Elizabeth June 30th, 2008

One year ago I boarded a plane in Brisbane, with two suitcases and my dog. In that short time Melbourne has become just as much my home as Brisbane ever was, and there’s still so much more to see. I am certain that I will still be exploring and experiencing this city for many years to come.

In many ways it is more “home” than anywhere else, because of the path I’ve forged for myself and the people I’ve chosen to share it with. Melbourne has been my own little frontier, and finding my place in it has been a real adventure.

Happy anniversary, Melbourne.

Harry’s first night in Melbourne - looking a little bit sad after his first plane ride

• Life , Melbourne
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Elizabeth June 29th, 2008

Part of my 101 Things in 1001 Days challenge

The people at my workplace are AFL fanatics. One of our sales managers can tell you the score of any Carlton match ever played, who kicked the winning goal (and in what minute), who was announcing the game and where he was personally at the time. It’s really fun to quiz him on the details when he’s taking a trip down memory lane.

As a Queenslander I didn’t really register that Aussie Rules football existed - at least, not until the Brisbane Lions started to win a bunch of Grand Finals. I’ve never understood the game, and never really cared to.

But when you live in Victoria all of that changes. If you are affliated with the wrong team (or worse - have no affiliations at all) you’ll find yourself completely ostracized. The coffee guy will secretly switch you over to decaf, your coworkers will stop greeting you in the morning, and perfect strangers will cross the road to avoid looking you in the eye. There’s no better way to scream “I’m a tourist!” than to utter a word about Rugby League or Union in this state.

When Tim and I moved to Melbourne my uncle presented us with the merchandise of our suburb’s team. It was an act of great personal sacrifice, but he recognised the importance of this rite of passage. We are yet to see our own team play a game, but we have been to two AFL games now - one at the Telstra Dome (Essendon vs Port Adelaide) and one at the MCG (VIC vs The Dream Team).

It was a really cool experience, especially since we were able to get seats in the Medallion Club for our first ever game at the Telstra Dome. However it is worth pointing out the embarrassment I felt when my boyfriend had to loudly explain what was happening on the field in his American accent. Is it just me, or does everyone run everywhere in AFL?

• 101 in 1001 , Life , Melbourne
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Elizabeth June 29th, 2008

I made my first real cold-weather purchase today.

I bought mine in black, with a grey/white faux fur trim. Honestly though, I could have bought the same jacket in army green and blue!

I saw these earrings in the store today too, but there was no price on them and I guess I assumed they’d be a bit pricey. According to the website they’re down to $25, which is so awesome that I’m going back for them tomorrow!

I have to be careful with which metals I wear in my ears, but at that price I’d happily re-make them with silver hooks.

So it was a very successful day. The Witchery sale is really, really good this year… please send money.

• Life , Melbourne
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Elizabeth March 10th, 2008

Part of my 101 Things in 1001 Days challenge

My brother had a conference down at the Mornington Peninsula last week, just outside Melbourne, and extended his stay over the weekend. Tim & I met up with him in Frankston yesterday to see a few wineries and have lunch.

We only had a few hours to work with, which was made worse when we discovered that none of the wineries opened before 11 or 12. It’s almost as if they were telling us that drinking before lunch was frowned upon! Still, we managed to see a few great places including Main Ridge Estate, Tucks Ridge, Red Hill Estate and T’Gallant Winemakers.

I took lots of photos, but I’m really unhappy with most of them. Stupid me for forgetting my UV filter on a sunny day - the contrast and colours are pretty awful.

My brother took us to lunch at T’Gallant, and our meals were incredible

Eldridge Estate (I think?). This winery was closed when we visited, but I still wanted to get a shot

Main Ridge had beautiful gardens surrounding their vineyards. This was probably my favourite photo from the day.

Wine tasting at Tucks Ridge, where I learned that not all Chardonnays are cheap and nasty

I’m really excited about going back to these places when we have more time (and a car!). In particular, Tim really wants to take his parents to the area when they visit at the end of the year, since they love their Australian wine.

I came home yesterday with some really useful tasting notes, and several bottles of booze. Most importantly, I left with some changed opinions about what I thought I did/didn’t like in a wine, and a real appreciation for the winemakers in this region.

These wine tastings taught me a great deal, and were certainly a wonderful start to my goal of learning something about wine. However, I didn’t really feel as though I understood enough about the terminology used to describe them, or the processes involved in making different types of wine. This morning I went hunting for “beginner guides” online, and found Vino! to be a great source of information for an uncultured swines like me.

In particular, I recommend checking out Wine Knowledge 101, Wine Dictionary and The History of Wine.

Do you have a great online resource that would help me continue to learn? Tell me all about it in the comments!

• 101 in 1001 , Life , Melbourne
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Elizabeth March 8th, 2008

Image from Jannygirl

Part of my 101 Things in 1001 Days challenge.

First of all, apologies to my friends who are learning of this new development via my blog! I’ve been feeling very blah about this job since getting the news on Thursday, so I haven’t even told people about it. Except for the need-to-know people anyway, like my family (gotta stay in the Will, after all).

But it’s time to quit the pity party and stop focusing on the negatives that have been making me feel cranky. It’s not my style to dwell like this, so hopefully writing about it will get it out of my system.

First, the negatives that have been consuming my thoughts:

- The job is beneath my capabilities. I’m overqualified.
- The pay is appropriate for a position with low responsibility. (Or, put another way, it sucks.)
- Despite finding an awesome house close to the city, I will not be working in the city. I have to take a tram and a bus to work.
- I will sometimes have 8am starts, which will be difficult with the longer travel time.
- This is the 13th item that I’ve completed on my list! Could this be an omen?

I know, right? Waaaaaah. Even I can see how whiny I’m being. I think part of the problem is that I know I could have done better with more time and less procrastination. There’s nothing on that list that makes me a unique snowflake - it’s the same stuff that working people deal with every day. I just need to accept that I’m not running my own business anymore, and can’t control my working day.

It’s just a transition period. I’ll get used to it.

With that out of the way, here are some of the reasons why this job might… no, WILL!… be great:

- It mightn’t be the city, but it’s not far from it. The area where I’ll be working is full of awesome cafes and shops, so lunchtimes will be really interesting.
- The people I’ll be working with seem really social, and many of them hang out outside of work hours.
- There are regular Friday night drinks, BBQs and events.
- I will be able to watch the Grand Prix from my window!
- I will be meeting new people.
- With some experience under my belt, I will be able to demand much more next time.
- Despite the less-than-desirable pay, I can afford to live. I’ll be fine.

I’m starting the new job on Tuesday, and I expect I’ll feel much better with day 1 out of the way. I know it will be good to sink my teeth into something and learn a new job, and to meet new people.

Besides - there’s plenty going on for me outside of work hours, so I’m sure that will make it easier to push on if the job loses its challenges. Right?

• 101 in 1001 , Life , Melbourne
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Elizabeth March 8th, 2008

I know it’s a little late to be posting this, but I’ll just add it to the list of things that are overdue! I wanted to write a recap of February before moving on to the stuff I’ve been doing in March, so here goes.

In February I managed to complete six items from my list of 101 Things to do in 1001 Days. They were:

#49 - See a Gold Class movie
Thanks to a very generous gift voucher from Sally, Tim and I saw Sweeney Todd in the luxury of La Premiere. It’s something we’ll do many more times, now that we know what we were missing!

#32 - Go to Luna Park
The St Kilda Festival was on this month, and we spent the day there listening to bands and soaking up the sun. Luna Park was one of the places we checked out, and it wasn’t until after we’d been through it that I remembered it was on my list!s

#50 - Go to an outdoor movie
I can’t do this justice with a short summary - you should really check out my post about it to see how awesome this place is!

#10 - Walk to the city and back 8 times in one month
One month? Pffft - I did it in 14 days! In that time I walked 100km, and lost a bunch of weight. I’m now starting a running program to continue the good work.

#18 - Teach myself to use Excel
February was the month that I defeated Excel, and started making kickass graphs.

#7 - No chocolate for a month
I am living proof that one month without chocolate will not kill you… but it did come pretty close.

Overall, February was a fantastic month for my general health and fitness, and has gotten me well on the way to completing some other health-related goals. It was also great for learning more about Melbourne.

For such a short month, I really feel like I accomplished a lot!

• 101 in 1001 , Health & Fitness , Life , Melbourne
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Elizabeth February 15th, 2008

Part of my 101 Things in 1001 Days challenge.

Last night I treated Tim to a movie at The Rooftop Cinema for Valentines Day. I managed to keep the whole thing a secret right up until we got to the door, which made it extra fun!

The cinema is on the roof of a 6-storey building, and the view was awesome. It was just high enough to make the passing trams look little, but small enough to give us a great view into surrounding skyscrapers. It was the perfect perspective for two people still getting to know their city.

One leg of the L-shaped venue was a small but well-stocked bar (shown in the photo immediately above), and when we arrived it was full of people having their post-work drinks. Many had sprawled into the cinema area around the corner to take advantage of the sunshine and synthetic grass, and there was awesome chilled-out music playing the whole time.

At around 8pm staff herded people away from the screen so that they could begin setting up deck chairs, and by 8:30pm anyone who hadn’t bought a ticket for the movie was sent back to the bar.

We managed to grab terrific seats, and when we sat down we saw that a menu had been clipped to the chair in front of us! The text read:

Howdy. Left your credit card with the bar? If not, go hand it over so you can run a tab during the film and simply text us the seat number, your surname, colour of your card and what you want. And then we bring it to you.

PS: If it’s a crying moment of the film, we might wait until that scene is over and we’ve wiped our eyes.

The menu contained a great selection of drinks, and four food options from the award-winning restaurant/bar Cookie downstairs. Tim had chicken yakitori skewers, and I tried the tofu burger (as part of my new resolve to “try new things”). The price was very reasonable ($8.50 each), and they warmed us up.

The movie began a little after 9pm. We saw Raising Victor Vargas, a movie that I knew absolutely nothing about but seemed to rate really well on Rotten Tomatoes. We both really enjoyed it, and I think I like it even better today than I did last night. It got some horrible reviews on imdb, but whatever. Worth seeing.

Overall, I had a great time and thoroughly recommend this place. Be warned, the cinema only operates from late November until the end of March each year - so check it out soon if you can!

Location: Level 6, 252 Swanston St
Tickets: $18 + BF

• 101 in 1001 , Cool stuff , Life , Melbourne , TV/Movies
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Elizabeth February 10th, 2008

Part of my 101 Things in 1001 Days challenge.

Until today I had never made it to St Kilda, which is sort of ridiculous considering how long I’ve been in Melbourne now. I’ve always loved the photos of the creepy clown entrance at Luna Park, and since it’s such an icon I was really looking forward to checking it out.

Today was Festival Day at the St Kilda Festival, which involved a bunch of stages with 50 bands throughout the day, street performers, markets, kite surfing, beach volleyball, motocross and plenty of rides. The vibe sort of reminded me of Byron Bay’s NYE Festival, although on a much (much) bigger scale. We had a great time, and fell in love with this awesome city all over again.

Part of our day involved checking out Luna Park, which was just as creepy-looking in person as I had hoped! Plenty more photos of the day to follow.

• 101 in 1001 , Life , Melbourne
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Elizabeth January 29th, 2008

If you’ve just joined us, our Australia Day public holiday was spent cruising down the Yarra, grabbing some lunch at the Crown, checking out the All Of Us exhibition at Federation Square, and then…

The plan was to finally get on that tram and head home, since it was exceptionally hot and we were already really sunburned from our trip down the river. It was one of those days where being trapped in jeans was miserable, and the sun was so bright that the glare was inescapable.

As we were heading back to the tram we noticed a street performer setting up for a show, so we decided to sit on the steps and see what he was going to do. He played Indiana Jones music and cracked a whip to get peoples’ attention, and before long had a crowd of several hundred people watching him.

He turned out to be Arizona Jones, “Indiana’s second cousin-in-law, once removed and substitute B-movie stunt double” (known in real life as Tim Motley). Once the show got going he pulled people out of the audience to help him hold his 4m circus pole, and the first person dragged up on stage was Tim. He had Tim do some pretty dumb stuff in front of everybody (including having him dance around like a sexually ambiguous bird), but he got right into the spirit of things without any hesitation.

That boy has no shame, it’s awesome.

A drunken heckler

The show got really weird when two of the “volunteers” seemed unable to confirm that they could be trusted with Arizona Jones’ life, so he ended up swapping them out with two different people. After that, a homeless drunk guy stumbled into the centre of the ring and demanded that Arizona light his cigarette. He then refused to leave the stage, and kept yelling at the poor guy who was trying to do his show. It was weird and drawn-out, but he handled it pretty well.

Tim must have been on stage for a good half hour in the end, with all the weird delays and side-jokes that were going on. His job was basically to hold the circus pole while Arizona Jones climbed it, and then get out of the way while he performed a balance trick with fire sticks and a whip.

And now, whenever I need to be reminded why I waited all that time for Tim to come to Australia I can just look at these photos!

• Funny Stuff , Life , Melbourne
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Elizabeth January 29th, 2008

Shortly after our fun morning cruising down the Yarra, Tim and I said goodbye to Sally and headed for home. We had planned to catch a tram from Flinders Street Station, but the new All Of Us exhibition at Federation Square caught my eye and I decided to wander over there for a look.

Click here to open a larger version in a new window.

Photographer Michel Lawrence is the photographer behind the All Of Us project, and sought to photograph at least one person from each country that now calls Australia home. Each of the candidates were born overseas, and chose to start a new life in Australia.

His installation at Federation Square consists of 220 photographs 1.2m x 1.2m high (some appear to be double height), and will be on display for the next 2 months. A large format book is also available.

The Age has an interesting article about the photographer and one of his subjects.

Aside from the fact that this exhibition is a brilliant way to graphically represent our multicultural population, I don’t think Federation Square has looked more attractive in the time I’ve lived here. If you’re in Melbourne, it really is worth seeing.

• Art , Cool stuff , Life , Melbourne
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