Day 58 - November 19

Went to the Melbourne Museum. It's free for students, otherwise it's $10 for entry. Good thing my sister mailed me my University card.

I started on the middle floor where the Science and life gallery was. This included the dinosaurs, dynamics and creation of earth, sea life and bugs gallery. The dinosaur exhibits reminded me of the Royal Tyrell Museum, only a lot smaller. It also made me wish Coletin, my godson, was with me. He loves dinosaurs.

I kinda wished I didn't go through the bugs part. Although it was interesting, I hate bugs, especially spiders. The spiders were huge. The moths were also big, the size of my face. Not sure if I want to go to the northern part of Australia anymore where all the bugs are 10 times bigger.

Worst nightmare

 Atlas Moth aka WTF moth

There was a really cool part in the creation of earth exhibit. You entered a room that had a 360 degree screen (except for the doorway). It was called the Rio Tinto Volcanic 3D in AVIE by iCinema UNSW. I put on my 3D glasses and entered the room and sat with about 10 other people on the floor. It was really cool. If any of you have seen the UK Gadget Show where they constructed a real life video game simulator featuring the Battlefield 3 game, it's the exact same 360 degree screen. Check out that video here.

The next part I saw was the Forest gallery. It was boring. I moved through it quickly and headed to the next section, the Bunjilaka aboriginal cultural centre. This section included when Britain established legal control over Australia in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and how they subordinated hundreds of Indigenous nations to the crown.

I went to the next area, mind and body gallery, but was only there for 5 minutes. I decided I would come back another day where I would not be rushed as I had to work in 2 hours. I loved my psychology courses back in University so I wanted to read everything in that gallery and knew it I would not be able to see/read it all before I had to go to work.

Wanted to buy this for Coletin, but it's too freakin huge!!

I walked to a nearby street for some brunch before I headed home to change for work. I had some flake, a fried potato slice, fries and a fried piece of dim sum. What's with the fried dim sum? I've had two of these now.  What is flake you ask? Good question, time for another wikipedia lesson. "Flake is a term used in Australia to indicate the flesh of any of several species of small shark, particularly Gummy shark. The term probably arose in the late 1920s when the large-scale commercial shark fishery off the coast of Victoria was established. Until that time, shark was generally an incidental catch rather than a targeted species. Flake rapidly became popular. It has a mild flavour, a soft texture that nevertheless remains well-defined after cooking, and a clean white appearance. These qualities, combined with the ready supply and a low price, saw flake become by far the most common type of fish to be served in Australian fish and chip shops. Flake remains popular, but it is no longer especially cheap." Seems to me that flake is the hot dog of fish meat. Meh, it tasted good.

The big piece is the Flake, the top left is the potato slice and the little piece is the piece of dim sim.

There were 2 functions at work: a 30th and 21st bday. Myself and Sheldon bartended the 21st bday while Meg and Grace bartended the other party. I didn't think the younger party would drink a lot, but I was way off. Our bar did not stop serving drinks all night. These people drank their faces off. I probably over served 2 people too. Good thing there weren't any police to fine me. One of the partiers was sleeping on the couches in front of the bar haha.

When people pay by credit card, I was taught to bypass the tipping part and then select what account the customer wanted to pay under. Sheldon wasn't taught properly so he would enter the amount then just give the pinpad machine to the customer. One time he did this for a purchase of one $12.50 Jaggerbomb. He entered $12.50 then handed the pinpad to the Mia, the birthday girl. She entered her pin and handed the machine back to me. When the receipt printed out, she tipped $90.71. Obviously this was a mistake, so I told her the mistake she made. At first she was stunned for about 5 seconds, but then said, "you know what, it's all good, you guys deserve it, plus I'm drunk". Sweet! Usually Australians don't tip, even at the bar. I think from now on I will let customers enter their own information on the pinpads and hopefully make more tips that way mwa haha.

I also put out a tip glass and wrote "team Canada thanks you for the tips" and that usually gets about $20. In total, that night Sheldon and I made $150 in tips and Megs bar made about $5. haha. But I pooled our tips and split it between myself, Sheldon, Meg, PK and Afsol. Sheldon didn't agree, but too bad, I'm in charge and it's only fair.

Took the Nightrider bus home. This time I locked my bike by the bus stop so that I could get home faster. Normally I would have to walk for about 15 minutes from the bus stop (since that's the closest night rider bus stop to my house) but with the bike it took 3 minutes. I'm a genius!

The hand-me-down bike from Paul and Jenn. It has served me well.