at Fiona's request...

At the request of the lovely miss Fiona, I am updating. But in my defence, i've actually been busy! Which is good, cause now i have lots of fun things to tell yas about. Let's try to keep this fairly orgnaized, shall we?
TENNIS: Oooooh, the australian open! what a wonderful event it is. We actually ended going twice, which was awesome. We first went on Tuesday the 16th (Day two) and caught some pretty big names on the outter courts (although i didn't really realize at the time they were big hahahaha). But given that it was 41 degress and a recorded 61 - yes 61 - degrees on the courts we decided pretty early on to head to the vodaphone arena to catch a break from the heat. Except it took 2 and a half hours of standing in line to get in. That's what happens when Martina Hingas and James Blake both have matches coming up and an aussie is currently playing. We only had ground passes, and had to wait for seats to open up in our designated section as it was first come first serve. But we did see both Martina and James. Great games and even better air conditioning. They even closed the roof due to the heat. When we finally ventured out of the Vodaphone arena it was pushing 9pm and was still about 35 degress out. But the games that had been cancelled due to the heat (pretty much all of them) had started and we watched another game on the outter courts before heading home (Sammy Stosur, an aussie who's gonna get pretty big i think). The games went until 4:30 am, crazy! but we had to head home fairly early because of...
WORK: I'll be brief about this. We're working at a call centre. But it's good pay. and it's about as fun as you'd think working at a call centre would be. nuff said. oh, great staff though. i'm sure i'll be mentioning them later on. and be complaining about such a crap job too. but i'll save that for another day.
back to Tennis: went again on the 20th but this time actually put out the cash for real tickets into the Rod Lever arena. we were only able to get night tickets so we only were at 2 games, but it was roger federer!!! soooo amazing. he's a machine! i'm so happy we got to see him. and it was pretty lucky as we just called to check about tickets because they had been sold out, but they released a few just an hour our so before we called. Corporate seats that were going to go unused, so our seats were amazing! (i will be posting pics. i'm getting them burnt today. honest)
OUT ON THE TOWN: that's what we were up to on thrusday night. the eve of australia day! we had the day off on friday because of it. so our boss, Chris, because we had such a crappy turned good week at work took the staff out for a few drinks, pizza, fries and such. it proceeded on to a few other places in teh city and it was nice to finally be get out and about (and with out having to dip into our thin little wallets!). Next time i think we'll try to get in before 7:30 am though. Tonight we are going to for indian with our no longer roommate, but good friend, Carys. She's moving on and we're sad she's not going to be living with us anymore. but tonight will be a lot of fun. Have to come home at a decent hour because we're hading to Big Day Out tomorrow to catch some REALLY good music (www.bigdayout.com - go to teh bottom and get it to look like a normal curser and then click on teh worm/eye guy). But bands like Jet, The Killers, John Buttler Trio, Tool, Violent Femmes, My Chemical Romance, and some really great aussie bands/artists.

well folks, i think that's about it for now. I'll hit some of you with emails with some more stories as i think of them and i will be sure to write again soon and let you know how big day out went :)
love and miss you all. Keep in touch, would you! i like feeling loved by recieveing emails....(i'm bad at hinting hahaha)
xoxo

settling in in Melboure

Ola!
Trying to keep up on my word to do this more frequently as to not overwhelm everyone with boredom when i have to rant on and on.
So, our first week in Melbourne has been great. This city is so full of cluture and life: beautiful parks near the river and all thorugh out the city, museums and art all through the city, sporting events (the australia open this week), music festivals (big day out on the 26th that we're going to. check out the website bigdayout.com), tons of restaurants and pubs, and tons of wonderful shopping that i can't do! at night the city is just as alive as it is during the day and all the lights and art around make it so georgous.
we've been keeping busy by going to recruitment agencies mostly every morning this week to do interviews, testing, and such. and then walking around the city getting ourselves oriented. we have gone to the market both the day one and the once a week night one. the day one is where we get all our cheap fruit and veggies - and lots of samples! yummy!the night market is less a flea market and more food vendors and really cool booths with clothing from asia and neat jewlery and that type of thing.
the place we're staying is a guest house type of accommodation in a bohemian-hippie type area of the city. lots of cafes and restaurants and op shops (2nd hand stores) around us. and we're only a 5 minute tram ride from city centre. if you're interested, you can check out exactly where we're staying at: http://www.holidaycamp.net.au/ . We're in a 6 share dorm room with 2 other girls that are here for a while. it's nice to have steady roommies. one is from scotland and the other from england. both have traveled prior to here and have great stories. we get along with them really well.
monday we have a final interview for full time work! woohooo. it's at an inbound call centre making great pay and free gym access. working 12-8 which should be pretty much perfect. and much appreciated on days when it's 39 degrees outside!
we're going to the australia open on the 20th, and to big day out on the 26th. so those are our 2 exciting events. other than that we're going to try to get busy once we've made some money. laying low until then.
will let you know how it all goes and if any exciting adventures come up
hope all is well with everyone. miss you lots and hope to hear from you all soon.
LOVE! xoxo

Catching up

So! quite a while since my last post and a ton has been going on. I will try to do an update without rambling too much or boring the socks off people. First off, HAPPY NEW YEAR! My holidays away from home couldn't have gone better. Marcy and I were treated like family and really taken in for the day. We went to Greg's parents house for a delicious, huge breakfast and to open gifts (yes, somehow santa found us down here). His mom was sweet and got us pjs, perfume and shower stuff. We spend the morning there and that afternoon had to rush to get our salads ready for Steve's family's pot luck ham Christmas dinner held at his sisters house. Again, another big meal and hanging out with "family". we played santa and distributed the gifts for the secret santa. it was a wonderful evening. Crazy paul (other roommate) between christmas and early january went bizerk on us and was mean, left us rude notes (on christmas day, about not doing the dishes once) and was a general pain in the neck constantly making unnescessary snarky comments. so, time for us to get out of newcastle! we gave our 2 week notice late december. We then had to fit in as much as possible in our last week of living there. We went with Steve to Sydney for new years where we stayed with one of his friends and his girlfriend. We watched both sets of fireworks (9pm and midnight) from the top of the girlfriend's parent's house. it's 3 stories and worth 2.2 million (due to the fact that it is beautiful and it's location in sydeny) the rooftop deck looked out towards the bridge and city skyline and the fireworks were positivly amazing. other than that it was a low key night but very much enjoyed by all. back to newcastle on the train which takes 3 hours only to rest for the day and get up the next morning to head back to Sydney on the train yet again. Marcy and I went and saw Matt Costa in concert at an awesome venue in sydney. it was this little pub and you were hard pressed to find a bad place to stand. the concert was wicked although parts are a bit hazy. up again the next morning to get back on the train, back to newy for a day of recovery, going to steve's nanna's wake, and a bit of packing. The next morning we were picked up at 7am by greg to go out to tea gardens (an hours drive from newy) to his family's cottage. we spent the day with him and his parents out on the boat. we saw at least 15 dolpins (have the pictures to show it) and went fishing. we pulled in to Nelson bay where his mom (clare), marcy and i took a look around the shops and clare bought a tube spur of the moment. we went tubing for the rest of the afternoon. Got a big prawn feed for lunch and greg's brother phillip; his wife, janita; and his sister, deb all came down for the night as well. we all went to the pub for a few beer and to play trivia. came back to the cottage where marcy and i took on clare and greg in a game of party scrable. we barely won but it was pretty funny. the next morning we all went out for greg's dad, steve's, birthday. Back out in teh boat with phil, janita, and deb for a very long ride out to the river for more tubing.
that night we went out with steve and his friends to the bowlo for a last get together before our flight to melbourne at 6am.
the fight was fine- quick, only 1.5 hours. but when i arrived in melbourne i realized i didn't have my walet. yep. stupid shannon left it at the bowlo. tracked it down and had it sent to the iep office here in melbourne. tjank god for marcy and lending me cash to survive for the past few days.
since we've arrived we've just walked around melbourne getting a feel for the place, looking for jobs and just found a place to live. which we have to go move into now. it's a guesthouse/backpackers where we'll pay weekly rent and stay in a dorm type room. we'll know at the end of the week if we'll be here for the month or move outside the city to do harvesting.
i hope all is well at home. love and miss you all and hope to hear from you soon. more updates more often i swear. i forget the funny stuff when i wait this long. so i'll try to fix that.
xoxo