So, here it is. We’ve finally left our house in Carlton (NE Melbourne) and have moved to stay with our friend Rod Baker for a week in his beautiful country home in Riddells Creek (60km NW of Melbourne). This seems a good time to reflect a little of some of what we have experienced during our time in Melbourne.

I would like to say that I’m sorry to leave that house, but then I’d be a liar.

The truth is that we’ve had so much trouble in that house that we’re both glad to see the back of it.

Now the story hasn’t been divulged here before, and it’s so damn long and tortuous and that I’m not about to relate it all here entirely. Nor can I really be bothered in person. But here’s a summary:    

• We had to change address 3 times in the first 2 months. We lived in a ultra-expensive house in St.Kilda for 3 weeks, then moved to hostel for a week whilst we were waiting to move into a flat in the city.
• That flat started out okay, but apart from the fact that the other tenants had a kind of ‘old-school’ club that we seemingly couldn’t join either because they’d grown very close and/or smoked half of Australia’s Marijuana supply together, but the flat was cockroach infested. We’re talking ‘roaches coming out the cooker, we’re talking about several ‘roaches a day, DURING THE DAY! This was in winter – what was it going to be like in spring or summer? Urgh….. The two stoners and (as we later discovered) alcoholic depressive (the sole lease holder) that we were staying with didn’t count this as a problem. I quote, “Oh, I quite like them actually – it’s like having little pets.”

  Sorry sunshine – can’t agree with you there.

  So we had to move out into the house in Carlton. This seem good, although it was a lot of hassle to put together (that’s yet another story). But the house was nice and we had high hopes. Oh how foolish and naive we were.

• There have been several changes of housemate – 4 to be exact. There was never meant to be any, and we were forced, more or less, to manage the house and oversee all that stuff.
• One of the original housemates (who, much to our chagrin, was of course chosen by us!) turned out to be a drug-addicted loser. It was like living with a teenage drug addict. Except he was 22. To put you in the picture, he lied, left crushed up LSD all over the kitchen, stunk out the front door and front hallway area with the stench from lack-of-washing that came from his room, kept LSD in the freezer, spent most of his days smoking pot out the back, didn’t believe in deadlines or paying bills on time etc. You get the picture. His parting shot was to draw a huge penis in chalk on the front porch. Yes, you read that right. That was also after he’d told me that I was immature and unfit to be a teacher because I didn’t want to talk to him due to a tirade of abuse I had received from him the previous day.
• The letting agency neglected to do their job at every turn, including making sure our bond was transferred into our names. They neglected to post off 6, yes – count’em, 6 transfer of bond forms, never acted on any rejection notices they got that said these forms were faulty when they did post them off and then had the audacity to say that it wasn’t their fault. Amazing. They’ve had to go to a tribunal court to sort it all out. Dicks.

That is the briefest summary, but the account of our housing situation ends here.

Regretably the administrative stress didn’t end there. There was the car to buy and sort out. Now buying a car anywhere, anytime, is a stressful business, but buying an interstate car in Australia is a downright pain. But it’s all sorted now and it’s legally mine (which is helpful) and we’re through that as well.

So all in all, our time in Melbourne hasn’t been all that rosy. If it hadn’t been for the fantastic friends that we’ve made via Cafe Church, juggling and housemates (who didn’t take drugs all the time and actually had a life) then it all would have been a dead loss.

Having said that, despite all the hassle, it’s been much better than staying in London for the same time. Although, now that we’ve had a serially awful house share, we’d be hard pushed to go into another shared house again. It’s been great to live in Carlton which has been so convenient and so near the city, but at what cost?

Many people say that we’ve just been unlucky, and they could be right. But you can only go on your experience, and ours of Melbourne hasn’t been great.

It’s also been a shame that we haven’t had much chance to get out and enjoy more of the night life. Gigs are impossible because they all start late and so if you’re not a student or working in hospitality then you’ll never make it to one – that really sucks. The bars are good here, but are so expensive (comparable to London sometimes – alcohol is expensive here) that Bernice and I haven’t been able to get too many because we’ve needed to save money.

Having said that, I’m not sure that I would have changed much with regards to that if I had this time again. In place of going out etc. I’ve had more time to think, reflect, cultivate more of an interior life and I’ve definitely had more opportunity to progress spiritually. So, when you put it like that, was it really all that bad that we couldn’t go out that much?

Anyway, with a bit of luck this blog will become more regular with the time we have in the evenings on the road and with my recent purchase of the ecto blogging client, which should make things easier.

So, we’ve been here in Melbourne for about a month now.

One of the strangest things about being here is that everyone speaks English, but yet you’re not in England. It even took us both a few days to get over the novelty of someone speaking fluent English! After being in Malaysia for so long and having to speak broken English to be understood, it comes as a surprise to be able to converse naturally.

Melbourne is expensive – this is something we weren’t, for some bizarre reason, quite prepared for. It’s amazing how close to UK prices many things are, although the basics – rent and travel, do tend to be cheaper in the main. But we took too long settling into the country. Too much time exploring Melbourne and still being on holiday. Oops!

Anyhow, to cut a few long stories short, we’ve now moved into a great apartment in the middle of Melbourne’s city centre (the Central Business District, or CBD). Our flatmates are also really great, but the only big problem with the apartment is that it’s heavily infested with cockroaches. Nice. So now we’ve declared war on the bastards and I’m putting into action a cunning plan of crack filling, poison bait laying and boric acid dusting. Apparently insecticide bombing along will do very little, so it has to be a more concerted and long-term effort. The good news is that the tools to do it are very cheap, the bad news is that it may well take a while to get through everything and lock down the whole flat, if ever. But it’s worth a go.

Job hunting is hit and miss. Hit – I’m working in a cafe and getting day shifts, full-time hours and training on making coffee and other bar stuff. Miss – I’m haven’t been able to get a TEFL job yet and the cafe is in the middle of getting new management with a load of people leaving and the atmosphere could be better! (Tiger Tiger, where are you lovely people when I need you?!) So I’m working in hospitality, but only as a stop gap solution. I’m still looking for TEFL teaching but the industry is slow at the moment.

Apart from that we’ve been

• metal night-clubbing (before we ran out of money!) which was good, 
• possum-spotting in our old house that we lived in for our first 2 weeks (they are SO cute! Not like rats at all like some would have you believe),
• getting used to Australian lingo (why is bedding called Manchester?)
• Trying to figure out the new currency which, thank God, uses more shrapnel and less paper than Malaysia
• Pleasantly surprised by the fanaticism of Melburnians when it comes to coffee
• Amazed at how backward Australia is when it comes to broadband internet
• I’ve been happy to find that the flat has an Xbox360 – get in!
• Annoyed and dismayed at how video gaming is far more expensive AND many of the games are edited before release here!
• Disappointed to discover that we have to get a job for the first time in 4 months!