Having spent a cosey week in my Mums friends house it was time for me to move into the city to begin my search for a job. Moving into a really nice hostel just south of the Yarra river I began handing out CVs and applying to jobs on numerous different employment websites. Having no luck here I decided to give a friend from the Olympics a call. Cleanevent, the company I worked for back in London, has numerous contracts in Australia and I finally managed to get some work at the tennis - big relief!!
Prior to beginning work Alice was over here visiting one of her friends from work so we decided to meet up for the day and visit the Queen Vic market and the Old Melbourne Gaol. It was a really good day buying souvenirs and getting involved in some of the prison experiences that are run at the Gaol.
James and I also decided to go and visit the ACMI (Australian Centre for Moving Images) which was great fun and resulted in a rather amusing 'matrix style' video!
Working at the Australian Open was a good laugh, despite having to work night shifts. It also meant I managed to secure some other work in Adelaide, here and in Sydney over the next two months. This does mean our travel plans have changed slightly but I couldn't really miss out on the opportunity to earn a fair whack of money!
During the second week of the Open my parents were over in Melbourne which was really nice. The first evening they were here I kindly went over and cooked them dinner before work. On the Monday we went on the Tram Car Restaurant with Mums' friend Amanda, who Id been staying with over New Year. This was a really fun experience and gave us a good tour of the city.
After our tour of Melbourne and a lovely meal, we headed over to the tennis where Amanda had managed to get us tickets through Cadbury. These seats were AMAZING - only five rows from the front watching Serena Williams followed by Federer!
The following evening we went to see the production of War Horse which was also amazing but emotional. Wednesday was our dedicated 'Australian Open' day where we again had seats in he Rod Laver Arena (this time we has purchased them!) We got to hear Azarenkas screams, watch Serena Williams get knocked out by Sloane (yes!) and watch Murray beat Chardy, much to the annoyance of the french people sat next to us. That evening we decided to head to the Queen Victoria night market which was absolutely heaving, but had some awesome food on offer, from spanish paella and sangria, to burgers and potato swirls.
The following day we all headed down to Mornington Peninsula in the hope of seeing some dolphins. Unfortunately we were not lucky enough to see any, but we did get to swim with seals and relax on board the boat in the gorgeous 30oC heat! On the way back we drove along the coast and stopped along the way for some photo opportunities and a drink, before heading to Chinatown for an awesome Chinese!
The Saturday after my parents had left was Australia Day. Unfortunately I was called into work on the Friday night so I spent a good proportion of the day in bed asleep. When I did finally wake up, I met up with one of my old roommates, Jenny, and we sat in Federation Square watching the free concert, the Australian Open Women's final on the big screen and the Australia Day fireworks - all in all it was a good Australia Day!
The following day was of course the Australian Open Men's final. I managed to get cheap ground passes for myself, James and his Mum so we headed into the ground to watch the match on the big screen outside Hisense Arena. For those of you that didn't watch it, it was tense and at some points quite close, but of course, Djokovic reined victorious! It was still a great night with a great atmosphere though.
Following on from everyone's hard work over the Australian Open, the majority of us who had worked for Cleanevent decided to head out for the night. This was great fun but also hilarious with the highlight being when we all got escorted out of Crown Casino! Safe to say that we all felt pretty rough the following day.
I now have a week and a half before I leave for the Great Ocean Road and Adelaide so I will be filling my time visiting tourist attractions and hopefully my next post will be slightly more interesting than this one!
I hope you all survived the snow, and for those of you immersed in busy season, I hope it's not too horrendous!
Take care all!
x x x
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