Chuck Another Brim on the Barbie
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A small update
To be honest, since my last Christmas updates I haven’t really been up to much. I’ve been working quite a bit and frisbee just getting back to full steam but things have been quiet over the last few weeks. For me this has meant a lot of time spent on the internet. It’s been the usual stuff mostly (a lot of Cracked.com) but I thought I’d share a few of my new internet places:
- I’ve been writing on a friend’s blog a bit. I’ve been writing some game reviews with the catch being that they cannot be longer than 100 words. It’s good fun to do and keeps me thinking and writing. Check out all my reviews here.
- After shooting to (relative) fame after his trick shot videos, Brodie Smith of Doublewide has been doing daily vlogs on YouTube. His vlogs mostly revolve around ultimate and him trying to earn a living from a sport that has no professional players (until the AUDL starts this year). It’s really interesting to track his progress in this uncharted territory as well as to get some insight on training techniques and things that can help make me a better ultimate player.
- I’m really keen on getting into making some music so have been looking at the various digital audio workstations (DAW; e.g. Logic Pro, Pro Tools, ect.) that are available and seeing where to start. Partly inspired by Ben’s foray into DJing and also something that I have wanted to have a stab at for a while. I haven’t really got started with that yet as I am waiting until the new iMac is released but I’ve been doing a bit of reading and seeing what I can do to get a running start
- Various flight websites. I’ve spent so much time on all of the various flight comparison sites that I’m just getting annoyed with them. I’m planning a bit of travelling this year so I need a bunch of flights. So far I’d like to go back to the UK around April time, volunteer at WFDF World Championships at Osaka, Japan in June and I’m meeting my family in Florida, USA for a nice relaxing family holiday (and some theme parks). Obviously, all of this travelling is going to be expensive!
- Kirsty’s Germany blog. Kirsty (Matt Plant’s girlfriend if you’re missing the connection) is flying to Germany this Saturday to work for 3 months. I’ve been reading what little she has already written and both interesting and funny. Hopefully there will be more to read when she gets out there but so far so good!
Also, my stuff form the UK finally arrived! I know, it’s only been 3 months! It was all going swimmingly until I tried to boot my PC. Blue screen after blue screen. Crap. I’m sending some details of my problems off to the insurance company but the PC isn’t worth a great deal anyway. I just hope my data is OK!
My stuff arriving also meant that I now have a lot more clothes. This many in fact:
Good job I am having a washing machine delivered today!
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Looking back - Settling In
This will be the last of my little updates. I dare say that I’ll do something like this again but I’m not sure when or if I will have anything interesting to say. I guess that is what this post is about. I’m really settling into Melbourne life and as such life is becoming routine (not a bad thing, my routine is awesome). I really don’t want to be blogging about everyday boring stuff and that’s the reason that I tailed off before.
The main thing I have to say in this post is in this picture:
Merry Christmas all! I took this photo on around the 20th December and really wanted to send it as a Christmas card as it has Christmas with a Melbourne twist (Flinders Street Station and a tram!). Alas, by the time the photo was taken, it wouldn’t have reached home before the clocks changing!
How am I settling into life in Melbourne? Again this is another one that is easier described by a picture:
I took this yesterday while sunbathing at St. Kilda. Playing all this frisbee has left me with such a ridiculous tan that I now look a little like a zebra (Hannah said that first). I’m trying to even it out a bit with some sessions at the beach listening to the Ricky Gervais podcast (I know, I’m about 2 years behind on this one. I’ve never really done podcasts before now). I’m using the fact that I’m worried about my silly tan as a good measure for my quality of life. To put it another way; life is good.
I’m really settling in and I love living here. It is just such a nice place to be and to live that as I said before; I can’t see myself wanting to live anywhere else for a while. Another reason I don’t want to move is that as you saw in my last post, I finally have got my flat furnished and equipped to a good standard and I don’t like the idea of having to do that again for a while!
With regards to my flat I only wanted to show the (nearly) finished product but there was a stage where my flat was just filled with cardboard and plastic wrapping. For at least a week, there was this huge amorphous blob of cardboard in a giant plastic bag that took up half of my living room:
I finally managed to get rid of all of the cardboard on the day that I hired a car. I took all of the cardboard to the local recycling centre and all of the plastic went in the bin bit by bit. I wish I could say that I’ve gotten rid of all of the moving in rubbish but I still have the boxes from the giant box of kitchen stuff that I bought. It will all go out eventually, little by little into the recycling. Luckily, the shipping company unpacks all of my stuff and then takes the boxes away!
I’ve decided to keep this one short because all of the others are short and people have better things to do on Christmas day than to read my blog so I am going to finish on yet another of the St. Kilda sea front (have you discovered the theme yet? I LIVE BY THE BEACH!). Yes, about 40% of this picture is car park but if you look closer, the car park is mostly empty on a really sunny day. This means that not only do I live by a beach and in an awesome place, there is also ample parking :)
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Looking back - The New Flat
Wow, 5 posts in one day with another planned. All on Christmas Day too! As you can all imagine, today hasn’t been the most eventful Christmas Day for me. The 2 high points of today have been finding a place that’s still open so I could get some coffee in the morning and being called by one of our customers because something had gone wrong. Sounds a bit lonely but it was necessary to have the opportunity of being in Australia in the first place so I don’t regret it for an instant.
Edit: Something much funnier happened while I was talking with my parents whilst on Skype, I’ll leave the details off the internet but if you want to know, just ask :)I know the last post was very long and probably uninteresting to more people than the rest of the posts but there was a lot of stuff that I wanted to say that fitted perfectly in that post.
This one will be a lot shorter as the pictures will, hopefully, speak for themselves.
Anyway…
As I said in my 3rd post, I’d found somewhere to live. I signed all of the paperwork and collected the keys about 1 week after being accepted. All very prompt and good.
I was told that when I took the place that there were some parts of the flat that didn’t get cleaned properly and I was asked to clean them myself. Although this was a bit of a nuisance, I decided to accept because I didn’t want the hassle that may have come with refusing to go about getting the keys this way. I spent my first full day in the flat (and $50 on cleaning supplies) scrubbing the flat. Most of the time was spent on the bathroom and then on the kitchen. I have some before photos somewhere…
The reason that I had chosen to find somewhere so early (in terms of my 2 months free rent) was that I wanted to move in slowly. Australia doesn’t really do the whole furnished apartment thing so I had nothing when I moved in. Unfurnished in the UK usually means you get stuff like a washing machine, bed and a fridge. Not here. Nothing. With that in mind, I had a lot of shopping to do!
Shortly after securing my place and cleaning up, one of the guys at work was having trouble finding a place. He had to move out before I did and knew where he wanted to live, he just needed for it to be decorated (it was a brand new building). He was living in the same building as me and like the place as much as I did. He approached me and asked if he could sub-let my place for 2 weeks while his place is being made ready to move in. I was sceptical until he told me how much he was offering for the two weeks. The classic cartoon bit of dollar signs rolling around my eyes may have actually happened. I wasn’t looking in the mirror at the time so I’ll never know.
I had roughly a week to get my flat in a liveable state. This meant the essentials: fridge, sofa, bed. To be honest I wouldn’t have done everything this fast if the whole sub-letting thing hadn’t have happened. In fact, I wouldn’t have been able to afford to get everything sorted that quickly without the extra cash.
With that in mind, I did have some money to play with so I had already ordered my fridge before everything was set in stone. I got a call shortly after ordering to inform me that the fridge I ordered was out of stock and I had the choice of waiting or cancelling. Being as at the time of purchase, the fridge was on sale, I chose to wait and save the cash. I was moving earlier than expected and wouldn’t have a fridge until much later than expected. Good job that my new flat is very close to a super market as well as bunch of take away places!
In the few weeks that followed I spent most of my Tuesday evenings (I was playing frisbee on the rest!) at Ikea either picking stuff or ordering stuff. The biggest order came to around $1,000 dollars and netted me a bed, a mattress, a coffee table and a desk.
The sofa came from a place called Super-A-Mart. It’s basically a furniture warehouse. I managed to get 2 seater chaise sofa for $800. I was very pleased with this as it was exactly the type of sofa that I wanted.
My next biggest shop came on a Saturday. I hired a car for the day and again drove up to Ikea. This was a day when I got all of the “essentials”. The biggest things that I bought were a bedside table and my TV stand. I also bought most of my kitchen stuff in one go (pots, pans, plates and cutlery as well as a few of the other little bits that a kitchen needs).
After getting all of this stuff my flat finally felt like my own. Everything in it I had bought with cash that I had earned myself.
Finally, when the fridge came it was complete (almost). All I am waiting for now is my stuff from the UK to arrive and I will be content. My parents keep telling me that I should be proud of myself; my first home to myself and I have bought everything upfront. I agree but at the same time, like most things in my life, everything has been fairly easy and have just fallen into place.
Below are some pictures of my flat that I took today. It’s obviously a little messy and there are still some important things missing (like my TV, PS3 and PC) but they won’t be long now.
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Looking back - Frisbee
I’m going to say this upfront. For the majority of people reading this (I’m assuming that only my family and maybe like 2 others read this), this post is likely to be the least interesting for you whilst being the most interesting for me to write. There will be some pictures in this one too though so if you don’t even bother reading, at least one of the pictures will be slightly interesting (one of them even has a picture of me with other people in it).
I’m sure you’re all well aware of my (slight) obsession with ultimate frisbee by now. I started playing in my second year at Swansea Uni after being introduced by Stef. I’ve played frisbee in 3 continents now (Europe, Asia and Australasia) and my love for all things flying disk (except Whammos, bleugh) is only increasing. Also, frisbee is very social sport so this will be a post where I actually talk about me interacting with other people. I know! Real people!
Anyway…
Moving to a new place sucks for a number of reasons but the biggest one is that you leave all of your friends behind and you’re lucky if you know two people in the city that you’re moving to. This was always something that worried me about moving because to be honest, no one is every going to put me in the “people person” category. At best I’m nonchalant and at worst I’m miserable to be around. These are all things that I am aware of and was hoping to change when coming to Australia otherwise I would be stuck with 0 people to talk to.
I’d say about 50% of the people that I am friends with on Facebook play ultimate. Most of these people are from the UK (although Australia is putting in a good effort to be my friend :) ). The non-frisbee people are from a few other categories such as; people from school or uni I don’t really talk to (majority), people from school or uni I occasionally talk to (next largest group) and people from school or uni that I regularly talk to (small group). Playing the numbers game, it seems like I will be better off with frisbee people!
A quick google put me onto the Ultimate Victoria page and with that I discovered social league. “Social league” is a lot more of the first word that it is of the second. It’s more of a “Social come and learn how to play ultimate or have a throw around and meet some people while you’re at it”. This works perfectly for me. Naturally social league is in Albert Park.
In hindsight, my first night at social league was very weird. I played terrible but for most people it was only their second week in playing so it didn’t show too much. Despite playing terrible, the guy who runs Social (Seb, or Sebbo if you’re an Aussie) invited me down to a new men’s league that was starting with his club. I was more than happy to accept and was very excited to play some ultimate that was a bit more competitive.
First, there was more social league. I love social league, it’s where I have met a lot of the people that I know in Melbourne today. The strange thing is that while there are a few Aussies, the split at social is about 50/50 between Australians and non-Australians. It has been amazing fun to meet loads of new people, go to the pub afterwards and get running around again.
I’d barely done any exercise in the past 3 or 4 months and it showed in my first few weeks at social! I played a few points and then I would be lying on the floor fighting for breath. I blamed the heat at the time but I was just so unfit!
There was one week of social league that ended up being cancelled. Unfortunately for me, I was already at the park because I had the afternoon off. I was just lying down, reading on my iPad and waiting for people to turn up. Then this showed up out of nowhere:
The weird part was that this all came over in around 2 minutes. There was a gust of wind that smelled like sea air and within 5 minutes I was soaked! Three other guys showed up and being as we were already drenched, we had a throw around for an hour anyway. Good practice for throwing in the win and rain!I played social league every week (that it wasn’t cancelled) up until the end of the season (just before Christmas) and will be going back for the next season too (just after Christmas). I probably won’t join in with the training so much (it’s aimed at true beginners, rather than people who just suck like me) but I’ll probably end up doing throwing practice with Trent. Trent has fast become one of my best friends in Australia and is a good Aussie bloke (that’s Australian for guy).
Moving on to the men’s league. I was happy to get involved in some more competitive ultimate but wasn’t quite ready for the shock of playing with these guys! The club, Heads of State Ultimate, are a high level club in Australia. A lot of the guys play internationally for the Australian team and the club has played the world club championships at least once.
Men’s league was really tough for me! Everyone else there was so much fitter and it showed. Despite that, I was loving it and felt like I was getting fitter every week and learning so much from the wealth of experience at the club.
One of the guys at the club who knew that I was new to Melbourne asked me if I was playing in the Monday night league. Looking back, he already knew the answer. He seems to know everyone on the Melbourne frisbee scene already and would have seen me before. He invited me to play league with hit team, The Other Team. Monday night league is split into 2 divisions, div 2 and div 3. Div 1 no longer exists but has been replaced by MAD League. Mixed Advanced Draft I think. Doesn’t matter, we were playing in div 3. This also doesn’t matter because most people play both divisions anyway.
Monday night league is great fun and again I’ve met loads of really nice people and have spent a bit of time at the pub with the rest of the team. Monday night league is obviously played at Albert Park (can you see the theme here?) but is played on synthetic pitches instead of grass:
I was really surprised at just how comfortable it is to run on in boots. Playing with TOTs was great fun and again, I learned a lot and met some awesome people. I’ll be back when the season starts after Christmas!Back to HoS! As men’s league came to a close (our team came last, even with the amazing group of players we had), the club had organised a training camp in nearby Ballarat. Ballarat is about an hour and a half out of Melbourne and a lot of the guys who now play for HoS are originally from Ballarat. I was very much up for this!
I loved the whole weekend. Firstly, it was the first time that I got to play ultimate in a stadium:
Don’t get me wrong, this wasn’t Old Trafford or anything even approaching that standard but it was amazing to be playing on a well maintained pitch and to have all the facilities like our own changing room, showers and a meeting area.The plan for the weekend was this:
- Warm up & defensive drills
- Lunch
- Offensive drills & game
- Showers & club meeting
- Dinner and some drinks at a local pub
- Mini-golf
- Lunch
- Offence vs. Defence game
I really enjoyed the drills, HoS play in a completely different way to what I’m used to so I have to get out of all my bad habits and learn to play like them. The club meeting was really interesting; as a club we set the goals for the season and talked a bit about being a team and all the other stuff that you see in films about American Football teams.
The drinks? I got wasted. I thought that we were just going to have a few quiet ones but jugs of beer were really cheap and we just kept chucking them back! The short story is that I got to bed at 4am and already felt like death!
Day 2! Mini-golf. I was still entirely smashed at this point and was using the club to hold me up most of the way around. The course was really cool though; it was an indoor course themed like medieval Britain. Good fun all ‘round. Needless to say, I didn’t win. We grabbed some lunch in town and then headed back to the stadium. We were meant to be playing a game but I felt like I was about to vomit at any moment. We didn’t have the numbers, I had to play. O vs. D and I was on the O team. In the state I was in, running seemed almost impossible but after a few points, I’d shaken out the cobwebs and actually put a bit of effort in. Our team lost. Badly.
After the game, we were all chatting while packing up and one of the guys summed up the weekend perfectly for me:
The best thing about joining a sports team is that as soon as you join, you get 20 new mates
This is pretty much how it has felt with all of the frisbee that I have done since moving out here. Every group or team that I play with just means that I meet more nice people and make more friends. And here I was worrying that I was going to be a loner!
I know this post is monstrously long but I couldn’t write a post about frisbee and not mention the Melbourne Hat. A hat tournament is a tournament where everyone enters as players rather than a team. Upon registering (well in advance of the actual weekend) you rank yourself and the teams are picked to try and make as even teams as possible.
There is a hat tournament that I’ve been to 3 times in the UK, DUFFA. DUFFA has been my favourite tournament every year for the last 3 years. You play with a bunch of new people, play in ways that you have never played before and generally have the most fun while playing frisbee. The Melbourne Hat was all this and more. It was very similar in format and style to the DUFFA tournament but was so well run and everything was thought of. To finish this huge post, here is a picture of me with my Melbourne Hat team, Gumbys:
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Looking back - Finding a New Home
Part 3 already! I’m impressed with my own ability to aimlessly type so much. I was given months of free accommodation in Freshwater Place by the company. I’m on a relocation scheme whereas all the other guys I work with here were on an “extended overseas assignment” which meant that they have been living in places like Freshwater for over a year. Free accommodation and living expenses for a year! Due to a number of reasons, the extended overseas deal was ending so everyone else had to move onto the relocation policy that I was on. This meant that everyone in the office was now looking for somewhere to live at around the same time as me but they had the luxury of not paying rent for the previous year.
Anyway…
Firstly, I’d like to say something about the real estate setup in Australia. My very first point is that I don’t like it. Finding somewhere to live in the UK is hard enough but here you have all of that plus competition thrown in. When you are looking to rent/buy a property here, you don’t just contact the agent and they show you around. On the agent’s website as well as the meta-estate-agent sites (think Rightmove in the UK), for any given property there will be a specified “inspection time”
What this means is that you turn up at the given time with all of the other people who are interested in this property and all look around at the same time. If you like the place, you submit an application form and 100 points of ID (this bit particularly annoyed me as each agency would have different point values thus making the system entirely arbitrary). If the agency and landlord like you, they call you up and congratulate you like you’ve just got into Harvard on a scholarship.
I ended up going to see so many places and arranging my weekends based on what times I could go and see various apartments. This meant essentially ranking the places based on poor photos and descriptions because it isn’t possible to see all of your short listed flats in one day because of the awkward timings and travel time between each place. I am thoroughly glad that the whole process is over because it was such a pain. Rant over.
I had decided early on that I wanted to live in St. Kilda. My reason was fairly simple; it was where the beach was. There were other minor reasons such as not being too far from work and being a vibrant place to live but there are lots of places like that (e.g. Fitzroy) but none of them had the beach. I mean who wouldn’t want to live close to this:
One of the places that I saw early one was disgusting. It was advertised as a one bedroom apartment but was in fact a studio that someone had thrown a brick wall up in the middle of. What I’m not so subtly trying to say was that it was very small. It didn’t even have room for an oven. There was a sink and one of those microwaves with the rings on top and that was as far as it went with the idea of a “kitchen”. On the plus side, this was the view from just outside the building:
It looks like all those photos that you see of places like Miami and Malibu on TV. Unfortunately, I just couldn’t fit all of my stuff is somewhere so small and it was very, very basic (read as dirty and unequipped).On the same day I had another 4 inspections planned and saw lots of places that I liked. One of them I wasn’t even going to look at but Mum and Dad sent me the link via email and I managed to get an inspection all to myself!
I’d scouted the St. Kilda area a few times before and had been to some of the iconic sights such as the pier (first picture), the Esplanade and Luna Park.
Luna Park is really strange. I think if it didn’t have the instantly memorable entrance that it would get closed down. It is your average rubbish seaside fairground and reminded me of the carnival level in Left 4 Dead 2. But on the plus side, you don’t get much more memorable than this:
On the right of that photo there is a white building. That’s The Palais Theatre. The Palais seems to be where all of the comedians of the world perform if they come to Melbourne. Eddie Izzard recently did a few nights there as well as Ross Noble. Tim Minchin is there in February and I am hoping to get tickets as he is one of my favourite comedians for a number of reasons.Back to my inspections. In all honesty, most of the places I saw were either too small, too disgusting (there was a lot of wood chip wallpaper going around for cheap sometime in about 1701 it seems) or out of my price range. My solution? Increase my price range. I’d worked out that with all of the overtime I was putting in on the weekends, I would pretty much pay off the difference per year between the places I didn’t like and the places I did. It came to something like 3 shifts of overtime for the year would do the trick. Awesome.
I was actually accepted to one place that I was about 70% on. I had just put in an application on another place and liked it much more. Not being entirely sure, I decided to try and back out. I called the agent to say that I wanted to pass. I was informed that the “paperwork was already being done”. I then informed her I hadn’t signed anything and that she had told me only the day before that being accepted isn’t binding in any way (this is so that they can back out on you and then say “well, we told you we might do that”). I was amazed at how personally hurt this woman was. She spoke as if I had just killed her cat and then stuffed it with the body of another dead cat. I almost ended up taking the place just to end the conversation.
I then remembered the one thing that always works when in a foreign country (apart from speaking louder and slower if someone can’t understand you, of course). I played the “ignorant foreigner” card. She eventually realised that she couldn’t penetrate my wall of feigned ignorance and backed down. One nil me.
I had now put all my eggs in one basket. Sure, I had over a month left before I had to move out but I wanted to get this whole process over. The agent ended up calling me back the same day to inform me that my application was accepted and to ask me to the office for some tea and scones (it was more to sign the contract and there was no tea and no scones).
The place I ended up taking? Naturally, it was the one suggested to me by Mum and that I only went to see on the off-chance that it would be good. It also helped that I had a gap between other inspections that day. I’m not sure if they know or remember (they will do after reading this) because I haven’t had any of the usual “Mum knows best” lines thrown my way yet.
P.S. I wanted to include this picture because the mural is cool. I also wanted to include it because it is just across the road from that flat that I’ve been talking about. I couldn’t find anywhere in the rest of this post to fit a reference to the Talbot Reserve. It’s a very small park and there isn’t much there, but here is the picture anyway:
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Looking back - Exploring
Here is the second part of my recap on my short time in Melbourne. This time I’m going to talk a bit more about the things I have seen whilst here. Once again I have chosen four pictures out of the pile of photos that I have taken (both with my camera and with my phone). I’m likely to be rambling (just like the last post) but it’s Christmas Day and I can’t be bothered to plan out a proper narrative for each post so I’m just going to type words until everything that I wanted to say has been said.
Anyway…
As I said previously, living in Freshwater Place was awesome and one of the reasons for that was that there was always something going on in the courtyard below. I was working one of the weekends in October and on my out to work I notice this:
There was around 20 muscle cars parked outside of the building, with the owners either leaning up against them trying to look cool, furiously polishing them or keeping hawk-like eyes on kids with sticky fingers that came near their treasures.The muscle cars, as you can imagine, were all pristine and impressive. There were all the old American favourites there; Dodge, Cadillac, Pontiac and other. I’ve never really been into classic cars but this was a rare treat and the first thing that I noticed was just how huge all of these cars were. My first thought was “how the hell do you park these things?” but I imagine ease of parking is the last thing on the minds of the owners when they are thinking about their cars. My favourite was a 50s hotrod with the full “ridiculous flames” paint job. I should have taken a picture of it really but I was already late for work and was in a rush.
This was just one of the many things that happened outside of Freshwater Place. One of my favourites (that I never got to participate in because of work) was a mini-golf course set up to promote Kinect Sports: Season 2 on the XBox 360. There was also an old woman who took free Tai Chi classes every weekday morning. Little things like this made living at Freshwater Place interesting and you didn’t have to go far to “explore” what Melbourne had to offer.
Halloween was on a Monday this year. Why is this relevant? Well, it means that everyone would be going out for Halloween on the Friday or Saturday as that was the closest weekend to the 31st. I thought that going into the city on the Sunday morning after would be a good idea because it would be nice and quiet as everyone would be hungover and recovering.
When I got into the city (I was pretty much in the same place where the photo of Flinders Station from the last post was taken), I saw some people walking along the street in their Halloween costumes. I thought nothing of it and put it down to “walk of shame”. I look further up the street and see masses of undead looking people and start to wonder if I have drifted into a filming of the Aussie version of I Am Legend. Nope, it was the annual Melbourne Zombie Shuffle. Thousands of people in their Halloween best had shuffled all the way down Swanston Street to Federation Square. I crossed their path just as they were getting to Fed Square and snapped a photo on my phone:
Unfortunately, my picture was hastily taken and doesn’t do the scene justice. Imagine around 3,000 people dressed as zombies walking down a street in the middle of the day chanting:What do we want? BRAINS! When do we want it? BRAINS!
Amazing. Most of the costumes were really impressive but the best had to be a guy in a full suit of armour, helmet under his arm and his face zombied up. Next year, I am definitely attending!
So far I’ve talked about exploring and have only really mentioned me walking around the city and bumping into things of interest. I did venture out of the city centre, I just spent most of that time getting lost:
My first “big trip” out of the city was to go to the Westfields Shopping Centre in Doncaster (same brand as the UK). The reason for this was that the iPhone 4S was out and I wanted one! I have bought the cheapest pay-as-you-go phone shortly after arriving and was already sick of it. When talking to my Dad on Skype he mentioned that I actually had a worse phone than him. That was the last straw!
The Apple Store in Doncaster opened at 8:00am and was around 90 minutes away by tram + bus. I got up at 6am and went to the tram stop next to my building. This was the first time that I had attempted to catch a tram since getting here and it didn’t go well. I later learned that I was in the wrong place (you essentially wait at a little barrier in the middle of the road). In knowing what my luck was like, I had already planned an alternative route, train + bus. I walked over the bridge to Flinders and grabbed the train to Lilydale and then a bus to Doncaster SC. 7:45, I hope there isn’t a queue! There was, but it wasn’t too big so I jumped on the end. 8:01 and an Apple Store employee comes out and tells us that they don’t have any stock and we should try again another time. I woke up at 6am for nothing! I had a wander around the shops but didn’t want anything else so promptly got a bus back into the city and then walked back to the apartment. What a fail!
I think my initial encounters with Melbourne’s public transport system are reflected in this photo:
What I am trying to say is that the tram is really confusing when you first start using it! The network map is not nice and simple like the London Tube Map but is just a mess of lines that all seem to be the same colour and are never going the way you want to go.My favourite public transport “chump move” was to get the tram going the wrong way, thus ending up somewhere I didn’t want to be and somewhere much further from where I wanted to be. I did eventually get the iPhone (I reserved it on the internet and then went in to pick it up) and this made things much easier. Maps plus GPS plus MetLink Route Planner equals not getting lost nearly as much.
One of the places that I explored first is Albert Park. If you’re a Formula 1 fan, you’ll know that Albert Park is where the Australia Grand Prix is held. It is also a huge park with a massive lake. I spend a lot of time in Albert Park (playing frisbee, more on that later) and have come to love the place. It is such as nice place to be even when the weather is rubbish. Just to try and give a feel for what the place is like, I have this picture of the lake:
I could probably spend a long time talking about Albert Park (and will spend some more when I talk about frisbee some more) but it would be really boring to do so.I will say what my favourite thing about this place is: there is so much going on. Most parks are quite quiet and peaceful place. Albert Park has spots like that but is also the hub of recreational sport in Melbourne. I was walking through one day and decided to take note of just how many different sports were being played on one day. The list was huge; soccer, Aussie rules, cricket, rugby, ultimate frisbee (of course), swimming, sailing, gold, rowing, running, cycling, baseball and tennis. I’m sure there were more that I just didn’t see too. Amazing place and I love spending time here.
I can’t write a post about exploring without mentioning the beach. Melbourne has it’s own beach in St. Kilda. To be honest, as beaches go, it isn’t the nicest or the biggest or the best. But it does have the beach and everything that comes with it. St. Kilda is full of interesting stuff and people. There are so many bars and restaurants and even more vintage shops and art galleries. St. Kilda is definitely a young persons place and I can’t think of anywhere better to live in Melbourne (more on that one later too…).
A few honourable mentions of my exploring go to:
- I went surfing for the first time in Torquay (about 1hr 30mins out of Melbourne, you may have noticed that a lot of place names are stolen from the UK). I loved it. The weather was terrible and my surfing skills were non-existent but I loved it all the same
- The various markets. There are a few big markets in Melbourne (Queen Vic, Prahran and South Melbourne are the main ones) and they are all interesting to walk through as you always see something new and there is always somewhere nice to get some coffee of a bit of lunch
- There are also loads of smaller parks and gardens around Melbourne. I’ve been trying to spend as much time outdoors as possible when not working so I can quite often be found in one of these places reading on my iPad and just enjoying life
I did say I’d be rambling didn’t I? I’ll summarise this post now so that I can get on with the next one: Even after 2 and a bit months of living here, I am always finding new things to do, see, eat and drink. It’s strange that London is a much bigger city but doesn’t feel like it has to be explored like Melbourne does. I’ve said this to Mum and Dad recently; at the moment, I can’t imagine me wanting to live anywhere else.
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Looking back - First Impressions
Hey all, I know I have been really bad at blogging since I got to Australia but it has been a busy time! I know some of my family like to read this to see how I am getting on out here in Oz. Because of that, I’ve decided to do a few entries over the next 2 days. In all honesty, I am probably going to write them all in one go and let the blog post them itself over the 2 days (the wonders of technology).
The reason I stopped blogging shortly after getting here wasn’t just because I was busy (I was, I promise!) but it was also because I had trouble finding things to say on a day-to-day or even a week-to-week basis that didn’t just involve me saying “I went to work, then lunch, worked some more, played frisbee, went home and ate some more”. No one really wants to read that so I’m doing a “2 months and a bit” catch up.
I’m going to split it into 6 parts to make it a little easier to digest. Trying to split it all nicely took a little planning but I think I’ve picked 6 topics (in the loosest sense of the word) that spread things quite evenly. Obviously, this is the first part. It’ll cover mostly what I have already covered but I have selected some pictures to try and give the whole thing a bit more context.
Anyway…
From the title, I am sure you have guessed that this is about my early days in Melbourne and all the new stuff I had to discover. Unfortunately, when I first arrived here I ended up working a lot so most of my findings were things I saw while walking around and things that I saw every day (like my flat).
My first real impressions of Melbourne came with my accommodation. I’ve spoken a lot on this before as the place was so awesome (Will B dubbed it “The Fortress of Brolitude”). If you have forgotten, here is a picture of my apartment:
Pretty swanky eh? Yeah, I loved this place. My favourite part of the whole building though was the terrace:
The terrace was on the 10th floor of the building and as well as being amazingly peaceful and serene, you got some great views of the the CBD (Central Business District). I spent a lot of my time up here, even when the weather was rubbish, just chatting to others I saw and people watching the streets. There was usually something going on in in the courtyard area outside the building (more on that later) so there was always something and someone to watch.
As I said before, I spent most of my time working (even the weekends) when I first got to Melbourne so I didn’t get to explore as much as I would have liked to. In hindsight, it was probably a good thing as even now I am discovering little things like hidden art work and nice cafes every week which I might have done all in one go if I had too much time off!
Although I did work most weekends, my first weekend (I arrived on a Wednesday and worked the Thursday and Friday) was spent just wandering around the CBD area and taking photos like a proper tourist. There are a lot of photo worthy things in the centre of Melbourne and I did take lots of photos. When planning these blog entries I decided to limit myself to 4 photos for each post because otherwise there would be very few words and too many pictures. It also meant that I had to choose pictures that I thought would both go well with the post and reflect my experiences of Melbourne at that time.
In my explorations I was getting lost a lot. This whole grid system confused me! Was this a vertical or horizontal street? Am I going north or south? East or west? There was one place that I always found myself looking for because it was a) easy to find and b) was close to the apartment. It’s also one of the most iconic buildings in Melbourne. Flinders Street Station is just one of those places that everyone meets (all of the city Metro trains pass through Flinders) and is the hub of the city. It also has that “old-timey Victorian look to it”:
It reminds me a lot of Paddington in London. I’m not sure why, they aren’t every similar. It may just be the fact that they both have a historical exterior but are modern inside. Maybe.
Another thing that I noticed about Melbourne was that it was full of art. Melbourne is a very ‘artsy’ place with all the typical stuff that comes with it (lots of people who are dressed funny, coffee shops that are full of people in the middle of the day, art galleries on every corner and posters everywhere for some aspiring performer’s next one-man show). As well as all of the independent art, there are some big art groups that can afford to do bigger exhibitions. On my first weekend in Melbourne, the CBD was full of demon babies:
My reaction to these sculptures can be accurately summed up by a comment by Mathew Wilson (aka “Old Mat”): What the fuck is wrong with Australians?! This weird shit should’ve been in China! Not Melbourne!
He has a point, there was a lot of weird stuff to see in China but most of that I put down to cultural differences. Stuff like this is just plain weird. And that’s what I like about Melbourne!
The title says that this post is about my first impressions and I haven’t really said anything about them directly but there were a few things that stuck in my mind right from the first day:
- The coffee is amazing here (nobody goes to Starbucks because it is so rubbish in comparison to almost anywhere else you can go)
- People here are really friendly. This was really surprising after living in London for a year. If you asked someone in London for directions you would probably get what you wanted but it would be accompanied by a scowl that says “stop wasting my time, I have somewhere to be” whereas people are more than happy to help out here.
- Australia is sport mad. In the UK we like to think we are big on sports but we don’t really compare. If it is outdoors, you can bet there is an Australia following for it. The strangest one I have found so far is Yukigassen. This is a sport that is an organised snowball fight (it’s obviously Japanese). Guess where they play it? That’s right, Australia!
- Food. Food is so, so good here. Everything. When I was getting lunch at work in the UK it would invariably be a sandwich. Ok, there were other things to have but it was never worth the effort. Here there are huge American style food courts selling all different kinds of food in one place. You have to keep active just to justify eating so much good food for lunch.
There is one other thing that hit me like a brick when I first got here; cost. Everything is so expensive! My favourite example is beer: beer in London is about £3.00-£4.00 a pint (for something decent, no Carling thank you) depending on where you go. I have yet to see a pint of beer in a pub for less than $6.00 (that’s around £4.00). Ok, so everyone earns more here and the exchange rate makes the numbers look crazy but it is expensive here. I didn’t want to put that in the list because it is a bit negative and although it was always in my mind and I have complained about it a lot, it hasn’t really affected me in a really bad way. I now have a big lunch (spend around £8 a day on lunch) and then have a smaller dinner. Food is generally higher quality too so I don’t want to go on about it too much.
Wrapping things up, my few few weeks in Melbourne were a little daunting but I really enjoyed the exploring and just being in a new place. Work wasn’t too bad either, but the less I talk about work, the more I can talk about more interesting things :)
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Seaside living - Sat 22/Sun 23 Oct 11
Saturday
Waking up at 8am after going out and knowing that you’ve got to be out of the house very soon is not a good feeling. Nonetheless, I dragged myself out of bed (earlier than usual for some reason) and hopped in the shower. I think showers are the greatest cure for hangovers, it is just that building up the courage to stand up for any length of time when hungover is a big deal.
I actually made into work about 10 minutes earlier than I had any other day that week and was feeling somewhat chipper! Work was pretty slow, the work that I have got left at the moment is all the low priority stuff that takes an age to find what the problem is. It’s strange how the high priority problems are always the easy fixes!
Half the day rolled by and I started getting hungry. There were a few guys in from the dev team to monitor performance over the weekend or whatever dev teams do these days. The Tech Lead, Stu, informed me that there was free lunch downstairs on 18 for all of the weekend people to enjoy. Free lunch? I’m there!
Unfortunately, I wasn’t there early enough it seems. Most of the food that was left was already cold. Still, I’m not going to pass up some free Nandos so threw some chicken, spicy and non-spicy fries on a plate and jumped back in the lift to 30.
After eating, I felt like I had much more energy and the rest of the working day passed without any real incident.
The weather had once again been a bit British, with an average temperature of 14 and lots and lots of rain. I didn’t do much for the rest of the night bar watch Wales lose to Australia for the 3rd/4th place play-off in the Rugby World Cup and watch some TV that I had downloaded. Sunday didn’t have much promise either and with being exhausted from work, I didn’t plan on getting up early.
Sunday
When I woke up I was surprised to see the sun blazing and the skies clear. The forecast said rain and highs of 19 but were completely wrong. By the time I got up it was midday and my laptop told me that the temperature was 25 degrees!
I didn’t have anything planned for the day so decided to hop on a tram and go to Albert Park and St. Kilda.
I wanted to go to the park to take pictures and St. Kilda to scout the area as I want to move there when I get kicked out of Freshwater. I got off the tram at the top of the park and walked around the lake for a bit. I took a bunch of pictures that I’ve yet to upload. The lake area is really nice and I could have quite easily just sat around there all day.
I wandered through the rest of the park and tried to take some pictures of a baseball match when the battery on my camera died. As I was now at the bottom of the park and my camera had died, I made my way to the nearest main road and jumped on a tram to St. Kilda.
The tram dropped me off right by the beach and I had an instant thought that I was in LA. I have never been to LA and these thoughts were entirely based on TV but still; palm trees, beach and good weather. Sounds great, no?
I wandered down to the beach and found a little grassy hill to sit on. It was strange that there were loads of people around but still lots of room on the beach. I guess the day was considered cold by the local’s standards because there were only 3 people in the sea. Probably all Scottish.
On my grassy little hill, I laid down and read a chapter of my book on the iPad. It was really nice just to relax while taking in all the sounds and smells of the beach.
After I’d finished the chapter that I was on, I went for another little walk and found a market of sort selling lots of touristy crap like boomerangs and digerydoos but also some really cool artwork and photographs.
At the end of the road was Luna Park, I really small fairground that reminded my of Barry Island in Wales. It was a little smaller but a lot cleaner than Barry and was fun to walk around exploring. Being a small fairground, it took at most 10 minutes to see everything so I was back outside wondering what to do next.
By now it was about 4pm and I wanted to be back for the Rugby World Cup final so I hopped on a tram again and was back in the city centre after about 10 minutes.
I wandered around the city a bit, looking for somewhere to get some coffee. I gave up on that when I noticed a Target and walked inside, curious as to whether it would be any less expensive than everything else seems to be.
I guess Target can be described as an equivalent of a combination of Primark, TJ Hughes and Matalan. Quite budget and doing a bit of everything. It was actually quite reassuring to go in and see that when I do move, I’ll be able to pick up a lot of basics for a reasonable price.
I left Target through a different exit and stumbled up on a coffee stand that was nice and cheap (see the theme here? Australia is expensive!) so grabbed a latte and was off.
As I said before, I was trying to get back for the rugby so started making my way back to Freshwater. I couldn’t resist the smell of Subway so grabbed a foot-long Italian BMT that I planned on eating somewhere near. I ended up walking all the way back to Freshwater to eat and perched myself right next to the Subway in our building. Another small fail there.
Rugby time! I quite enjoyed the game and would say that I am enjoying rugby more in general these days. Perhaps it is the fact that it is the world cup and the standards are higher, who knows. During the game, I had a quick Skype with mum and we were discussing things like furnishing a place when I get one and things like that. It was a nice chat especially as I hadn’t spoken to mum since the weekend before. We both decided that I should have a look around Ikea on Monday so I had a look and planned to go straight after work.
After a largely uneventful weekend, I slipped into bed still feeling exhausted but like I hadn’t done anything all weekend.
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Domesticated and intoxicated - Thur 20/Fri 21 Oct 2011
Thursday
Not much really happened on Thursday at work apart from the fact that we had a team meeting. The guys have a meeting every week to talk about the projects that they are doing and how things are going. Oh, and there is cake. The best thing about there being cake is that it is home-made every week. These guys actually have a cake baking schedule! This is just another of the great things about working with awesome people in a cool place and for a good company. In the immortal words of Will Berard; “bro, life is chill”.
I ended up staying quite late at work and had no plans for the evening. This led me to think that being a modern man by cooking and cleaning would be a good idea.
First was the food. I’d been shopping on the weekend and had just bought stuff like pizzas and bread so hadn’t really cooked properly at this point. I only planned to make some pasta with some chicken and sauce but it was a big leap from my usual eats so was actually looking forward to having some food that I cooked myself.
Pasta is easy enough. Boil kettle, pour in water to pan, put pasta in, wait. Frying a bit of chicken has never been a problem for me before and I followed the same basic plan this time; a little olive oil in the frying pan, wait until the oil is hot and then chuck it in.
Of course I set the smoke alarm off! A combination of too high heat, very sensitive smoke alarm and no ventilation put me into a mad panic. My brother calls the smoke alarm the ‘dinner bell’ because when it goes off, he knows that my mum has nearly finished cooking. Although this is an obvious jest, there is an element of truth in it fir the Brimble household.
I was flapping around the apartment, waving a tea towel at the alarm, taking my food off the stove and opening my door to let the smoke escape. None of it worked. Eventually I just turned the air conditioning on and after about 30 seconds, there was no more smoke and I was freezing cold. I was really worried that the sprinklers were going to go off and that I would be charged for masses of water damage.
As I was dishing my food up, I remembered that there is an extractor fan above the cooker. It’s hidden away and only comes on when pulled out. Idiot.
Later, I’d decided against vacuuming because it was around 10:30pm and I didn’t want to annoy any neighbours. I was doing laundry instead and managed tip half my box of washing powder onto the carpet. Better get vacuuming after all!
After a complete domestic fail, I crawled into bed feeling sorry for myself.
Friday
Work was still uneventful but for lunch we went to a curry place. I had a lamb rogan josh, bombay potatoes, dahl, rice and a naan bread. Very good stuff.
After work everyone was going out to celebrate someone who works in the office’s birthday and I was invited along. I had to stay in work until about 6:45pm for a conference call so I told everyone that I would meet them there.
By the time I got back to Freshwater the rugby (Australia vs Wales, 3rd place playoff in the Rugby World Cup) was already 10 minutes into the first half so I stayed in to watch Wales lose (what is going on with their kicking?). It was still fairly early at this stage so I sent Gio a text to see if the guys were where they said they were going to be.
I knew it was 300-something Lonsdale Street so I walked up to try and find the place. The guys had described it as Niagara Bar so that’s what I was looking for. After walking around for about an hour and not finding the place, I was on my way home when I got a reply from Gio saying that they were still there but won’t be for long.
I asked him for directions and it turns out that I had walked past this place about 4 times! The place was actually called Club Retro and has a big sign on the outside to prove it. They called it Niagara because it is also the Niagara Hotel and is next to Niagara lane. Google Maps says that it is Club Retro dammit!
I got there at 9:05 and there was a $15 entry fee after 9. Another fail it seems. I did get a free drink with that ($7.50) though so only a small punch in the wallet. As I went in, I immediately turned right and couldn’t find anyone. I then tried the 1st floor which was completely empty. I climbed all the way to the roof terrace and still couldn’t find anyone.
I went back down to ground and decided to get my free drink before leaving as they were definitely not there any more. I was at the bar when Jaspal comes over and asks me when I got here. They were on the left side of the ground floor. It seems that I am in idiot mode at the moment, maybe it is the lack of sleep due to jet lag.
There were a bunch of people there and quite a few that I’d never met before. I actually got to meet some of the people that raise bugs that I end up fixing which was strange in it’s own way. A few more drinks in and Jasapal, Gio and I went up to the roof terrace just to have a look around. It’s pretty cool and was full of people so we stayed up there a while to chat.
Nick joined us about 10 minutes later and we discussed where to go next. The decision was to try and wing it into a rooftop bar that requires a reservation and failing that, a bar called Section 8. We said bye to everyone (by this point Gommy was swaying and the staff were mopping up his spillages around him), and headed off.
We were obviously denied the rooftop bar because we had no reservation (it seems being just a group of guys also makes a difference here) so walked around the corner to Section 8.
I’m not sure how to describe Section 8 because it is an odd ‘venue’ It is essentially unused space between two buildings that has been turned into an outside bar. There is a tin roof providing some shelter and the walls of the surrounding buildings have graffiti murals on them but other than that there is no real feeling that you are ‘in’ somewhere.
Down one side is a long bar and there are a lot of seats and heaters but apart from that, it is essentially just a cool open space. When we walked in we were greeted by two huge kiwi bouncers that Nick chatted to briefly. We were again asked why we hadn’t brought any girls but were admitted regardless.
We got some more rum and coke and chatted a bit more about the area. The cool thing about Melbourne is that even if you just bump into someone accidentally, you can have a pleasant conversation and a laugh with some complete strangers.
We had a few more drinks, chatted to some more people and listened to some good funk and soul music. I was really liking this place and could see why it was a regular haunt for the other guys.
I’d made the complete error of signing up for overtime on Saturday so was constantly watching the time to make sure that I could leave at a reasonable hour. It was a shame that midnight rolled around so fast, just as people were talking of moving onto a club. It was at this point that I decided that going home would probably be the most sensible idea.
Nick was off chatting to someone (Will: he has a similar mandate to you) but I think my wanting to leave put a bit of a downer on the party spirit and as such Gio decided that he was hungry and wanted to leave to.
Gio, Jaspal and I left Nick to chat away and headed for KFC. I have walked past this KFC so many times and not even noticed it was there. I got a the good ol’ fillet burger meal and was quite content. We all lived in Freshwater so walked back together. Once back at the flat, I realise just how drunk I had gotten (I felt stone cold sober while I was out) and just wanted to get to bed.
I couldn’t sleep until around 2:30am, all the while knowing that I had work early the next morning. It was a really nice and chilled introduction to the Melbourne night life but I can’t wait until I get a chance to go all out. Next week maybe?
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Ultimate: The Greatest Sport Ever Invented By Man - Wed 19 Oct 11
As I said in my last post, I wanted to try and keep things current so that I can talk about stuff that I am doing now (yesterday).
Work was work. I found out that I am getting an office, however. I know right? To be honest I am not too keen on the idea, it is already difficult integrating myself into a team that has been a close knit group for over a year. Moving into an office is going to cut me away from them and it will be more difficult to feel a part of the group. On the upside, I’ll get to use phrases like “put it in my office” and “give my office a call and I’ll see what I can do”.
Went for lunch with the rest of the team. Melbourne seems to have a lot of food courts with a lot of different types of food to eat. Food courts that are only seen in the UK at shopping malls and American TV but I think they work and are a good idea. It allows everyone to go for lunch together but to get the food that they want instead of the food that nobody wants but you went to anyway (so that no one was the person who chose where to eat). I had a veritable feast; a crazy breaded ball of rice and chorizo, roast potatoes and some salad on the side. Very tasty and very filling.
I keep thinking how expensive Australia is but that meal was $11 (about £7) and as I just said, was very tasty and very filling.
The rest of the work day was, of course, uneventful. 6pm rolled around and I dashed out of the door. Time to go and play some ultimate!
To get there I had to take the following route. The route involved a tram ride to the top of the park and then a walk through the park to where we would be playing. Getting on the tram was nice and easy, it stops in the middle of the road and you just get on. Simple. Paying for the tram is difficult. Melbourne has only just started an Oyster Card style system called MiKi (pronounced my-key, I think). I walk most places here so I haven’t bothered to buy one yet. You can still buy tickets on the tram but it turns out this tram was coins only and I had no change. Balls. I didn’t know what to do so just stayed on the tram without paying. I am such a rebel!
It was still really sunny at 6:45pm so I had sunglasses on. This meant that I wasn’t wearing my glasses, which in turn meant that it was almost impossible for me to see which stop to get off at. Luckily I noticed the stop number of the stop just before the one I wanted to so I pressed the bell after that stop and jumped off in hopes of being in the right place. Turns out that I was.
Albert Park is huge! I don’t think the map quite does it justice, but if you have also watched the Australian Grand Prix you will have seen the roads I was walking down. There is a huge lake running through the park with all sorts of birds and general wildlife in and around (no, I didn’t see any crocodiles).
It was all well and good being in this beautiful park but I had to get to frisbee and was already running late! I found a map but that was no use because all I knew was that I had to get to the bottom of the park. This was the first time I have truly missed having my iPhone. Being able to look up websites and maps on the go can be a lifesaver for situations like this. Alas, I had to do it the old fashioned way of wandering around in hopes of stumbling on the right place and constantly asking people where the bottom of the park was. I must have looked like a true tourist.
I eventually found the place using the traditional method of finding people playing ultimate; keep wandering until you see some flying plastic!
I wasn’t that late as people were still throwing around and nothing official had started yet. I arrived at the same time as a guy from the UK called Tom so I was chucking around with him until we were all called in.
This session is the social ‘league’ which is aimed more at beginners. I thought it would be a good level to get back into the game at as I hadn’t played in quite some time and was definitely out of touch.
Running the show was a guy called Seb who plays for a local club, Heads of State. The social league only started last week so he just went back over throwing the basic throws; forehand and backhand.
I was really surprised when he said that today we would be learning some advance throwing (it’s week 2!). I thought that it was just going to be slightly more advanced forehands and backhands such as some blades and discs made for running onto. Nope. Hammers and scoobers. If you are not familiar with ultimate and the throws involved, when I started playing you didn’t even think of throwing a hammer until you’d been playing for a few months and my first scoober throw was probably about a year in. This was either going to go really bad or really well…
We all paired off and started practising our scoobers. Scoobers are quite difficult to throw in any sort of wind and I had to throw into a cross wind to get my scoober to go where I wanted. This combined with me being a little rusty led to some truly awful scoobers and one that even hit a girl in the head. Oops.
Hammers next. Hammers were fine. Because they curve the opposite way to the scoober, it was much easier going into the crosswind and I actually threw some fairly decent distances with reasonable accuracy.
After we’d all had a bit of practice it was time for a drill. I was fully expecting an end-zone drill (Seattle, mushroom or one of it’s other many names) but instead we played a cool game called King of the Hill. The hill is essentially the end of a queue. The queue is two parallel lines going up the field. You play in pairs, opposite each other on the 2 lines of the queue. You have to throw back and fourth to move up the queue. If you make a drop, you go all the way to the back. Once you get to the top you are kings, if you are at the bottom, you’re jokers! What made this more interesting is that Seb would call out throwing rules such as having to put a fake in before throwing or hammers with one handed catches (with kings having to catch one handed at all times). It was a great little drill for getting people to practice their throwing and catching, while making it competitive. Me and Tom were kings twice, but I dropped both of them and we went tumbling all the way down to the bottom.
After the drill, it was game time and we were split into 4 even sized teams, with known experienced players as the captains. I was on Basil’s team (another HoS player) as well as I guy called Rob who has played with Devon Ultimate. I know a few people from Devon (JB, Afrow Peat & Craig) so it was really strange to meet someone on the other side of the world who has played frisbee with the same people as me.
The game was good fun and was a nice run around. Obviously, this wasn’t world class ultimate as a lot of people had only played ofr the first time either that day or the week before but that didn’t matter. I managed to score 2 points (I never score points) and put a decent pull out.
I actually spent quite a lot of the game time chatting to Seb about the ultimate scene in Melbourne and he told me that next week there was a league of HoS players starting up and that I would be welcome to come along. I was very much up for it as I really want to get back into ultimate on a fairly competitive level. Seb added me on Facebook and that was that. Next Thursday, can’t wait!
Afterwards there was no pub session despite being social league (unheard of!) so everyone went their separate ways.
By now it was 10pm but still very warm so I decided to walk home. It was 15 minutes on the tram so it couldn’t be that ling, right? Well, the walk eventually took me about an hour (I forgot about the 20 minute walk up through the park) but it was still really nice to be out and doing some exercise. Still being like 22 degrees at 10:30pm also helps.
When I got back, I grabbed a McDonalds from down stairs, had a Skype with dad and then fell into bed feeling the happiest I have since arriving in Melbourne! What a great day!
Note on the title: The title is actually the title of a great book, the website of which can be found here. If you’ve played ultimate for a bit and have been to a few tournaments, it’s a hilarious read because so much of it rings so true.
Edit: I forgot to mention, I’m going to start putting the date in the title. It just makes sense. Thanks to Stef for the idea (well, he stole it from Ben…)
