Day 62 - November 23

Went to see the Tutankhamun exhibit at the Melbourne museum. Purchased a student ticket for $26.50 and also watched the extra 3D show. The exhibit was all about King Tut. To sum up his story, he was pretty much the youngest Pharaoh ruling at the age of 9. He made his people happy by reversing several changes made during his father's reign. The people worshipped him as a god. He died of unknown causes at the young age of 19 (1323 BC). His tomb, located in the Valley of the Kings, was discovered almost completely intact. It is the most complete ancient Egyptian royal tomb ever found. The only thing not shown at the exhibit was King Tut's tomb. It is resting in the Valley of the Kings. Seeing this exhibit makes me want to go see the actual tomb in Egypt.

This is a duplicate of King Tut's remains at the museum.

I also saw Australia's first computer. Check out the stats of it in the photos.

Afterwards I decided to check out Smith Street. I passed by a Vietnamese restaurant and suddenly had a craving for pho. Haven't had it in at least 2 months, which is a rarity. The noodles were different, slightly wider and they gave me a lemon instead of a lime, but still delicious.

I passed by an Asian bakery and saw a giant 'daan tat' (egg tart) and had to buy it. It turned out to be custard, but still pretty good.

Also passed by a Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man. Click here to see why it's funny.

African American? Hail a cab.

Raise the roof!

Got a text from Grace that Burn was fired. I texted Meg the news and she called me instantly. She was as happy as I was. 

Walked to Joe's house, where Jenn and Paul used to live. They left a bike lock behind for me. Took the bus back home from Joe's house then rode my bike to Coles. Bought ingredients to make spicy butter chicken with onion, carrots and potato. One of the best dishes I've made in Australia so far.

Day 61 - November 22

Sweet, Burn was still sick (I wonder if she knows she's getting fired). There was a new barista working, an asian named Ollie. Although he made great coffee, he didn't speak english very well.

Had a new kitchen hand start today as they needed someone to help PK in the back. Her name is Layla and she's from England. Nichola, Julie and Cal also worked today.

Cal was being lazy again. He didn't have his master, Burn, working today so he knew he could relax. I felt great about work. I worked harder than when Burn is here barking orders at us. Her attitude makes me resent her and not want to do what she asks.

Since there were so many of us, Grace asked if I wanted to leave early at 1:45pm. I agreed since I started work at 7:30am. I also asked if I could have tomorrow off and she agreed.

I texted Noemi to see if she wanted to meet up for coffee since I knew she was done class at 1:30pm. She texted back that she was near Melbourne Central station. We met there. She bought a chicken burger from Hungry Jacks and I bought a Rum cake and cappuccino from Michel's Patisserie.

We talked about what we used to do and why we're in Melbourne. She used to be a Psychologist back in Spain. She then closed down her office and left everything behind for her boyfriend and moved to England. Their relationship didn't work out so she moved back to Spain. Then she didn't know what to do. On a whim, she decided to take an English course in Melbourne.

After our chat, we walked to where I took my RSA course since she also wanted to take that course. I also showed her where Pinnacle was so that she knew where to go to apply. We took the bus home after that and just hung out for the rest of the day.

Day 60 - November 21

On the train ride to work I was dreading to work with Burn. When I entered the cafe, Burn wasn't working. Grace was at the coffee machine (she also knew how to make coffee). I asked her where Burn was and she walked up to me and said that she was going to fire her sometime this week. I couldn't help but smile. I said "awesome" and Grace gave me a smile and hug. That was random, but I didn't care as Burn was getting fired.

This is all I could think of when I heard burn was fired. Ding dong...

A new girl arrived for a trial. Her name was Nichola and she was from New Zealand. She seemed a little odd. I can't really describe it, but she was a little off somehow. It was very subtle though.

I had mustard and honey pork for dinner. It was the left over from work that didn't sell. Free food is good food.

Oscar was playing around outside.

More from the mX newspaper:

Day 59 - November 20

PK's bday. I bought him Backstreet Boys greatest hits cd, he loved it! haha. I met his sister, cousins and friends. Julie also came and brought her friend Victor.

We ate authentic Indian food, so good!! Then PK and his friends started dancing in the living room to brown music. It was funny. Then the rest of us non-brown crew joined it. It was a lot of fun. I tried to dance like them, but it was tough. Their dancing is like a work out with the arms flailing and their legs kicking straight out.

Me, PK and Julie

He loves the BSB's

I traded phone numbers with Julie, whom used to work with us. I told her that we should explore and sight see Melbourne together and she agreed. Everything is more fun with other people.

Victor was nice enough to give me a ride home.

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.

Day 57 - November 18

Worked a long shift, like every Friday. Sheldon, the Canadian from Toronto, worked the latter half of the day with me. I think Grace only wants him to work bartending shifts on Friday and Saturday nights. He has a sense of humour that is a little different in that it may come off as a bit offensive, but sometimes it's funny.

Got home late and talked to Noemi for a bit. Since Raul was leaving for vacation for 2 months, he put an ad out for someone to rent his room for that time so that he could save money. Noemi answered that ad. She came to Australia to take an English course. She arrived in Melbourne about a week ago and stayed at the Elephant backpackers hostel on Flinders and said it was terrible. Apparently the walls between the rooms don't go all the way up. She said she could hear people crying, farting and having sex. A backpackers worst nightmare or a creepy persons heaven. You decide.

I had some vegemite on toast. Yuck, not the greatest thing in the world as Australians seem to think. I did try some vegemite flavoured chips though. It tasted okay, but I wouldn't buy it again.

Day 56 - November 17

Just another day at work. Nothing exciting.

Raul's cousin flew in. He was staying with us for 1 night. Then him and Raul were leaving the next day for their trip all over Australia. They rented a van to do the traveling.

I tried talking to Raul's cousin, but his English was very, very limited. Raul had to translate for him.
They went to sleep early as they had a very early start the next day.

Oscar was sleeping in the living room on the couch as usual. I sometimes try to see how close I can sneak up on him. Watch the video to find out how close I got and his patent pawing.

His meow when he wakes is actually "WTF?!"

Day 55 - November 16

Walked to my train station, Dennis, from my house. It's about an 8 minute walk. Rode the train to Southern Cross station. It toook about 17 minutes. When I work at 10:30am, there's not a lot of people riding the train so I always get a seat. When I work at 8:30am, it's so packed that I never get to sit.

Dennis Station, not sure why this looks like it was taken in the 80's

Southern Cross Station from the outside

Southern Cross Station from the inside. My train stops on platform 9.

Once I get off the train, I walk past the Etihad Stadium and cross the street to the Docklands where Harbour Kitchen is.

It was a better day at work. Though Burn still had some comments that were just unnessary, but they weren't as frequent today as they usually were.

Went shopping with PK after work as he was looking for some gifts to bring back home when he leaves for India next month. We shopped at the Southern Cross Station where a shopping mall is attached to it. It was a mix of regular stores and outlets. There's a shopping mall at this station because this is where all major domestic bus and trains stop in Melbourne.

I didn't buy anything at this mall, which once again was very difficult, but I did buy Oyster sauce for my gai lan (chinese veggies). It was almost like home cooked food, only not as good as my dad does it. Actually, not even close to how awesome my dad makes food. I miss it a lot.

Mmmmm Gai Lan with Oyster Sauce, a Chinese staple vegetable

Along with my rice, all I need now is fish, duck, and chicken and I'll have my self an Asian feast. Maybe I can add in Shark Fin soup and an Abalone just to be a bit posh.

Abalone - one of the top Asian delicacies

Here are my house mates!!

Me, Oscar, Zeena, Raul and Nic

Day 54 - November 15

There were so many instances today where Burn, the barista, would just have to have the last say. Too bad, I wouldn't give her the pleasure. If she said something that was ridiculous or telling me to do something that I was already going to do, I would respond back. I could see that she was getting annoyed by it, so I thought it would be fun to keep it going.

There was at one point where she asked me to speak to her in the pavilion. Perfect, this will be a good time to put it all out. I started by saying, "look I know we both don't like each other, but I'm only here until January. We should just get along until then". She couldn't even look me in the eye when we were talking. She seemed like she was nervously looking around. Though we came to the conclusion that we'll just try to get along and do our jobs, I think the conversation fell on deaf ears...deaf ugly ears haha.

Meg was done at 2:30pm and I finished at 3:00pm, but we all had to be back for a staff meeting at 4:00pm. During the staff meeting, Grace tried to control the meeting, but Burn and PK were kind of butting in while she talked. Apparently there was $264 missing from the tills a couple of days ago. Grace said that she will be splitting the difference with the 6 people that were working that day out of our pay. We all lost $44. Not sure who stole the money. I think it was a till issue. During the busy times in the afternoon, there are 4 of us behind the counter sharing 2 tills. If one of us is in the middle of a transaction, another person will cash out the current transaction because they want to quickly serve their customers (which they shouldn't be doing, they should wait until the trasnaction is fully done before using the till). This usually happens with the newbies.

Also during the staff meeting, Grace announced that Burn is the new cafe manager! Oh geez, I felt like quitting right then and there. Then Grace announced that I was the new event manager. She mentioned that I would help her out with the event planning and such, but she never told me that I would have an official title or anything. Raise?

Not sure what to think of the meeting. I know that Burn will be even more on a power trip. I think I'd rather just work nights when there are events and avoid working in the day times.

After work I met up with Jenn and Paul for their going away party. They were leaving for Perth in a couple of days. We had a couple of drinks at Tuscan, a rooftop bar on Bourke Street. Natalie was there, whom I haven't seen since our Canadian Thanksgiving party, and Jenn's other co-workers Sonja and another Natalie.

Natalie, Natalie, Lesbian Jenn, Sonja

We sat at a table that was at the edge of the rooftop. It started raining, so the waiter suggested we move to the table next to us as he could expand the retractable rain cover. After about 10 mins, it stopped raining. The waiter decided to retract the cover. It started raining again after 15 mins. HE came back to expand the cover again. It happened a couple more times. It was comical.

After chatting over drinks, we all decided to grab a bite to eat. We walked across the street to an Indian restaurant. They had a special deal going on. We all ordered it. I got the butter chicken and lamb rogan josh.

 A good Indian deal

Everything was good except the so called salad

Jenn and I were talking about how Paul can't eat spicy foods. He'll start sweating if it's even remotely spicy. I now know his kryptonite mwa haha.

 

Day 53 - November 14

Ugh, another short shift from 10:30am - 2:00pm. I decided to walk to Melbourne Central station since that's where I mostly shop for my groceries and it's also where my bus stop is. This time I walked up Lonsdale Street towards Melbourne Central. Only thing that caught my eye was a travel agency. They had a lot of booklets on sight-seeing around Australia. I grabbed 10 different ones so that I can start planning the rest of my Australia trip.

Guess I should show you my home. The house has 3 bedrooms, 1 living room, 1 kitchen, 1 laundry room, 1 toilet room and 1 bathroom (no toilet).

1 - This is the front entrance to the house, to the left would be the entrance to the living room, straight ahead is the door to the toilet, to the left of that is the hallway to the kitchen, to the right of the toilet door is Zeena's and Nicholas' room and immediately to the right is my room
2 - If you turned left from the front entrance, you will enter the living room. There are doors for our living room. To the left would be the tv and fireplace, in front and to the right are couches.

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3 - The tv and fireplace. Also, if it's raining outside, we dry our clothes inside by the fireplace.
4 - My room. If you must know, my blanket pattern includes the moon, sun, stars and saturn. I also have my trusty radiator.

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5 - My office desk where my laptop usually sits. I also have a really old crt tv hidden underneath.
6 - My drawers and shelving unit. My shelving unit is also my junk food storage area.

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7 - This is the other corner of my bedroom. There's a chair with my huge travel backpack on top and some clothes.
8 - The toilet room. That's all there is in this narrow room. There is no sink.

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9 - The sink and bathtub are located next door in this room. Weird.
10 - The showerhead is in the middle of the bathtub, not on the end. Even more weird. The ducks on the shower curtain have a giant 'X' for their butthole, not that weird, okay maybe just a little.

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11 - The entrance to the kitchen, which also has a door. Straight ahead is the mircowave and refridgerator. Immediately to the left of that is Raul's room.
12 - The other side of the kitchen, where the sink is. The door, straight ahead, leads to the laundry room and to the backyard.

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13 - The other, other side of the kitchen.
14 - Our ancient stove to the left, which needs to be lit like a BBQ. We turn on the gas for the stovetop and light it with a manual spark. Straight ahead is what you'll mostly find in all houses in Melbourne, a coffee machine. That machine saves lives. It can give you CPR, only it doesn't breathe air into your mouth, just delicious lattes.

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15 - This is the doorway to the laundry room. There's a small room to the left where the washing machine is and straight ahead is the way out to the backyard. The orange bin is full of Oscars food and his food dish is beside that. That's his dinner table, only there's no table. Dinner floor will suffice.
16 - The laundry room, only there's no dryer. Melbournians like to try and save the planet so they try and save money by drying clothes with the sun. Side note - There is a hole in the ozone layer above Australia. That's why the heat is more intense here.

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17 - The backyard. Zeena likes to plant a lot of things. It's actually not a bad garden.
18 - Our 'Little House on the Prairie' style clothes dryer. I'm pretty sure I can connect with outer space with that thing. To the right is our patio furniture.

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A lot of the stuff in this house is either donated to Zeena or she found it on the side of the road. A lot of people leave their unwanted items on their lawn. Then people like Zeena come by and just take it away. It's very common here.

Another edition of Overheard and Lost in Love from the daily mX newspapers.

I second what 'Truth' said, who doesn't?!