Bunnies, BBQ and boards…

I hope everyone had an amazing Easter… while other than an Easter egg hunt at work and making mini-cheesecakes that looked like Easter baskets the Easter celebration was pretty minimal.

It was a weekend hanging out with expats and celebrating the long weekend. On Friday…forgetting that it was Good Friday… I had a baking endeavour at Carolyn and Brad’s while the girls were my taste testers and then we had a massive BBQ. It was really awesome, felt like something that would happen at home. As well Carolyn and Brad are from Nova Scotia so they remind me of home in all the best ways. They are also the first East Coasters that I have met since moving to Australia.

Saturday was a surf competition at Bell’s Beach, where Rip Curl started. It was the women’s comp and we got to see some of the best women in the world, very cool to see what those women can do. I also have great appreciation for them because I was ridiculously horrible at surfing. The big downside to the day way the public transport…it took us four hours to get there and four hours to return… not a venture I would take on again.

My weekend clued up with a couple of hours of Frisbee practice and a game. Only a week and a half until Perth now! I am really excited and the next several days are mainly focussed on Frisbee. I have sorted accommodation, food, costumes and transport for 15 girls…now I need to buy a return ticket, find a place to live for when I get back and figure out some kind of game plan for my next couple of months…minor stuff really…

Are we human or are we dancers?

This past weekend was V-festival weekend. The line-up included Snow Patrol, The Killers, Kiser Chiefs, Elbow, Razorlight and many many more. Highlight of the night was Snow Patrol for me, mainly because they remind me of living in Scotland and they played most of their old good music…not so much the new. The other bands were also really great, I have to say I was very impressed overall. The sad part about the day was that Vanilla Ice was playing but it was too packed to get around the stage to see him… ah well…you can’t watch everything… I also don’t know if his repertoire still includes “Ice Ice Baby.”

The rest of the weekend was recovery from the festival, a delightful walk in the botanical gardens, brunch with Kat, drinks with the Frisbee people and running around fields. All around pretty classic.

Only two weeks until Perth, I must admit I am getting pretty excited. I still absolutely adore Melbourne but I get itchy feet if I don’t get to see somewhere new after a while. I also think it will be a really fun trip travelling with 15 girls across the country to play. We are all staying together in three villas on a beach in Scarborough about 15 minutes outside of Perth. Each night there is some kind of social activity cluing up with a fancy dress cops and robbers party. I believe a team theme will be in order. I will be staying for a couple of extra days to see around Perth, but I think in total it will only be a week long trip, then starting the job hunt again.

By the middle of May I have to decide when I am coming home… I still haven’t thought much further then Perth. It will probably depend on if I find another good job in Melbourne or not, so far I have been pretty lucky with how things have worked out. Who knows what the next adventure could be.

Picture time!

Lots of random stuff... a root beer float, frisbee layout practice on the beach, Moomba festival, Southbank and St. Paddy's.

Life is a dance video…

The current music obsession is Vampire Weekend… I can’t help but feel happy when it's on and compelled to dance. I feel this may become problematic because I am bound to be embarrassed eventually when I realize that while twirling on my way home from work there are actually people around. For the moment I have been keeping it to a shimmy step on occasion… however I worry that my anonymity in this huge city may make me bust a move* in an inappropriate time or place. Last night at 11:30 because it was raining Kat (my flatmate) and I decided that it was the perfect time to have a dance party on the street… no drinking involved. It was a pretty great moment.

This past weekend was pretty low key. Maria and I hung out on Friday night and I went to a Frisbee exhibition game and out with the Frisbee group on Saturday night. Melbourne really feels like home in a weird way, I can’t get over how quickly it feels like this. As well, in good news it looks like I will have my temp job with the Victorian Cancer Biobank until I head to Perth on April 22nd, I will come back to Melbourne after Perth and sort out my plan from there. I need to decide soon what date I want to move my ticket to, June doesn’t really seem like enough time.

Right now is one of those moments in life where things are pretty great, nothing is overly spectacular but I am really happy. Just really appreciating life right now.

*For the record I am a miserable dancer… while at times I may be entertaining there is nothing elegant or attractive about me dancing… but I love it.

Shakin’ things up

Quite literally things re getting shaken up… I felt my first ever earthquake, it was a 4.6 in magnitude. While the building that I was in was pretty far away from the epicentre it was still pretty crazy. Mainly because I know it isn’t the wind causing it, unlike at home. Everyone in the office stopped to ask if each other felt it, kind of like when the lights blink at home. They are predicting the possibility of more earthquakes but I have to say I am in no rush to experience that again.

Life at he moment is pretty much Frisbee and work focused. With nationals only four weeks away the team has stepped it up to the next level, I am really looking forward to how much we improve over the next several weeks.

Regionals were awesome! Picture this, 24 girls sleeping in one house on every random free space on the floor, 7 games in 3 days, a tournament party that involved selecting a card and following through on a random action that was assigned to the card and Jo making 30 people spaghetti bolognaise. I am really looking forward to nationals at the end of April.

Summer comes to a close…

Yesterday was Labour day here in Victoria…which seems really strange, it was no where near a Labour day weekend at home. Mainly because the weather was still really nice and there were no thoughts of university orientation on my mind.

I had a fabulous weekend that was jam packed with all kinds of random things. I think it is one of my favourite weekends that I have had in Australia, possibly for its simplicity and the fact that I am madly in love with Melbourne as a city. The weekend started with a Friday night pint with one of the girls that I live with at the bar around the corner from us that we have decided will be our regular haunt. It was no big deal just a pint and watching a really good acoustic set, something I never got to do at all in Brisbane (the watch an acoustic set part).

Saturday Lena (other flatmate) and I went to the Parham Market to check things out. From this experience I have decided that I am no longer going to rely on Supermarkets. The produce at the market is much cheaper, fresher and better for the environment. They also have everything from organic products, produce, meat, dips, cheese, deserts… pretty much anything you can imagine. Post this endeavour my fruit and veg consumption has drastically risen. Later that night Lena and I went to the sold out Josh Pyke concert which was also fabulous, he is Australian so it was pretty cool to check out someone a little more local.

Sunday I did a little shopping around Chapel street and replaced a pair of worn out shoes… I couldn’t really afford much else since most of the shops on Chapel are pretty swanky. After that I went to Honey Bee practice (Frisbee nationals team) and after the team went out for dinner at a hole in the wall restaurant in an ally of China town, I couldn’t eat too much of the food but the fried rice and the company was great.

To clue up the weekend I went to the Moomba water festival to see a little beach volleyball, went to watch a super competitive Frisbee game, went for a Frisbee toss and played a game to end the evening.

Somehow I am back to a life where there doesn’t seem like enough hours in the day. There is just so much to do around Melbourne that I am sure you would never run out of new and interesting things.

This week is basically just work work work. Two days this week I picked up extra evening work, so I will work from 8:30am-5pm and 6-10pm but it will be nice for the bankbook and on the weekend I head to Ballarat regionals for my first tournament with this team.

It seems weekends are much more enjoyable or appreciated when you work during the week…

Rain rain go away...

It is all coming together here in Melbourne. The last couple of days in Melbourne have been a little dreary; it has been raining and ‘cold’ by my current standards. However, with all of the threats of additional bushfires it is probably a good thing. I started work on Tuesday so the weather hasn’t really bothered me too much; at least I’m not trying to entertain myself for cheap when the weather is bad :)

What’s new…
· I got asked to go to Perth with the Honey Bee team, so that’s ladies ultimate Frisbee nationals. I am pretty excited I got asked after only playing with them for a couple of weeks, I really didn’t think I would find a team. It is a four day tournament starting on April 23rd. It works out well because this contract should be over by then…now I just have to save save save!
· I switched houses, I was living in a smaller house with only two girls but we moved over into a much nicer house that I share with five other girls. It still isn’t ideal but they are fun to hang out with and it is in a great location.
· My iPod broke L I don’t think I realized how dependant I am on it until it was gone… you know the classic saying you never know what you have until it’s gone… I am going to see if I can get it fixed on the weekend, fingers crossed.
· I have come to realize that I have no game plan for the next six months of this trip… as well I have been officially gone for over six months a couple of days ago. It seems I have reached my goal of wanting to settle down and get into a job I really care about. I am torn between heading back to Canada and stepping back into ‘real life’, trying to find a job in my field here or spending the next six months in Australia because I can and worry about growing up later. It seems every time in the last couple of weeks that I thought I had a plan sorted something seems to change it. The goal is once I finish this job, so four to six weeks, is to determine where to go next and a possible return date. As of now my ticket home is in June…
· Oh and on a city experience note I went to the Market on Saturday. It was really great; I didn’t buy anything because a lot of it I don’t think anyone should buy, but just walking around, taking in the people and buzz around it was really cool. I think those are places you could people watch all day. This weekend is Labour Day weekend, because it is the end of summer here after all… I think I will head to the beach while I still can and weather dependent visit the Botanical Gardens. The Josh Pyke concert is this weekend as well so I think it should be a pretty good one.