Quick update on my quick update

It's been a while since my last post so thought I'd better do an update...

The most exciting thing that's happened* is that I've found a house! Sharing with 6 other girls from England, the States, Kenya and Australia, several of whom are also here on working holiday visas. And they're all really nice! It's a one storey town house (lots of houses around Melbourne are one storey instead of the two we're used to back home) but pretty spacious and a good find :) 

*Bearing in mind this was written yesterday afternoon. More exciting news at the bottom of the post, which I found out a couple of hours after publishing! Timing eh

This is the house, my room and the communal areas:

It's in a decent area as well, close to everything and just off Lygon Street, famous for its food (New Years diet is not going to go well, I fear). It's also one of the 'cooler' suburbs of Melbourne, a bit quirky, edgy and eccentric. Here are a few snaps of the surrounding area:

The area has a ton of cool al fresco cafés and nice beer gardens knocking around, including an amazing restaurant called 400 Gradi - the margheritas made by one of the chefs who works there were judged best in the world at a championship held in Italy in April last year! 

I'm not sure how long I'll be staying here (6 months?) but it'll do nicely for now...honestly, it's just nice to have somewhere to properly unpack all my stuff and call my own for a while.

In other news, I'VE GOT A JOB! I've been waiting to hear back since Wednesday and they text me last night to say I'd been offered the position of Digital Content Writer, similar to what I was doing before I left England. It's for a company called The Malka Group, a private Australian training provider (diplomas) for individuals, businesses and community groups. I start tomorrow...!

Merry Xmas from Down Under!

Christmas looks a bit different on this side of the world...

Christmas...a perfect time to sunbake

Carols in 27 degrees Celsius under palm trees and blue skies

When the weather outside is delightful...and the prospect of a fire is frightful...

Santa Claus is...hitting the beach, by the looks of things. The entire Lego model required 2,500 hours of manpower 

Upmarket decorations in a swanky shopping arcade

Tree spanning three levels decked in 144,000 Swarovski crystal ornaments and 60,000 lights

Three floors later...

Typical 'Chrissy' decorations (photo by Becca Hall)

Merry Xmas from Melbourne :)

Angry response to the most short-sighted article of 2014: Has travel become another exercise in narcissism?

For Henry Wismayer, creator of this tripe: https://medium.com/human-parts/has-travel-becoming-another-exercise-in-narcissism-bfb3ccbcdc3a 

Okay Wismayer, first things first - let's talk about that title. The fact is, travel is and always has been narcissistic: it's about YOU escaping the daily grind and the monotony of life back home so that YOU can experience new ways of life, new cultures and new people, with a view to broadening YOUR mind and doing things YOU might never have had the opportunity to try in your own country. 

Bed humping, chunder bags and wizard cloaks: is this the world's worst roommate?

"Bet you never thought you'd be rooming with a drunk, did you Gary?"

At this point, I am hiding on my bed behind a makeshift curtain hurriedly put together using two towels, unashamedly leaving poor Gary from Essex to deal with our shitfaced American roommate on his own. 

No, I never thought I'd be rooming with a drunk. And unfortunately I am fully aware that I'm rooming with a drunk. How? Because two nights earlier, he bragged about polishing off a bottle of tequila before passing out, proceeded to vomit into a plastic bag in his bed - I feel it is now necessary to point out that his bed was directly above mine - and then lay down to go back to sleep. Take the chunder bag outside, maybe? No? Oh Jeebus. I spent the remainder of the night unable to sleep lest the bag of vomit got knocked by a drunken flailing arm in the night and landed on my face/bed/bag. 

Sun, sea and sieges...one hell of a week in Sydney

When I arrived in Sydney, the torrential rain across my first two days really put me off. On my last day, the Lindt cafe siege held the city in a grip of fear for a gut-wrenching 16 hours. Bomb scares, the fact that I had been in Martin Place the evening before watching Christmas carols and relentless rain - honestly, I was desperate to flee back to the relative safety of Melbourne.