Melbourne Part 2

Here are a few more photos of our July Melbourne adventure. I have a ton of photos but I am also really aware of not posting photos of people whose permission I don't have, so that eliminates quite a few of them. I'll do my best to post other interesting shots though!Here are Simon and I at the footie game. I am celebrating the Bombers' victory, hence the scarf draped over the entire photo!
I can't remember if it was the next day or a few days after, but we went to the 'Shrine of Remembrance' I believe it's called. We spent an hour or so wandering through it, there was lots to see. This is a view of downtown Melbourne from the shrine. What makes me most happy is that the Aboriginal flag is displayed in the middle of the three flags that represent Australia. The flag on the left is the national flag, and on the right is the Torres Straight Islander flag.

Flinders Street station again. The building itself is gorgeous!

And this is a random shot, in one of the arcades there is a candy shop and they are regularly making candy there. Not sure what this will turn out to be, but it looks like mints or something!

Sorry these photos are in sections, I'll try to get more up soon!

July - Melbourne

Hello, sorry for the insanely long absence from posting, but hopefully over the next week or so I can show you why! We left Canberra on the 1st of July and got back 2 days ago. Today is my first day of classes again, so I'm going to try to post as much as possible this week and next, knowing that it will get busy again soon!
Anyway, our time away went like this:
July 1-8 Melbourne
July 8-9 Sydney
July 9-11 Culburra
July 11-12 Sydney
July 12-20 Cairns
July 20-24 Sydney
July 24 Canberra
It was all a blast, we had every sort of weather system you could imagine short of snow, and while Melbourne was rainy windy and cold, Cairns was sunny and warm. Packing for 3 weeks, and only carry-on luggage, was something of an accomplishment!

I'm going to try to post photos chronologically, but I'll probably only do a few a day so that I can focus on getting back into school stuff as well. Maybe this weekend I can get a significant chunk done, so til then, I'll try posting a few photos a day. Here it goes!

Simon and I were really lucky, a friend of ours was driving to Melbourne so we went with him. The trip took about 7 hours, and it was neat to see more of Australia's countryside. We went through a solid stretch where there were koalas, but try as I might I didn't spot one. Next time hopefully!

The first dinner we ate was back to Sichaun House in Melbourne's Chinatown. It's so delicious! Melbourne definitely has the best selection of food in Australia that we've found so far.

So we arrived on Friday. On Saturday we went to an AFL (aka Aussie Rules football to us foreigners) game. The game is CRAZY, but so fast paced and really easy to get into. We went with Simon's friends and had a good rivalry going on between us. Definitely a game I want to be able to understand more.


By default I was cheering for the winning team, which was apparently a really big deal because the other team is #1 right now so this game was a major upset. Which made it all the more incredible! Later that night we met up with friends from school at a party that was totally free and we would have never known about if we weren't invited. Melbourne is crazy like that, there's a bunch of stuff going on in different spaces all over the city that you have to know about otherwise you'd never even realize something was going on. Course I guess that's the same with most cities.

The next day we didn't get up to too much, it was pretty rainy out. At night we met up with another friend from school to go for dinner on Lygon street, which is all Italian food. Simon was sure he saw a Greek restaurant but after a thorough search, we realized there's pretty much only Italian, so we went for dinner at Papa something's. The food was delicious, they had pasta, pizza, seafood, a whole bunch of stuff.

Ok, so that's it for post #1 but I swear more are coming! Til then, I'm off to get some groceries and do more reading for class.

Til soon! xx

Updates...Finally!

I apologize for the seriously long delay in getting photos and some updates up. I've been done for about 2 weeks now, which has been great. But given the amount of time I spent on the computer typing away in the last month or so, I've been trying to stay away from typing for the last little bit! It's been great. It's been cool here but really sunny which is great. I've spent a lot of time outside which is nice. I'll try to update more about the last few weeks over the next week. I think Simon and I are going to Melbourne from the 1st-10th-ish, so won't be in touch much then, but should be around for the next month or so. Our plans are to get to Sydney, the coast and Cairns too, so we'll see how successful that is! For now, here are a few pictures.
This is another hot air balloon that I saw outside our place a few weeks ago. At first I thought it was stuck in the trees but it turns out it was just behind them.
A friend and I went to an event hosted by the Australian division of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees on Monday, June 20th, World Refugee Day. The woman speaking is someone important here in the Aus government, can't remember exactly who. But the second she arrived it became about acknowledging how wonderful the government is about bringing refugees into Australia. I agree that they've been pretty good, but could be way way better, especially about changing public opinion. People don't take time to think about what sort of circumstances people have to be in to flee their homes, their livelihoods, often members of their families, and pay sometimes more than they can afford to flee. Canada is no better, that's for sure. We are Westerners don't think about these things very often, sadly.
This woman is Auntie Ruth. She's from the Aboriginal community here in Canberra, so she did an acknowledgement of the traditional territories. She also welcomed the international students to Canberra when we arrived in February.
Earlier that day I went to a film screening. In 1972 the Aboriginal community in Australia set up an embassy outside of the Parliament buildings here in Canberra to demand land rights. The screening was all about the tent embassy and the struggle of the Indigenous community to keep the embassy going. It was really interesting, and some of the original members who set up the embassy were present. This is the panel of people who were answering questions, including the original group members who are still alive.
Finally, this is a picture from almost a month ago, of the Sydney Opera House at night. Simon and I did an overnight trip to see a band there. It was really really cool, part of the Vivid Festival in Sydney. I wish we'd had more time to check it out but we both had to be back for class the next day. We're hoping to head back to Sydney soon.

Ok, more will come shortly. I went with friends up to a nature park last week, and we are hiking up the Mountain behind our apartment through the Botanic Gardens tomorrow, so more pictures will be up soon too.

Til then!

Conflict and Calmness

Don't have too much time to type, but thought I should since it's been a while!

Things that have frustrated me this week -

1) Conflict. There seems to be a lot of it in my life right now. And while I fully recognize a lot of it isn't to do with me personally, the nature of some of it makes it hard to separate personal from political. I feel like a magnet as it's on all fronts too - home, school, even in the areas of my life that I consider to be removed from all else, like the Burma Update that happened earlier this week. (That is a whole post on its own, which I will try to get to before my reactions become lost in other thoughts. And just to clarify none of this is about Simon and I either, he's been super supportive throughout this week!) I'm trying my best to not do the self-pity thing, as its pretty unhelpful. Instead focusing on methods of eliminating conflict, which is working well so far.

2) Stress. I'm sure the fact that I am also dealing with three major deadlines is pressing on my brain too. While I've been working really hard on everything, just the fact that there are deadlines looming (just realized I need to look into where the origins of the word deadline comes from, I'm sure having the word dead in there subconsciously doesn't help!), is stressful in itself.

3) Lack of sleep. This has probably served to compound the other two!

Things that have made me really happy this week -

1) I have a really supportive group of friends and colleagues, and they have been sympathetic enough to let me vent to them on a number of occasions, for which I am very thankful. Not to mention they are just all around really cool people.

2) Simon. He's my ongoing happiness. Cheese ball, but true! It'll be 5 years we've been together come September, which I still can't believe.

3) Hockey. Apart from today where I see we're down 3-0 at the moment, watching the Canucks has been really great. Particularly the 7-3 trouncing, even if it was largely because of one Sharks' ugliness. I am also really excited by the rumour of the Thrashers moving to Winnipeg. Not because I want less teams in America, but because I want more teams in Canada. It just makes me happy. Though the proposed names all sound terrible. The original name was the best. Bring back the Winnipeg Jets!

4) There are more, but the last one I want to write about is Culburra. We are back here and in the company of Simon's Uncle, which is great. It's nice to be around family, even if it's not *technically* my own. I am also typing this sitting in the warm lovely sunshine, the birds are singing, and there is a slight breeze coming off of the ocean. What a great way to finish writing my essays :-)

Will try to write more again soon, and incorporate some pictures too. Haven't been taking many lately as there isn't too much to take pictures of when you're in front of the computer all day!

Til soon!

Melbourne - Thursday

Ok so it's getting to be about three weeks after we got back from Melbourne, so I need to finish this off pretty quick! Thursday was a really relaxing day, it was beautiful and sunny, and we took some time to just wander and explore. The photos are mostly in order, but a few aren't, sorry about that. This post is going to be rushed, I apologize. In good news, I've got 4000/5000 words for my first essay so I'm at least being productive!

This is a wicked cafe/bar that was set up under one of the pedestrian footbridges across the river. We spent about an hour there, then after about an hour or two of wandering, we went back. It was so lovely to just relax!

Watching the first hockey game from the hostel room!

My last purchase in Melbourne. Its an inspirational book that I'm going to pick up and look at every time I'm feeling like I may not be contributing to the world!

A view from the bridge that the bar is under.

Simon from the bridge, celebrating the Canucks win!

Simon had to take this picture for me since I was too weirded out to stand and look up because the building was so crazy tall!

Another one of the pedestrian bridges over the river. It was lined with writings about the immigration population of Australia.

Burma's statistics. Though they're hard to see since they're on glass!

A view from the same bar under the bridge.

Another view!

Gorgeous cloud formation.

At night we went to a rooftop patio that we would've never known about if we weren't directed there. It was a little windy but gorgeous other than that. It reminded me of Mad Hatters on Crescent in Montreal.

A view of the rooftop patio.

More of the rooftop!

In the summer they screen movies up there, and this is the screen. Have to go back in the summer!

So now the photos are out of order. Later in the night we went to a soul night at a club that was suggested by a friend, which was fun. These pictures are earlier in the day, before the bar and the game when we went to the Queen Victoria Market. There were lots of people and lots of different foods to buy and eat. We ate lunch there, and browsed the other stalls that were selling clothing, art, and all sorts of stuff. That reminded me of Poland and the European market vibe.

Cool photo of the post office archway.

One of the Arcades we went through a few times.

A back alley with some shops.

Another cool alleyway!

That's about it for Thursday. Sorry it's so short. I'll see if I have any photos of Friday, but we didn't do too much before we had to be at the airport so this is probably the end of the Melbourne trip posts. Hope you enjoyed, will be back soon with something made up since all I've been doing recently is writing essays!

Til soon!

Wednesday in Melbourne

Wednesday we walked around a lot more, and spent the afternoon on Brunswick street, which reminded me a lot of home, with the vintage stores and the cafes. It was a great spot, I'd like to spend more time there. I bought a really wicked side bag, see below. In the evening we met up with a friend of mine that I met in Montreal, and we went for a delicious si-chaun dinner and drinks.

The bag that I bought. I love it!

A drink at a cafe we stopped at just off of Brunswick street.

A door at one of the stores we went to.

I took this photo for my mom. It wasn't on Brunswick street, it was in one of the arcades, but it's a store of Babushka dolls.

A view of Brunswick street.

Another view of the street from the cafe we had lunch at.

A cool view in another Brunswick street building.

St George, I think. A view from right outside the library.

View of RMIT building.

Cool architecture.

At the end of the si-chaun dinner. Simon staring down the spicy beef. The food was delicious, but HOT. and the restaurant was packed. We had enough food to have lunch the next day too, it was great.

Cool public art called 'the public purse'.

My drink. I can't remember the name of the bar, but it was down another really cool alley and we would have never found it on our own! The theme was old school science laboratory, so the drink came with a shot looking thing. It was awesome, but expensive.

Sorry this is short, Thursday post will come soon!