Melbourne 3

So, our stint in the Refugee Review Tribunal comes to an end in a few days. Gotta start job-hunting again, dammit. I'm gonna miss working here, t'was good experience. I always swore I'd never work in an office again after spending many months in one whilst working for a particular global American company who manufacture microprocessors (you can hear their little theme tune if you think about it). The most popular Engineering catchphrase up there was "Prioritize my game-plan", they emphasised the 7 steps required in making a decision, everyone addressed a group as 'Folks' etc etc. You can see what I'm getting at here.

But, I have to say, I've enjoyed it here, even though the majority of the day has been spent in the office. I've enjoyed doing the hearings, where you meet all sorts of Refugee applicants: Afghans, Albanians, Chinese, Thai, Malaysians, Indians, Indonesians, Vietnamese etc. I'll miss the 'Mission Impossible-ness' of dressing up in a shirt & tie, and swiping my security badge to get through doors that everybody else wonders whats behind, as I look all serious & important. Tee Hee. My next job could be stocking shelves in some store again, so I'll miss the responsibility of this job. There are a lot of letters gone out there to peoples lawyers around Australia, with 'If you have any questions or queries, please contact Cliff Coffey on....'. Har har :-)

Ah, yes, our new suburbian home in St. Kilda. Myself & Emmet moved out of the hostel a few weeks back. Emmets cousin, Muriel, has been living here for a while, with her friend Una. A few moved out of their house, so we moved in to take their places. St. Kilda is about 15/20 mins on a tram for the centre of town, and is very well-known in Melbourne. It's a sh*t-cool, funky kind of place, full of cafes, pubs & restaurants, some of the trendy variety & some quite arty. There's been a lotta people trying to move out to here, as it's regarded as 'the place to be'. It means you get quite a few posers around, but I fit in just fine ;-)

I finally got off my ass and got that underwater disposable camera developed. I added a page with the pictures called 'Snorkel shots' after the 'Darwin - Whitsundays' page.

Myself and Emmet got free footy tickets from our recruitment agency last week, for being such hard workers and no less. Oh, when Aussies say 'footy', they are referring to AFL (Australian Football League). This like a cross between Gaelic and rugby, it's pretty cool. Anyway, the seats we got were in 'The Medallion Club', the most expensive seats in the Telstra Dome. Bar & foodstall right behind the seats... tee hee.

Last weekend, we were between jobs. To 'celebrate', we said we'd go to the casino. We dressed up in our tailor-made Thai shirts`n`pants, to try give people the impression we werent unemployed backpackers. The Crown casino here is class, it's feckin huge. We've been in there quite a few times, strolling around (there's a cinema, restaurants, clothes shops etc all inside). It's amazing the amount of people you see betting hundreds of dollars each bet, repeatedly (usually Asians). SO this time, we reckoned we'd gamble. After losing $20 between the Big Wheel and Roulette, I was determined to make my money back. I stuck at the Roulette, after much winning & losing, until I had a net profit of $2. I was happy then. Emmet, the bastard, he profited $10 from roulette, and $40 from the slot machines... net profit $50. I didnt get too many pictures here, as after a few snaps, I was 'approached' by security.

Last weekend, we went to the Botanical gardens. These are huge parks, a 5 min walk from downtown, all connected together to make a massive festival of trees, lakes & grass. There was a war memorial place in the parks, dedicated to the thousands of Australians who fought and died in WWI, WWII, the Korean wars, Vietnam and so on.

We spent the last few days doing some administration work for the Department of Immigration. Stuffing invoices into envelopes. There were 3 of us at it, for 2 and a half days. We got over 6,000 envelopes stuffed. I am never sending another letter in my life again ;-)

Woo Hoo! Today is the 26th... so given that we left on the 26th February, we've been gone for 5 months. That's the longest I've ever been away from Ireland in one go. Goddammit, it's flown. Which is scary cos it means the next 7 months are probably gonna fly too. It's ok, though, I have it all worked out. I'll go home, see my family & friends, then win the lotto, then go travelling to see all the countries on my 'To-Do' list :-)

Dara (fellow veteran of WIT's Electronic Engineering 4 year sentence) & his girlfriend Geraldine are in Sydney at the mo, looking for work. They've been through South Africa, then spent a while in Perth. They're planning on coming to Melbourne at some stage, looking forward to it.

Remember the Childrens First Foundation charity I was talking about? (Check out the link if ya haven't already). Well, I'm moving out there at the weekend. One of the volunteers has to go home earlier than planned, so I'm replacing her till the middle of October. Looking forward to it. It's gonna be hard work, of course, but quite an experience.

Taking this on has meant turning down a few admin jobs I was offered in the meantime, as they wanted someone for a few months. This has meant I've been unemployed the last 2 weeks. This has been terrible. I mean.... in Melbourne in Australia.... with all this free time. I didnt know what to do ;-) The best I could come up with was: lie-ins, strolls on the beach, sight-seeing, strolls in the city, museum visits, park visits etc. As I said, it's been terrible ;-) The weather here isn't spectacular, but it's between an Irish spring & summer. A few days ago, it was lovely, like an Irish Summers day, so I walked the whole way from St. Kilda along the beach, almost to the city (90 min walk). Terrible ;-)

Got me a job on Thurs & Fri, installing phones for a security company. 425 of them, yaaay! Only 2 lie-ins left, dammit. After I move out to the farm, that's the end of them. It's up at the crack of dawn from then on.

Oh, remember how I mentioned St. Kilda is a bit 'posery'. I have to laugh at some of these guys. It's not cold here to us Irish lads, but the Aussies are freezing. It's the only place where I've seen guys wearing woolly hats, woolly gloves, long winter jacket, scarf...... and sun-glasses. If the sun peeks out for a second, I mean a second, these guys put on their designer sunglasses. This means you're sitting on the tram, it's raining outside, and some guy is wrapped up to the last, and topped off with Gucci shades.

Anyways, things are chilled here. Even the nights we head about the town, it's chilled. The first thing you'll notice when you're out is the lack of scum, and the resultant lack of aggression... so laid back here.

As an example of a typical night here, take last Saturday. Me & Emmet decided on quiet one. We went to a Japanese cafe in Chinatown, experimented with some strange drinks, then went to the casino, had a few games of pool in a bar there, then strolled around the casino floor. Lost 5 dollars on Roulette, went home & grabbed some takeaway food from across the road. Compare this to a night out in Waterford (I could make so many bad points here), and you'll probably figure out where I'd rather be.