my feet thanked me.

They had a tea store called T2, pretty much exactly like Teaopia. I tried some samples and Turkish Cherry tasted very sweet and I liked it a lot, but my eye caught a Chocolate Chip Chai and I bought that instantly. Hope it tastes as good as it smells.

There was a couple of shoe stores that I went into, just to compare the prices of the shoes that I bought, but I got the best deal already. On the shelf, there was a weird looking shoe that I've never seen before. 
The shoes had the outlines of the toes. I asked the worker about these and he says that the makers, Vibrant, wanted to make a shoe that felt like you were walking bare feet, just like the Nike Free Runs, only Vibrant took it to the next level. I wanted to try them on to see what it was like and sure enough, it did feel like I was walking bare feet, but they looked so nasty.

By an American company, Vibrant

Looks good with dress pants

Being a geek, I heard a guy saw R2-D2 and I looked at what the guy was pointing to and they were headphones. There was also Darth Vader and a Storm Trooper to choose from. I know Dex would love these, but he doesn't wear headphones anyways.

For a low price of $129.95

They also had The Hulk and Spiderman ones

Lululemon followed me to Australia too! My sister told me a story that they franchised at one point and that's why they are in Australia, but now Lululemon Canada wants to buy it all back and keep it the way it was before, pre-franchise.

When I got home, I didn't want to make dinner from scratch again, so I put my leftovers together and ate them. Rice, Penne and pasta sauce. Kinda looked weird with the melted cheese on rice, but whatever, it was good.

Day 32 - October 24

Worked from 10:30am - 4:00pm. Lots of drama at work. The 2 girls, Burn and Rhiann had something against Dolores. I overheard Burn mentioning to Grace that she liked me because I work hard, but didn't like how Dolores was lazy. I do my job cause I don't want drama. I'm there to make money, use the money to have fun, then move on when I'm done with Melbourne. Though I could see myself living longer than a couple of months here, I don't want to make the mistake of staying too long in one city and missing out on the other places (a regret that a lot of other backpackers have).

The drama started before I even got to work. Apparently Dolores was being yelled at by Burn and Grace earlier and burst into tears and said 'I can't take this, I'm going for a smoke'. Burn and Rhiann pretty much bashed Dolores behind her back all day, it was getting ridiculous. She's probably going to get fired.

For lunch I had salad with avocadoes, pumpkin, olives, cheese, tomato, with balsamic vinegarette and chicken curry on a bed of rice. It was too cold  to sit outside as it was really windy. If it's already windy in Melbourne, it's double the wind speeds around the harbour area.






I was determined to find the Asics 2160 in black with red laces so I called all the foot lockers in Melbourne for the shoes. Figures that I finally found my size when I called the 13th store, out of  14, in Melbourne. The guy said he would hold it for me until tomorrow close. Sweet!!

On the way home, I picked up a Kit Kat cookies and cream. So goooooood. Came home to clean some more. We have a system at the house where every week, someone is designated to either throw out garbage/recyclables or do the cleaning (vacuum, wipe down the bathrooms and kitchen). There's only 2 chore titles per week and this week was my turn to do the cleaning. Since I did the garbage/recyclables last week, it means that after this week I get 2 weeks of doing nothing.