Bored and loud.

After coping with UK public transport, I thought I’d seen some of the worst there was. My village had no transport on Sundays, one train every half an hour, and buses either every hour or half hour, and only until 6pm. Trains were in bad condition, but despite many people complaining about late trains, I rarely had a problem. Granted they weren’t up to the same standard as German timetables, but they were on time 95% of the time. I’d heard some shock stories about trains in Sydney from expats, saying that if they didn’t turn up after 10 minutes, everyone could assume the train wasn’t coming. Having spent a week and a half using trains to get to work here in Melbourne, I guess you could say I’m now accquainted with the public transport service here. Now, as an example of how they run, imagine somebody says they’ll meet you for lunch at 1pm. You’d usually expect them to come at 1ish, maybe a few minutes later (unless they’re like a number of my friensd, in which case they’ll arrive by 2pm or maybe after!) Trains run in a similar fashion. If the timetable says 8.10am, it will usually arrive at the station by 8.11 or 8.12am and leave maybe a minute later. It’s a more realistic, life-like timetable which has saved me from being late a number of times already!!

However, one main downside to the trains running in Melbourne is the announcements on them, or lack thereof. The train services I used in the UK had all stations that train would call at listed on a sign on the platform of all stations (here it is only at major stations). The majority of trains would have accouncements on the train at each stop stating which train it was, all the stations it was due to call at and the final destination, often with the arrival time. I’ve been quite unsure about travelling here because although some station do an accouncement of which train service it is, once on the train, it isn’t always said which stations the train calls at. Only on some services (apparently randomly), do they announce each station as you arrive - although there is a scrolling text telling you. So I end up slightly less confident which train I’m on, particularly as they aren’t always running on time - I never know whether to trust the board or not, and once on the train I have to wait until it starts travelling and I actually reach my destination to be sure that I am on the right train.

Now, at work, I’ve had plently of time to read news websites and catchup on current affairs because there isn’t a huge amount of work for me to be doing. As I was reading some, I came across this one.

” “We don’t want to see the world’s wost weapons get into the world’s worst hands,” he told the Fox television network.
“So, we are definitely on this case.” “

It’s my understanding that the USA has more nuclear weapons than the rest of the world put together, and many would consider his hands to be the worst in the world. Worried about a few little nukes in Iran? Why aren’t we panicking about the state of the USA at the moment - men being jailed for paedophilic polygamy, Qian Xue’s father presumably somewhere there, and still they continue to execute prisoners who are potentially innocent? We can’t forget to mention that the Bible belt has the highest teenage pregnancy rate of the Western world too! Greatest country in the world (as quoted by Borat..)

Over the past week or so, I’ve mostly just been settling in. I finally put my bed frame together, as donated by my house-mate, so now I’m off the floor, hurrah! However, it’s not very stable and so I’ve since taken it apart and am back on the floor! Today I went out and purchased my own bed, which should be coming within a week! I have also received a phonecall regarding my broken wardrobe - somebody should be coming to either fix or take away (and hopefully replace) it. It came with the house, and is held together by masking tape across the back. All the sides are misaligned, so the doors don’t sit straight, and well, to be honest, I’m scared that if I put anything in there, it’d collapse. So the house is coming together, quite literally, and hopefully we should have money to start sorting out more furniture and appliances soon!

Before I left, I shipped out a few cartons of stuff so that I could have all my sentimental possessions, my CD and DVD collections and more clothes over here. Amber was most kind and collected them for me, so despite having nowhere to put it all, I now have lots of material possessions! This also means that I can stop wearing the same damn skirt to work every single day. I also have choice about the tops I wear, other than whatever-isn’t-in-the-wash-or-drying. It’s quite a novelty..but guaranteed that soon I’ll be bored and claiming I have nothing to wear again.

I’ve finished my second week of work for the council, but this last week I seem to have more data entry to do than the first week. I feel like screaming, ‘PLEASE, SOMEBODY, USE ME!’ but of course that would be most inappropriate for an office environment. Wouldn’t it? The temping agency that has taken me on has also lined up work for next week, so at least that’s 3 weeks’ of wages I’ll have at least! Although I could probably manage to work just 4 days a week, I’d rather earn excessively now - initially so I can have nights out and afford furniture, but if I’m accepted into university, I’m going to have quite a few intial costs, as well as not being able to work as much. I’m not sure whether my agency will find me part time work, or whether I’ll find bar or waitressing work for the evenings, but I guess I’ll have to wait until I have my timetable through (and my acceptance letter would help!)

So far I guess I haven’t done many ‘Melbourne’ things. I’ve been to the Espy, I’ve been to the Corner and I’ve walked through Fed Square (for the Chinese Moon Festival - quite disappointing, at least it was in the afternoon.) A couple of family friends from Adelaide who were in town for a few days took me out for lunch on Lygon Street which was delicious, then onto Brunettis for a gelati dessert! It was good to see them, after all, I haven’t been in Adelaide since 2003! Depending on how my saving plan goes, I may try to visit Adelaide in the new year. Mainly to see my Grandma, but also friends I haven’t seen in years. I would quite like to take the train across, as during the day I would see much more of the country and potentially be able to take many more photos. I guess we can wait and see how that goes though. At the moment a few of my friends are looking at going to New York at the end of next year for a month, and although I’d love to join them, I’m not sure I could afford to stay out there that long. Perhaps I can go out for a week, I’ll have to see how my money goes over the next year though!

I took this photo last week as an example of a normal sized residential street in the nice neighbourhoods of central Melbourne.

I finally concluded that the size of the streets is the reason I get disoriented - with residential streets being so big, I don’t associate them with the little lines on a map!

Coming to the end of my second week here in Melbourne, and I’ve begun to feel at home. I have a job starting on Monday, as a temp for a recruitment agency, and it sounds like most of my jobs will be short term, with a potential 2 week assignment, followed by a 1 week assignment. Despite the rately hour being better than the others in my house, I also have no sick pay or annual leave, and less job security.  I had had previous interviews, for a waitressing job and working for a promotions agency. I received a call accepting me for training and a trial with the promotions agency as I arrived for the interview with the recruitment agency, which was a little awkward! I was given the first assignment for the recruitment agency immediately, and settled on that for 2 main reasons. Pay and sitting down! With bad knees, standing for the majority of 8 hours a day would not go so well, especially when I don’t have the incentive of higher pay.  So starting on Monday, I will be doing mainly data entry for a local council.

I have been out for several meals since arriving here (our cupboards are quite bare!) and driven all the way out to the sticks to visit a friend. Driving out, I understood a main difference between Australia and UK. In Australia, there is a relatively spread out city, surrounded by suburbs - with interspersed parks and reserves, but no real ’space’ until you reach the edge of the suburbs, and hit bush. In the UK, there are cities, towns and villages, with farmland and woods in between, until you reach coast. Australia’s main residential areas are based around the coast, and farmland is situated around it all, rather than being in between and separating the towns and villages, as it does in the UK.

A few more notes about driving, leading on from my previous comments. The main one is that people have clutch control! In the UK, new drivers are taught to put on the hand-brake when stopping on a hill - but then never given chances to practice not doing so. In Australia, when traffic stops on a hill, brake lights still shine and cars don’t roll because they practice stopping, coming to the bite point and then accelerating - without rolling back. Cars also leave larger gaps between each other, which in the UK, greatly annoyed me, but in Australia makes sense. There is simply more space, with less traffic and wider roads.

Anyway, I shall update this more later on when things change and I notice more changes!

On first impressions, Melbourne reminds me of Vancouver. The roads are wide and open, the centre of the city has both tourists and locals mingling continuously and everything appears to be very people-friendly. The parks and streets are all clean and wide, and there seems to be endless space – even living close to the centre of Melbourne wouldn’t be as claustrophobic as living anywhere in London – or anywhere inside the M25!

The price of petrol, 114.9, is incredible compared to the prices in the south-east of England; but public transport is so extensive that it really just becomes choice whether to drive, catch a tram or bus, or even to walk on the wide, clean, flat pavements! Although I have been in a car very little the past few days, the driving style is noticeably different. With wider roads, you’d expect it to be much more relaxed, but drivers are more assertive, although for the most part, polite.

My house is beautiful. Although relatively old, it is well kept with high ceilings in all the rooms, bright and clear lighting, and – something I have missed considerably – a tiled bathroom! I never did understand the carpeted bathrooms in England. We have a separate laundry room, a paved small garden (a sacrifice we make for being close to the city) and even a cat hole in the bathroom. (There is a cat flap, but without the flap, hence a cat hole.) The house is quite large considering it’s location, and despite comments from my house mates about it being on the small side, I am pretty sure it’s larger than my family home in England, even taking into account the extra bedroom. The other thing I’ve noticed so far, is the fly-screen on the front door; there was simply no use for them in England.

Although still recovering from jetlag, I’ve been for a walk to the city and had my first Australian barbeque (with noticeably better meat than found in Tesco). By calendar, it is the beginning of spring, and daily it reaches approximately 20 degrees, so similar to what I was experiencing in the current English anti-summer. However, with colder nights, no central heating and considerable jetlag, I am feeling the cold much more that I ought to be! There’s also quite a breeze coming through sometimes, which makes it seem even colder.

The internet has just been set up in the house (literally, now), but having forgotten my adaptor, this laptop is just about to run out of battery (while I’ve drafted this entry). So, hopefully I shall obtain an adaptor today, and will be uploading this and probably many other entries in the near future!