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When you can walk down the street and bump into someone you know, that place becomes more than a town, village or city, it becomes a home. Melbourne is a huge city and yet I am bumping into people I know all the time. It never fails to amaze me, how comfortable I feel in such a large city, so much larger than anything I am used to back in the UK. Without a doubt the people at the Greenhouse Backpackers on Flinders Lane is what has made it for me. We are all like one big happy family; we all laugh and cry together and even though I have only known them a few weeks I feel as if they have been a part of my life for so much longer.
My time spent in Melbourne has been brilliant and I wouldn't change a single moment of it. I love the job I have; the wage I get isn't great but I work with the most fantastic bunch of people and have a laugh everyday which makes the job not such a job and I get fed well (always important). It is a small little place and litteraly 30 seconds walk from the hostel. When Uncle Graham visited from Adelaide he said I could not have picked a coffee shop that was smaller or more like the places I had worked in back home than the one I was in. To be fair he is right. Centro Espresso Cafe is tiny, seats about twenty people and my dusties are a mixture of the ones I had in the Sandwich shop and The Sunflower Cafe; basically I make lots of sandwiches and serve customers. I work five days a week, Mon - Fri from 7am through untill roughly 2pm which is great because I have the weekends off to party and the afternoons off to nap and recover from the weekends. Hehe. Its not realy like that. We do go out most weekends, but being a backpacker I have to work on a budget which means I have mastred the art of getting other people to buy me drinks and having fun without drinking hardly anything. There are many little perks aswell... At the end of the week I get to take any leftover food home with me which means I very rarely cook for myself, my bosses have already taken me out for drinks and dinner and a customer at work keeps giving me flowers! On Valentines I recieved a single red rose and last week I recieved an entire bunch of roses. He is so silly and so sweet, but when I am 19 and he's 40+ at least it isn't anything but a bit of fun, plus all the other girls working with me get the same. It is a dilema as to what you do with flowers in a hostel though - they tend to just sit in your room and die.
When it comes to food, aswell as bringing free stuff home from work, I have managed to wangle a few free meals out of people based on bets and a few meals that I have cooked for others. The best was the bet I made with Lee that Wales would come above England in the Six Nations table, and what do you know, not only do we come above them but we also get the Grand Slam! The Six Nations wasn't shown on TV in the hostel so it meant that a whole crowd of us used to make our way out to an Irish pub (of which there are a fair few in Melbourne) to watch the matches. I would take along my Welsh flag and wave it proudly. I was definately the minority when Wales were playing Ireland. I would get an awful lot of funny looks when I shouted "C'mon Cymru" and comments about how there was no chance we would ever beat them. They quickly shut up when we did! The atmosphere was amazing though, emotions and alcohol levels running high with a number of Gaelic songs being sung in succession. I loved every single minute. Unfortunately I missed the final match against France; all the matches were broadcast live here so were at stupid time of the morning. The Wales V France match was on at 4am and we had a big day ahead of us the next day so we all headed to bed early. I knew the result soon enough though with a stream of text messages coming through from home telling me we'd won. "Cymru am Byth!"
The big day we had the next day was the Australian Grand Prix. Hehe. I decided that attending the F1 race was going to be my treat to myself whilst I was in Melbourne. The ticket cost $99 which is at least half the price of Silverstone and being in Melbourne at the time, I couldn't not go! There were a bunch of about 12 of us going, we all got up early and were at the race track and were able to findourelves a good seat on a raised grass bank with a good view of a big screen and the track in front of us. The only unfortunate thing was that nowhere had shade which meant we spent all day sweltering in 38C heat! It was HOT, no doubt about that - we were reapplying suntan lotion every hour and drinking water as if it was going out of fashion but it was worth it because boy, what a race! Out of 22 cars that started, 6 crossed the finish line. There were crashes left right and centre with 5 cars going out on the 1st corner! Hamilton won which was great for all us Brits there to support him. He even pointed at us when all the drivers went past on their parade lap :) The day wasn't over when the race finished though, we all piled onto the track and took a walk around to the pits and then went on to watch KISS perform live! WOW is the bestword to describe the gig. The music was so cheesy put the performance was outstanding, they didn't disappoint when they dressed up in their platform shoes and painted faces. There were fireworks, flames, fire breathing, zipwires - the works! We all went home that night absolutly buzzing!
There is a non stop selction of live gigs happening in Melbourne every night and aswell as seeing KISS perform live, I went with one of the receptionists from the hostel and a couple of other girls to go and see a band called 'Deaf Folk'. They were brilliant - esentially a rock band with a fiddle but they produced some amazing sounds and a great stage performance! Then this week I made Mum, Dad and Phillip so jealous wen I went to see one of my absolute favourite artists - Newton Faulkner perform live in a little social club just north of the city! I went with James, a friend from the hostel and another hard core fan. We decided to make a night of it so headed to the social club early to grab a meal and not only was it an amzing plate of fish and chips in real ale atter but we ate it at the table accros form newton faulkner himself whom was busy eating his! I couldn't believe it, there is no chance that that would have occured under any circumstance back home. The gig that follwed was AMAZING! We got into the venue as soon as the doors opened and managed to find a place litteraly 3ft from the stage. I have never seen anyone play the guitar like he does and up close its just jaw dropping. He is an odd looking fellow with long ginger dredlocks, but he produces the most incredile sounds and I have never laughed so hard!
If I am not out partying, or at gigs I tend to head out to the cinema or on Sundays I take a trip on the train to see Helen, Rob and the Boys. Although I love spending time with my friends, it is nice to esacpe to a cosy family setting. Having never met Helen, Rob or the boys before, I settled in so easily and more than once I found myself so comfortable that i feel asleep on the bean bags (shhhh!). It became a running joke between us and i promise you - I did not snore! We did so much together - we went rock climing, walking, chocolate eating and I even went camping with them one very soggy weekend down to the Ottway National Park where matt and Rob took part in a VERY muddy 50K mountain bike race. They were shattered by the and covered head to toe in mud. We all had a great time especially when Easter came round and we all went on an Easter Egg hunt around the garden. I ate a lot of chocolate that weekend and was still eating it days later. Another treat for me was gettinng the chance to meet Claire, Ken and Abby. I have never met such a beautiful child as Abby, we all had a great time playing aeroplanes and pretending to be tigger!
All in all i was in Melbourne for a total of two and a half months and loved all of it. So many memories that i will never forget and I did so much - The Australian Open, Grand Prix, Australia Day, Moonba Festival, Food Festivals, Comedy Festival and so much more. If there is one place i would come back to, it would be Melbourne. On the other hand though, I have an awful lot of Australia still left to explore! Bye bye Melbourne xxx
When you can walk down the street and bump into someone you know, that place becomes more than a town, village or city, it becomes a home. Melbourne is a huge city and yet I am bumping into people I know all the time. It never fails to amaze me, how comfortable I feel in such a large city, so much larger than anything I am used to back in the UK. Without a doubt the people at the Greenhouse Backpackers on Flinders Lane is what has made it for me. We are all like one big happy family; we all laugh and cry together and even though I have only known them a few weeks I feel as if they have been a part of my life for so much longer.
My time spent in Melbourne has been brilliant and I wouldn't change a single moment of it. I love the job I have; the wage I get isn't great but I work with the most fantastic bunch of people and have a laugh everyday which makes the job not such a job and I get fed well (always important). It is a small little place and litteraly 30 seconds walk from the hostel. When Uncle Graham visited from Adelaide he said I could not have picked a coffee shop that was smaller or more like the places I had worked in back home than the one I was in. To be fair he is right. Centro Espresso Cafe is tiny, seats about twenty people and my dusties are a mixture of the ones I had in the Sandwich shop and The Sunflower Cafe; basically I make lots of sandwiches and serve customers. I work five days a week, Mon - Fri from 7am through untill roughly 2pm which is great because I have the weekends off to party and the afternoons off to nap and recover from the weekends. Hehe. Its not realy like that. We do go out most weekends, but being a backpacker I have to work on a budget which means I have mastred the art of getting other people to buy me drinks and having fun without drinking hardly anything. There are many little perks aswell... At the end of the week I get to take any leftover food home with me which means I very rarely cook for myself, my bosses have already taken me out for drinks and dinner and a customer at work keeps giving me flowers! On Valentines I recieved a single red rose and last week I recieved an entire bunch of roses. He is so silly and so sweet, but when I am 19 and he's 40+ at least it isn't anything but a bit of fun, plus all the other girls working with me get the same. It is a dilema as to what you do with flowers in a hostel though - they tend to just sit in your room and die.
When it comes to food, aswell as bringing free stuff home from work, I have managed to wangle a few free meals out of people based on bets and a few meals that I have cooked for others. The best was the bet I made with Lee that Wales would come above England in the Six Nations table, and what do you know, not only do we come above them but we also get the Grand Slam! The Six Nations wasn't shown on TV in the hostel so it meant that a whole crowd of us used to make our way out to an Irish pub (of which there are a fair few in Melbourne) to watch the matches. I would take along my Welsh flag and wave it proudly. I was definately the minority when Wales were playing Ireland. I would get an awful lot of funny looks when I shouted "C'mon Cymru" and comments about how there was no chance we would ever beat them. They quickly shut up when we did! The atmosphere was amazing though, emotions and alcohol levels running high with a number of Gaelic songs being sung in succession. I loved every single minute. Unfortunately I missed the final match against France; all the matches were broadcast live here so were at stupid time of the morning. The Wales V France match was on at 4am and we had a big day ahead of us the next day so we all headed to bed early. I knew the result soon enough though with a stream of text messages coming through from home telling me we'd won. "Cymru am Byth!"
The big day we had the next day was the Australian Grand Prix. Hehe. I decided that attending the F1 race was going to be my treat to myself whilst I was in Melbourne. The ticket cost $99 which is at least half the price of Silverstone and being in Melbourne at the time, I couldn't not go! There were a bunch of about 12 of us going, we all got up early and were at the race track and were able to findourelves a good seat on a raised grass bank with a good view of a big screen and the track in front of us. The only unfortunate thing was that nowhere had shade which meant we spent all day sweltering in 38C heat! It was HOT, no doubt about that - we were reapplying suntan lotion every hour and drinking water as if it was going out of fashion but it was worth it because boy, what a race! Out of 22 cars that started, 6 crossed the finish line. There were crashes left right and centre with 5 cars going out on the 1st corner! Hamilton won which was great for all us Brits there to support him. He even pointed at us when all the drivers went past on their parade lap :) The day wasn't over when the race finished though, we all piled onto the track and took a walk around to the pits and then went on to watch KISS perform live! WOW is the bestword to describe the gig. The music was so cheesy put the performance was outstanding, they didn't disappoint when they dressed up in their platform shoes and painted faces. There were fireworks, flames, fire breathing, zipwires - the works! We all went home that night absolutly buzzing!
There is a non stop selction of live gigs happening in Melbourne every night and aswell as seeing KISS perform live, I went with one of the receptionists from the hostel and a couple of other girls to go and see a band called 'Deaf Folk'. They were brilliant - esentially a rock band with a fiddle but they produced some amazing sounds and a great stage performance! Then this week I made Mum, Dad and Phillip so jealous wen I went to see one of my absolute favourite artists - Newton Faulkner perform live in a little social club just north of the city! I went with James, a friend from the hostel and another hard core fan. We decided to make a night of it so headed to the social club early to grab a meal and not only was it an amzing plate of fish and chips in real ale atter but we ate it at the table accros form newton faulkner himself whom was busy eating his! I couldn't believe it, there is no chance that that would have occured under any circumstance back home. The gig that follwed was AMAZING! We got into the venue as soon as the doors opened and managed to find a place litteraly 3ft from the stage. I have never seen anyone play the guitar like he does and up close its just jaw dropping. He is an odd looking fellow with long ginger dredlocks, but he produces the most incredile sounds and I have never laughed so hard!
If I am not out partying, or at gigs I tend to head out to the cinema or on Sundays I take a trip on the train to see Helen, Rob and the Boys. Although I love spending time with my friends, it is nice to esacpe to a cosy family setting. Having never met Helen, Rob or the boys before, I settled in so easily and more than once I found myself so comfortable that i feel asleep on the bean bags (shhhh!). It became a running joke between us and i promise you - I did not snore! We did so much together - we went rock climing, walking, chocolate eating and I even went camping with them one very soggy weekend down to the Ottway National Park where matt and Rob took part in a VERY muddy 50K mountain bike race. They were shattered by the and covered head to toe in mud. We all had a great time especially when Easter came round and we all went on an Easter Egg hunt around the garden. I ate a lot of chocolate that weekend and was still eating it days later. Another treat for me was gettinng the chance to meet Claire, Ken and Abby. I have never met such a beautiful child as Abby, we all had a great time playing aeroplanes and pretending to be tigger!
All in all i was in Melbourne for a total of two and a half months and loved all of it. So many memories that i will never forget and I did so much - The Australian Open, Grand Prix, Australia Day, Moonba Festival, Food Festivals, Comedy Festival and so much more. If there is one place i would come back to, it would be Melbourne. On the other hand though, I have an awful lot of Australia still left to explore!
Bye bye Melbourne xxx
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