Melbourne

It's been a while since I wrote something once again, but this time not because I forgot or because I'm lazy. Somebody tripped over the internetwire Friday evening when Lisianne and I were still in Melbourne and only today did somebody come to fix it. Once again I realize how totally hooked I am on internet. Good for studying, you'd say, but not if 90% of your material is online. Anyways, let me start at the beginning.

Last week Monday I was woken up by my phone ringing and to my surprise I landed myself a temporary tutoring job. The regular tutor is on holiday so if I could please come for a month. The mother requesting my help didn't exactly master the English language herself so she didn't really understand that I was not Australian and leaving Sydney in November, so she kept asking me whether I was coming back and where I was going. Before it was time to tutor, I went to check out the Christmas tree at the QVB (still odd, more and more Santas and fake snow popping up while the temperature keeps rising). Lies and I also stopped by and awesome cafe called Coco Cubane. Then it was time to go and I took the train to Burwood and before I knew it I was reading out English words to two Asian kids. Unfortunately I thought they were both boys so when I told the youngest not to tease his brother, the girl quietly sai'd 'I'm not a boy, I'm a girl!' and i felt my face turn red. Two hours later I discovered I was only going to get twenty bucks for two hours which is a horrendous wage especially for Aussie standards. Oh well, at least it's something.

On Tuesday Annelotte was coming over for dinner, since we still had a birthday present to give her. It was the first time she set foot in our Surry Hills House and we had a lovely evening.

The next day Lies and I headed to Coogee beach once again and on Thursday we got up far too early to catch our flight to visit Fab. We stayed at a cute hostel called the Nunnery (a stylish old building with pictures of nuns playing tennis). We met up with Fabien, including facial hair supporting Movember, and met his friends. After a tour around the city centre he had to leave us to study and we went to explore places such as Brunswich street, Federation Square and the Carlton gardens around the Melbourne Musuem with its swings and massive rubix cube. For dinner we joined Fab again and went to get pizza. We ended up playing the guessing game at the pizzaplace (I was Albert Einstein, Popeye proved to be extremely difficult and Chloe had never heard of Sarkozy before). We ended up at the student dorm where they all stayed and played some more games involving wolves and monopoly cards.

The next day we decided to check out St Kilda beach, which left us heavily unimpressed, except for the rows of little bakeries filled with yummy cakes and pastries. We continued to the marvelous Botanical gardens and once again walked too much within one day, especially since we went out with Fab and his fellows to some place called Fasion something something.

The last day we enjoyed the sun in Melbourne we visited some more of Melbourne's countless cafés, chilled in the Fitzroy gardens full of fountains and took the city circle tram to view some more of Melbourne's streets, all with the same names as the ones in Sydney. Unfortunately we discovered upon arrival at the airport that we had a 3.5 hour delay (great, Tigerrr airways) and spend our time playing cards.

On Sunday we had no Internet but the weather was good so I sat outside studying from the only 10% of my material that is not online. In the evening we ate pasta with a lot of people in the house and planned our final house dinners, because sadly our time together in South Dowling is almost over.

Yesterday I went to Coco Cubano again, not only for their delicious frappe, but also so I could make us of their internet and download all my studymaterial. I had to tutor again in the evening and the lousy pay was compensated by the complement received for my teaching (not that it's hard to teach two small children, but it does take a massive amount of patience). While the tropical rain hit I tried to make my way to Siobhan's Mad Hatter birthday party and the delicious chocolate cake made up for my soaked appearance.

Now it's time for me to stop procrastinating. Lots of Love from Sydney