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And so the Melbourne adventure continues……
I completed my two week assignment at the Royal District Nursing Service in St Kilda and after a few further weeks looking for a job I finally managed to secure a temporary contract working in the HR department of Metro Trains Melbourne, the company that was taking over the franchise for running the entire train network in Melbourne. By a strange coincidence, one of my friends was already working at the train company which was losing the franchise and it transpired that a few weeks later we would be working in the same office a few feet apart. Small world! My job was supposed to be a two week contract assisting the transition team with HR issues prior to the takeover of the Franchise. At least that was how it was advertised. However it turned out that I would be working there until mid January which suited me down to the ground. Especially with a week in Sydney planned for the New Year celebrations. I initially started work back in Abbotsford, where I had worked before, but I ended up moving to one of the large tower blocks in the CBD overlooking the MCG and Melbourne Park. Initially it was mainly administration work but towards the end of my contract I was sent out travelling the trains to ensure employees had filled out their HR & payroll paperwork out correctly. It was nice to get out the office, I thought, but my view quickly changed when the temperatures were hitting above the 35 degree Celsius mark and I was traipsing around train stations in shirt and trousers, sweat pouring from my body! Still, my geography of the Melbourne area has certainly improved for the experience!
Melbourne Victory V Sydney FC is considered to be the grudge match in the A-League To be honest anything involving Melbourne and Sydney is always competitive as these two cities are always trying to get one over on one-another. I had been along to watch Perth Glory V Queensland Roar while I was in Western Australia, so decided to get my football fix and head to the Etihad Stadium to watch Victory, the current champions, face Sydney FC. Sydney FC had a former Woking player in Terry McFlynn playing for them. The standard, as I described in a previous blog watching Perth Glory, is pretty poor. I guess if a player that didn't cut it at Woking is Sydney FC's captain that says a lot about the level! There were some pretty well known players on show though, albeit not in their prime. The likes of hatchet man Kevin Muscat and John Aloisi, who used to bang in the goals for Pompey when I was down there at university. But these guys are well past their best. Sydney scored three times in the first 25 minutes of the match and that was that. The Melbourne Victory defending was appalling and consequently Sydney FC had the bragging rights for awhile. Incidentally, Sydney FC went on to win the 'Grand Final' in March.
One of the biggest events in the Australian calendar is the Melbourne Cup. The Melbourne Cup is a horse race run over the flat at Flemington Racecourse and is described as 'The race that stops a nation'. It's so big that they have a public holiday in Victoria. I remember I was in Darwin at the time of the Melbourne Cup this time last year and it was big up there, everyone was all dressed up just to watch it down the pub, so I was expecting it to be pretty mad down in Victoria. I went along with a group of friends to Flemington Racecourse, which was, as you would expect very crowded. There were 200,000 race goers there, along with most of the Urban Central Hostel! Unfortunately I did not get one single winner during the day. It was shocking, which incidentally was the name of the horse that won the Melbourne Cup. I had backed a horse called Alcopop which is probably still running. As if I don't waste enough money on alcohol, I go a and back a horse named after alcohol. I also backed a horse called 'Gallions Reach' which is the name of our house back in Weston-super-Mare, but at 500-1 I wasn't expecting much! Despite the lack of winners, it was a really enjoyable day.
I mentioned in a previous blog that I had started playing football in the five-a-side for Urban Central. Well after 12 weeks of football we managed to finish in the top 5 and reach the grand finals week. No mean feat considering the trouble I went though to get a team together every week. We had to play a team called the 'Backpacker Kings' in the quarter final match and having beaten the same team 3-0 the week before, we managed to lose 3-2, the winning goal coming in the dying seconds of the match. Gutted. Especially as this team went on to win the tournament and the prize of the Elephant & Wheelbarrow trophy and a keg of beer. I'd even changed my preparation before the match and banned myself from alcohol the night before. Maybe that was the problem!
A few days after our soul-destroying defeat in the Elephant & Wheelbarrow cup it was Christmas Eve. I always enjoy Christmas Eve. There isn't the expectation and anticipation like New Years Eve and this usually makes for a more relaxed and enjoyable night. We ended up going to Fusion nightclub, which is in the Crown Casino followed by a visit to PJ O'Briens and then back to Fusion again. PJ O'Briens has become a regular 'haunt' over the past few months with many nights spent there with the hostel crowd. It was a really good atmosphere there on Christmas Eve night with all the usual Christmas classics being blurted out. It was a great night and I held back enough on the alcohol not to wake up with too much of a hangover for Christmas day……
Christmas Day was spent in Melbourne. The only plan I had was not to spend it at the hostel. They were having a meal at the hostel but having spent so much time at the hostel over the last five months I wanted to get out and do something different. I spent the morning having breakfast at a friends apartment I would say it was a champagne breakfast but my memory of whether it was Champagne or (probably more likely) Passion Pop is clouded due to a relatively heavy night on Christmas Eve. We then headed to St Kilda Beach armed with lunch and alcohol. Beach, Alcohol, food and good company. It was a really enjoyable Christmas afternoon. One of my abiding memories of Christmas day 2009 will be the tram ride home from St Kilda to the hostel where, with a large dose of Christmas spirit and an even bigger dose of alcohol our band of backpackers sung Christmas songs all the way home, much to delight of our fellow passengers who obviously hadn't bargained for a rendition of such classics as the 12 days of Christmas and Merry Christmas everybody. In hindsight it perhaps got a bit too far when Mistletoe & Wine was sung to be honest. It was a very enjoyable day rounded off nicely with a free Jaegerbomb at the Urban bar and a few more sociable drinks….
With Christmas day over attention turned to my trip to Sydney which I was really excited about. It was a relief to get out of the hostel and would be a nice change to go to Sydney. I was also meeting my sister, Laura, over in Sydney which was especially exciting as I hadn't seen her for 18 months.
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