Once more a nomad...

I have once more become a nomad and moved out of 41 Bennett Street yesterday, although not far, as I am literally around the corner from the North Fitzroy crew. Last week after more house hunting, Marta decided to become my estate agent and phoned her friend Matt, who lives round the corner and we went round for tea. Yay! A decent flat, close to the tram, one lovely cat called Molly, and Matt who is a lawyer / musician. My room is small but rent is super cheap so I am saving loads of cash for travelling.

Australia day dawned brightly and Ram and I set off for Ikea in Richmond - I did not know what I was getting myself into and if it wasn't for Ram's moral support I would have run out screaming and would have happily slept of the floor for the next two months. They have designed the store as a maze so you are literally trapped in there for hours. I almost killed some brats in the kitchen department when they decided to set off all the egg timers, forcing the 20 babies in the near vacinity to start screaming and their parents were totally oblivious. Other brats blocked the isles screaming at their parents because ther were no toys to play with. We eventually made it to the self service warehouse, were you collect your furniture which you have chosen from one of the desplay areas, when someone stoll my trolly with my coded piece of paper! Sob! I couldn't face it, but it was propably because Ram and I had taken a break and were racing down desserted warehouse isles on our other trolly! Oh well, I eventually found some one to help me and then just gave up and grabbed a futon. Much easier and lighter. After finally paying for everything and escaping 3 hours later, I was ready to take up smoking, hypoglucimic and dazed by sunshine after all the flourencent lighting. Needless to say we had to go out for a drink that evening and unsuccessfully attempted to celebrate Australia day by finding some berry palvova icecream.

Yesterday was moving day, which consisted of three of us carrying my things round to St Georges St, Tally carrying my bed base in her shopping trolly and me with my matress on my sholder. We were accosted by an Aussie shelia, in a sweat pants suit, with paroxided hair, swigging brandy and cola from a tin and walking a maltese poodle. She shouted at us from across the road, demanding to know where the blokes were to carry my stuff. Well the blokes were not needed as Tal and I assembled my bed and sorted everything out and I have blisters on my hands to prove it!

Too much tequila...

Preparations for Bollywood at Bennett St began rather late on Saturday after a lazy lie in - we were all still recovering from the lack of sleep from Thursday evening and Tal's impromptu production on Friday night... After running around in th rain sorcing posters, alcohol etc we wrapped our selves in curtains, decorated the house in candles and rose petals and put on the soundtrack of Monsoon Wedding, praying that no-one caught alight in their 100% rayon outfits.

Well Tally's punch was fantastic (a bit too strong...) and got the party going. Soon there were 100 people in out house all wearing bindis freshly flown in from Syndey, thanks to Greg, our personal shopper and the party had began. Oi va voi it all gets a bit blurry from there but there were people still dancing at 6am in our lounge to Bon Jovi leaping around like maniacs.

Thank God for tomatoe soup, tea and Grey's anatomy to get you over the pain of tequilla and Tal's punch. Ram and I even made rusks!

Bollywood at Bennett Street

Get out your saris and your dancing moves for the party of the year! We are preparing ourselves for a Bollywood party this evening in honour of Ram's return to Aus, Lieu and Marta moving in and my bithday. Thursday was the warm up party and we have been busy all morning buying bangles, movie soundtracks, booze etc. I will be wrapping myself up in a curtain and the outfits are planned. Photos will follow and no doubt a few crazy stories. We are expecting about 150 people and have two djs lined up for the festivities....

Employed but homeless!

The good news is that I'm employed, but I am homeless and have been too depressed by the state of houses to bring myself to write about this horrendous ordeal. Oh, hyperbole for effect! I am not homeless as I am still staying with Tal in her fabulous house, but seriously, I have been into some revolting houses.

The first was dark, so dirty that I didn't want to touch anything and had unidentified organisms growing in the kitchen sink. The frightening thing was that it was owned by a teacher, someone who is meant to be educating young minds about the world (including hygiene) and it was next to a cemetary. The next was a house filled with chain smoking women, and the amount of nicotene which they had exhailed had turned the entire house yellow and the fumes and level of estrogen was so strong, that it was stripping the paint off the walls. The third and most delightful of the lot, was discribed as short to medium term accomodation, all rooms en-suite for interational travellers and it was just down the road. Fantastic! I headed off filled with naive enthusiasm only to be confronted with a hole in a wall filled with retarded, stonned out of the minds (no wonder everyone stays there for a few months, because they have no motivation to crawl out of the sess pit!) with dazed children, half naked, passed out on the chairs. All the rooms are "en-suite" because they share one bathroom in a courtyard and the rooms are dorm rooms, that is if you are able to wade through the crap strewn across the floors to find anything resembling a flea infested matress... I left rather suddenly only to be told that I better book soon as they were filling up fast. Filling up with what, left me shivering in horror and runnning for my life. At one point last we I seriously considered moving in to the Nunnery, wich was clean etc but the nuns wouldn't have me!

Salvation arrived this weekend when I met some fairly normal people and had a drink at the pub on top of the venue where I am going to see Hot Chip (a good sign). I went to see the house today - a beautiful rennovated Victorian terrace house, freshly painted, large rooms, polished floors, a garden minus stinky hippies and only ten minutes walk from work! So, I am keeping my fingers crossed and hoping that I was able to charm Lee and Emma into living with me.

And I started work today. Yes, I have been employed by the Peter Mac Cancer Foundation and am helping them with admin, event organising, raising cash for cancer etc and I will be there for the next three months. Perfect. A small office, lots of happy people all working for a good cause at the hospital. They are a research and specialist cancer treatment hospital and some of their research is very simular to that of some of the companies which Cape Biotech funded, so great to be in a simular environment. The head of the foundation is a South African so he is pleased to have an allie against the Ozzies, and they are all fairly young, except for the ladies who work in the gift and charity shop - I have about three new adopted grannies and Claudi they are already probably knitting something for your baby! - but are very sweet and we administer the funds which they raise.

Tal, Ram and I went to an amazing Mexican restuarant last night, clearly not as good as Greg's Iraqi cuisine, as I do not have pictures, but the freshly made frozen magaritas were delicious. On saturday we went to an evening concert in the park, where we listened to a raggea/latin/allsorts band which were rather good and it reminded me a lot of Kirstnebosch but with bats flying about and possums in the trees around us. Now that my prospects are looking up I promise to post more often! Dratt - Spell check not working again.... Apologies

Back to reality in Melbourne

Happy New Year to you all and I hope you had a fabulous party where ever you may have been around the globe! Judging from most of the photos that I have seen, it seems like most people got into the swing of things and had fun. We had a barbi at the Petrie's house on New Year's eve with a bunch of Greg's frineds, all engineers and very nice people. We then watched the fire works across the harbour and carried on drinking bubbles and dancing at the house. The rest of my time in Sydney was spent visting the zoo, which has resulted in me doing a lot of research into the local wild life, which included spiders much to Tal's dismay. The highlight was went two ring tailed possums came to visit us on New Year's eve - in the middle of our barbi - an a kookaburra having a fight with a magpie and eating lizards!

The koala bears at the zoo were also very sweet.

I also spend time on the beach, exploring some more of the city and museums and spent a day at Sydney University (which is a copy of Edinburgh University), finding out about biotech and the different programs which they offer. It was also good to spend the last two days in New Town as it is a very different area to than of the North Shore. New Town is quite like Melbourne in some ways as there are lost of little shops and small cafes lining the streets, and apart from some really strange ladies trying to chat to me and offer me biscuits (?), and one wanted me to move a cupboard, it seems like a nice side of the city. Spending time with Greg was cool, as he showed my round the city and took me to his favorite resturants, despite mehaving to make him tea while he wrote up his thesis and putting up with his grumpiness. He decided that it would be a good idea to quit drinking coffee on the second day that I was there - I soon put an end to that nonsense because by twelve he was a pain in the neck, was wingeing and the magic pink pills weren't even touching sides. As a result I got bought a freshly made cappachino every morning - just what I need on holiday!

Well I arrived back in Melbourne two days ago feeling rather flu-ish. Thank goodness for Jewish penicillin, as Tal's chicken soup worked miricals and Lieu forcing me to drink ginger "the Vietnamese elixer of life" has made me feel a lot better. After spending yesterday in bed, I ventured out of the house despite the heat today, only to feel like I had entered a boiling hot oven, as I openned the front door (it was still 36 degrees at 11pm last night). Needless to say, the highlight of my day was visiting the frozen food isle in the local supermarket... Tomorrow I will venture further afeild as I head down to Polyester, a music store where I hope to buy tickets to see the Hot Chip, Yo La Tengo and will try to track down some tickets to see the Killers some how! I am very excited!

I am in the process of trying to get my life sorted out at the moment as I need to find some where to stay for the next few months and have begun looking for recruitment agencies and for jobs. Thankfully again, Tal has done this all before and so has been very helpful. I suppose it is back to the real work as I will need some cash before I set off on my next adventure!