Sweet as.

My life is a complete 180 from Sydney.  Sydney was more of a "glitz and glamour" type of lifestyle.  I lived on the beach, worked a (mostly) Monday to Friday desk job, partied hard on the weekends (and some weekdays), shopped a lot for dresses and heals, and spent a lot of time lounging on the beach.  My life in Melbourne has consisted of working a lot for the last 3 months.  I live in a place without heat (although, I moved out of there on Monday and now live in a hostel).  I wear coats and sweatshirts all the time.  I worked in an ice house, and usually spent 12 hours a day on my feet... I have only recently started to go out, and that consists of going to a bar, sitting and having a few drinks with friends, and going home.  Sydney, we drank before we went out, went to a club, drank and danced until 3am.

Also in Sydney, all my friends were foreigners.  From England, Ireland, Germany, America, Canada...etc... everywhere EXCEPT Australia.  I barely even saw Australians.  Sydney is mostly made up of Asians and tourists.  If we saw an Australian in the bar it was like they were this weird, foreign species that we stared at from afar... not quite sure what to do with them.

In Melbourne, mostly all my friends are from Australia or New Zealand.  I've picked up on the accent a lot more (I say "sweet as"... or "[insert any word here] as" a lot).  

A few of the people that I have hung out with are as follows:

Jess:  Chef at the cafe that I work with.  She's from New Zealand and says "sex" instead of "six."  Come to think of it... all Kiwi's (I love calling them that...) say that.  We bond over our messed up views on relationship and sex... we blame our parents/grandparents for giving us screwed up views of love.  

Sarah: Barista at the cafe.  Also from New Zealand, but she is dating an English man.  She is pregnant with her first child, and we like to give her a hard time every day for her expanding waistline.  She is a true hippy, and the complete opposite of both Jess and I.

Brooke: Worked with me at the Icehouse... she is Australian.  Gets way to excited to clean things... especially the sandwich press.  Gets even more excited when we get new shipments of Steel Wool.  We have had many late night excursions using the buses at night (getting off work at 1am on a Saturday).  We're both a little strange and have a shared of love of saying "...was funny" in any form.  

Mikey:  From New Zealand, he plays in a band.  He will be famous and I will be able to say "I knew him when..."  We like to have random cuddle sessions.  Well, really, he forces himself upon me, forcing me to be the big spoon.  He wears a bowler hat every day, dresses like a hipster, and flirts with anything with boobs.  Possibly why we get along so well.  Plays hockey like a pro and works at the Icehouse selling overpriced merchandise.

Rob:  Also from New Zealand (sidenote: possibly might have lied about knowing a lot of Australians...).  Roommates with Mikey.  Dresses like a hipster and is known for stealing Ray Ban sunglasses from work.  Talking to him has made me say "[insert any word here] as" way more than I ever used to.  Plays hockey and works as an all-rounder at the Icehouse.  

Alice:  From England, but recently relocated to Australia.  Is 16 going on 25.  We only just started to get along, right before I quit the ice house.  Her dream is to own a bar, preferably by the age of 18.  We also like to giggle together over our "16 year old school girl crushes."  

Arron:  Obviously.  You know him... I write about him way too much (don't want to stroke his ego too much. heh.)  The only constant in my Australia experience.  Known him 9 months now... which we both agreed we could've had a child by now, if we had wanted to.  Thank God we didn't want to.  Oh, he's allergic to peanuts and shell fish... I didn't know what to write about him that you didn't already know.

There are a lot of other people that have made my time here very enjoyable, but these are the ones that I have hung out with the most.  And, really... that's not that much, since I worked all the time.  But, now that I have quit the Icehouse, I have a lot more free time.  

Speaking of the Icehouse, wanted to thank everyone there for making work not suck so much.  All of the kitchen staff... keeping me filled up on fattening foods and making me laugh.  Also, thanks for dousing me with water on my last night.  Thanks to everyone else, you know who you are.  Skeet, Scotty, Jake, Leo, and Travis always kept me entertained.  I will miss you all.  (even though, pretty sure no one really reads this.)

All Icehouse staff, left to right, Danielle, Rob, Me, Brooke), Leo, Arron (drunk on his 25th), and Mikey.

Again, Icehouse staff, Shelley, Lachlan, Danielle, Ali, Skeet, Scotty.

Love,

Michaela

"We promised each other it's til the end."

I'm starting to get anxiety about going home.  It's not because I hate you all... really, I miss home, I promise I do.  But, I start to fear things will be the way they were before they left.  I fear nothing will have changed.  It will be summer 2009 all over again.  And, let me tell you... I'm sure hell is a nicer place.

I will be going back to America September 20th.  That is less than 2 months away now (yikes).  I'm getting to the point where the amount of things I want to do are not fitting into my allotted travel time, and this is frustrating.  What happens once I get back?  Do I have to get a "grown up" job, spending 9 hours a day in a box, staring at a computer?  Because, honestly, that sounds awful.  Worse than awful... painful.  Really, I'm planning on going back to school and getting some sort of masters/mba.  Perhaps explore the hospitality degrees, since I do enjoy it a lot.  And, I plan on finding a way to never have to "work" a day in my life.. ie, never have to sit in a cubicle for 9 hours a day. 

While travelling I have met so many people like me, because back home I always felt like I was the weird one.  But, here, I'm just normal.  Well, whatever "normal" is considered... because, I'm pretty messed up.  Just read my blog, you can figure that one out.

One thing I love about travellers is they are keen to try almost anything.  Weird food?  Sure, why not!  Crazy, death-defying activity?  Yea, sign me up!  When I get home, that excitement is gone out of everyday life.  Everything back home is the same and familiar.  Here, even after being around for many months, things are still exciting.  The Aussies still speak funny.  The city is still breathtaking.  I still have to pinch myself to remind me I'm here.  I don't get that feeling back home.

I know I can't live this way forever.  I have to find a way to "setlle" myself some how, some day.  But, it's not necessarily true.  I will always be a wondering soul who gets uncomfortable in one spot too long.  I can't see that ever changing.  I just need to find a career that supports this... and radio/television bores me.  I would say I spent four years on a wasted degree, but had I not done this four years I would've never ended up where I am now.  Everything happens for a reason.

The thing is, I'm so happy in my life right now, I tend to get upset over the tiniest things... just cause I'm a girl and my body is trying to find things to be wrong.  But, really... I'm happy.  I can't stress those words enough.  But, I worry that my happiness is related to my state of place rather than related to my state of mind.

But, I am looking into things back home that will keep me sane.  I have grown to love hockey (watching and playing) over the last year, and have looked into some programs back home where I can keep improving my game (because it's pretty weak at the moment).  And, speaking of ice sports... it is my last week at the Icehouse.  I am going to miss (most) everyone that I worked with.  I really did make some friends there and had some great times.  I loved the times where the staff had the whole place to ourselves after all customers left at 1am and we would play stick and puck on the ice.  I also dealt with a lot of shit there, as it's ran pretty badly... but, the good times outweigh the bad in the end.  

Us skating... there is an American, a Canadian (I bet you can't guess which one...), a German, and two Aussies in this pic.  Seriously, my friends are like the UN.

"Hold on for just one more second,

Longer than you thought you could.

The things that seemed so hard

Are just one fleeting memory,

Filled with a smile that can't be changed."

Love,

Michaela

It's just a little bit of history repeating.

I decided to walk a different way home from the tram stop the other day and walked by a building that I have always seen but never closely paid attention to.  I saw a little plaque, so I decided to stop and read.  It is formerly known as the Wattle House and was built in 1840, making it one of the oldest structures in Melbourne, let alone Australia.  This alone intrigued me.  But, it's history is even more intriguing.

Russell’s earliest surviving building in Melbourne is St James’ Anglican Old Cathedral, 419-435 King Street, Melbourne (1839-51), which was relocated stone by stone from its original site in King Street.  Jackson’s (and indeed Melbourne’s) earliest surviving building on its original site, St Francis’ Roman Catholic Church (1841-45 & 1849) has been in heavy continuous use since the day it opened on 22 May 1842.

Jackson was born in England, the eldest of three brothers who in 1829 when he was 21, all emigrated toHobart in Van Diemen’s Land.  In England, Jackson had operated as a builder.  In Tasmania he turned his hand to design as well, employing his brothers as carpenters. Three of his buildings survive in Hobart. In 1835 he joined the John Pascoe Fawkner syndicate.  Crossing to Melbourne from Launceston in 1835, soon after Fawkner, he arrived within weeks of Russell.  He first established a pastoral property near Sunbury. He then returned to the practice of architecture.

In 1840, he opened a part-time office in Little Collins Street, developing a practice responsible for more significant buildings than any other architect prior to the Gold Rush, although many no longer survive.  He was designer of Scots’ Church, Collins Street (corner of Russell Street, 1841-42, demolished for the construction of the present Scots’ in 1873); St Patrick’s Church (1850, predecessor of the present Cathedral); St Mary’s, Geelong (1846); St Patrick’s Hall (Victoria’s first Legislative Assembly); the first Melbourne Hospital (1848); Charnwood, St Kilda the house for Octavius Browne (1855); Fairlie, Col. Anderson’s house, South Yarra (1846); ‘Tower House’; St Paul’s Church, Pentridge (1851-53) and Toorak House (1848-50).

With Russell, he entered the 1844 competition for the first Princes’ Bridge.  They received second prize, despite the winner, Charles Laing not fulfilling the competition conditions, not the last time for such a dubious occurrence in Melbourne.

As a designer without architectural training, Russell’s designs are provincial, unaffected, and even naive.  His details are very difficult to source, generally Gothic and Picturesque.  The ornament of St Francis recalls the decorated halls of the Commissioners’ Gothic, which Jackson may well have experienced as a builder in London.  He also painted one of the most important relics of early Melbourne- a panorama of the town on 30 July 1841, which is now in the La Trobe Collection of the State Library of Victoria.

Jackson had moved to Acland Street, St Kilda in 1845. He is listed in the 1847 Port Phillip Directory as ‘Samuel Jackson Architect, St Kilda’. For Prof. Miles Lewis, this is sufficient to date Wattle House as ‘c1847’. With F.G. Dalgety and H.F. Gurner (26), Jackson had purchased land at the second Crown Landsale in St Kilda in 1846. Eventually, he owned several hectares between Fitzroy, Acland and Grey Streets.

Jackson’s design for Wattle House is particularly Romantic, in a Picturesque Gothic or Cottage Orneémanner. But Lewis, Australia’s principal expert on prefabrication has confirmed that Wattle House is not, as is often claimed, prefabricated. Its design was probably derived by Russell, from architectural Pattern Books. Further research is needed to determine which.

It is two-storied with steeply pitched gabled roofs, with Tudor details and most decorative fretwork barges and finials, timbering and small-paned casement windows.  It is the oldest surviving house in St Kilda.

A fascinating technical detail is that the roof of Wattle House is partially clad with Morewood & Rogers iron roof tiles. Today, these are very rare in Victoria, but Berkley Hall’s stables (26) have them and formerly, so did the stables of Fenagh Cottage (25). Galvanised iron tiles reached Victoria as a patent method of roofing from 1850 and were used for about twenty years. They are about 900 x 575 mm and screw-fixed over half-round timber rolls, as an overlocking seal between tiles. Morewood and Rogers tiles were the earliest and most common, after those of their predecessors, Morewood & Co. The tiles were imported from a factory in leafy Gospel Oak, North London. (http://www.skhs.org.au/skhsbuildings/23.htm).

In 1863 it was leased off and turned into an all girls school.  In 1878 it was auctioned off, and has a few times after as well, and has been home to a brothel and now stands as a hostel (although, I think it was closed this year..., no proof on that though).  

It is a beautiful building that stands ominously over the shabby area that is St Kilda, reminiscing of the grandeur, beauty and prestige that St Kilda used to stand for.

A great article talking about exactly this... http://www.stkildaessence.com.au/09-essays/meyer-eidelson.html

You never know what history is, literally, right around the corner from you.

(Circa 1860)

(Circa 1865)

(Circa 2004)... looks way more run down now, which makes me think it's shut down.

Love, 

Michaela

Ice, Ice Baby.

I work at an ice rink...

...in a cafe...
...with some (kinda) cool peeps...
Love,

Michaela

"Lean on me when you're not strong and I'll be your friend."

My adventure in Australia is starting to come to an end.  That means I have less than 4 months left (my visa expires Nov 2nd).  I think about the things I've done and the people I've met, and I can't believe how far I've come.  When I came to Australia, I was a mess.  As I've mentioned before, I was still emotionally involved with Kipp and had to hop countries just to try and get some solace.  

I made some of my best friends within the first few weeks in Australia.  Lizzo, Annie, Sarah, Will, Arron and Hilary.   We've lived and worked together in Sydney.  We've travelled together.  We've partied.  We've fought.  We've also parted ways.  Arron and Hilary are the only ones still around, here in Melbourne with me.  

Had I been back home, most of us probably wouldn't have been friends, but our circumstances brought us closer than I've been to a lot of friends in my life.  I hope that I can stay friends with them for a really long time, even though we are now dispersed around the world.  Just like I try and stay friends with the people I miss back home (EP, Sara, Amy... etc).

Back in Sydney, I would say Lizzo was my best friend.  We lived together, worked together, and partied together.  It was pretty sad when she left, but I know we'll meet up again someday.  Now that I'm in Melbourne, I would say Arron is my best friend.  We've been close for 8 months now... and we even work at the Icehouse together.  

We've fought, been incredibly annoyed with each other, but we've also shared some of the best experiences together.  We did jump out of a plane together on my 23rd birthday.  He also was the person who helped me get over Kipp; made me realise I deserve better and that there are plenty of other people out there for me.  He's awkward and funny... makes me laugh through any situation.  We're total opposites, but for some reason we get along really well.

Can't believe it's been 8 months (and 2 days!).  That is twice as long as the time I spent in Austria.  The closer I get to leaving, I get sad, but I am excited at the same time.  I am a person who likes change and hates to settle.  I've realised this about my personality and am trying to accept it.  My whole life I've had problems keeping in touch with people and expressing my feelings to anyone.  

I've taken huge steps here on that, thanks to the amazing people I've met and the experiences I've had.

Thanks everyone!

And, thanks Arron... I will miss you and never forget you as my friend who gets red after 1 drink and wasted after 3.  :P

Love,

Michaela