Lazy Summer Nights

Skyline behind the market

Last week, Caylee, my housemate, Clint, and I decided to visit the night market. I had been there twice before, but I had hoped to go at least once more before the end of the season. This was the second last one being held this summer and I'm unsure whether or not I'll be able to make it to the final one. As we walked around the stalls, we sampled some Australian spiced chai tea, which was so tasty that I may have to make it a point to go to the last night market this week just so I can purchase some. Unlike the other times I was there when there

Dessert at Max Brenner

were strictly performers on the main stage, this time, there was a dance instructor who demonstrated the salsa. After watching that for a while, the three of us walked back to the apartment, and it was the perfect night to do so.

Later on in the week, Caylee and I met for dessert at Max Brenner, a popular chocolate bar in Australia. It was difficult to decide what to order, but in the end, I chose the warm waffle with melted milk chocolate drizzled on it. It was an excellent way to end my work week.

Hip Hip, Hooray!

Work pizza lunch

Those words are traditionally shouted after singing "Happy Birthday" to someone here in Australia. One person leads with the "hip hip" and everyone else responds with "hooray," and it's repeated several times.

Although I may have had dinner with my family or a few close friends in the past, since becoming an adult, I hadn't made much of a big deal about my birthday. Even for my twenty-first, I spent a night in Philadelphia with a friend with whom I share a birthday, but we hung out with her friends and I felt

Dinner at Alice's Thai Restaurant

like it was more of a celebration for her, which was more than fine because honestly, ever since I turned eighteen, for whatever reason, I stopped making a fuss about turning older. With that said, however, since this was going to be my first summer birthday, and my second one spent abroad, I decided long before even arriving in Australia that I wanted to do something special and more out of the ordinary, at least for me. Last week, I had sent an email to my co-workers and our manager to invite them to join me for drinks after work on Friday. Not only did they all agree to go, but our manager suggested we order pizza for lunch and gave us an extended meal break. On top of that, they were

At the QV for dessert

sweet enough to surprise me with a card and two cakes, a chocolate cheesecake and a Jamaican mud cake. I had never had mud cake before, but it was awesome.

On my actual birthday, I organised a dinner at one of the Thai restaurants in the city centre. It was a little challenging to decide where to eat because I love so many different types of food, but Thai won in the end because I hadn't had it in such a long time. Anyway, a lot of my friends showed up, including those from Cross Cultures and Planetshakers, Caylee, and Tegan, a girl I had met in London almost three years ago. Even though the customer service at the

AMAZING cake

restaurant left much to be desired, the mixed company and delicious food were fantastic. There's definitely a reason why Thai is one of my favourite cuisines. After dinner, we walked over to the QV, which is one of the shopping centres here that has a food court and tons of tables, and enjoyed the rich chocolate fudge brownie cheesecake my friend Li was generous enough to bake in my honour. Seriously divine. As far as I'm concerned, there really isn't anything better than homemade cheesecake when it comes to dessert.

My lovely Connect group

My Connect group met on Tuesday for our weekly study; however, we met earlier than usual to have dinner together for my birthday, which was nice. Steph was even kind enough to bring along a delectable chocolate cake to share with everyone. One of the things I love most about this group is that it's new so, for the most part, we're all getting to know each other at the same time. I only wish it had started meeting in the springtime when I first arrived in Melbourne because if I stick to my current plan of moving to Sydney this autumn, I won't have much time with them. I'm trying to stay in the present though and focus on the good times to be had. I'm certain I'll be learning a lot in the next couple months.

I feel incredibly blessed to have been able to celebrate my birthday with so many wonderful people. It's really made me realise that I have a lot for which to be grateful. Life in Oz isn't too shabby. :o)

What's Better Than Summer Concerts and Penguins?

At the Sidney Myer Bowl

I'm going to go with not very much.

My friend Caylee is in town for the next couple weeks until she goes back to California. She spent most of her working holiday up in Sydney and then did a nice amount of travelling around Australia prior to making her final stop in Melbourne before returning to the States. We met for dinner early last week, which gave us the opportunity to catch up since we hadn't seen each other since I left Sydney in November.

Enjoying the concert

A few weeks ago, I had heard about a free concert series that the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra holds each summer at the Sidney Myer Bowl, the venue where the Carols by Candlelight event took place back in December. After work, I took the tram to the event, planning to meet Caylee and several other friends from St. Jude's. It started to drizzle as I walked closer to the stage to get to where the overhang was, which I hoped would protect me from the rain. It was already crowded, both on the lawn and the seats, but somehow I just so happened to conveniently run into everyone almost at once.

Pre-concert picnic

Although I'm no expert on Russian classical music, I do have a certain amount of appreciation for that genre so I thought the concert itself was beautiful. I enjoyed it so much that I attended the second concert in the series yesterday with friends from my Connect group at City on a Hill. This particular concert featured a musician who played the didgeridoo, a wind instrument that is native to the Aboriginal people in Australia. I was interested in hearing someone play the didgeridoo, but I wasn't sure how a collaboration with string instruments would sound; however, it was absolutely brilliant as I felt the concert showcased pure talent at its best.

Didgeridoo and orchestra

The concert was lovely, but Caylee and I ended up leaving at intermission to try to make it to St. Kilda Beach in time to see the Fairy Penguins, the smallest species of penguins, that have a colony there. These penguins seem to be one of this city's best kept secrets as many Melburnians don't even know about them and would recommend Phillip Island as the closest place to view them. Anyway, I had read and heard different tips regarding when to go to the pier, whether it be right before sunset or afterward, so we were hoping to arrive there prior to sunset just in case; however, it got darker a little earlier and a bit more quickly than we had anticipated so we didn't get there until well after the sun had disappeared over the horizon.

Fairy Penguin at St. Kilda Beach

As we strolled down the pier, it seemed like we were going to have to return another evening if we wanted to see any penguins, but luck was on our side because we eventually did spot some. There was a volunteer there who said that the peak season so see them is November, but I remember reading somewhere that there's a good chance to see even just a few all year round. If I had known about them earlier, I would have taken a trip to St. Kilda beach when I first arrived in Melbourne since it would have been the perfect time to go. I talked to one of my friends after going to the pier, and he told me that whenever he had gone, there were heaps of penguins.

Maybe I'll have to return to Melbourne in November before I do the rest of my travelling.

Back to Back Festivals

Playing the shamisen

Saturday was meant to be spent at a historical homestead called Coolart near Mornington, Victoria, where I was hoping to spot some koalas; however, the weather decided to rain on those plans.... literally. It's too bad because it looked like it would be an excellent place to visit, but hopefully we'll go another time when the weather is more agreeable. I've been in Australia for almost four months and I have yet to see some unique wildlife... but I guess that's what happens when you live in the city. It's funny because I read an article in The Morning Call, which is my home newspaper, that said there

Sumo wrestling

was a wallaby hopping around the Valley, which basically means some people at home have seen more Australian fauna than I have. Major boo.

Anyway, one of the things I love most about Melbourne is how multicultural it is. Last weekend when we explored Eastern Melbourne, there was a Turkish festival occurring near Federation Square, which included ethnic dancing and many delicious-looking types of food. Since our trip to Mornington was cancelled, I ended up going with some friends to the

Iconic entrance to Luna Park

Japanese Summer Festival at Docklands, which was also outdoors, but it didn't require an hour-long drive anywhere. Once we made it to the festival, we watched several performances that demonstrated some traditional dancing and listened to a few people play the shamisen, which is a three-stringed instrument that's plucked with a plectrum. It resembles a banjo, however the body is shaped differently. It was the first time I had ever heard of this type of instrument, but it made an interesting sound.

On Sunday, a couple friends and I decided to go to the

Sports demonstration

St. Kilda Festival since it was the final day it was running. I had heard about it last week and was thinking about going then, but someone had told me it was better to go on the last weekend because there was more to see. It rained and then drizzled for a good while even though I had looked online ahead of time and had seen that it was supposed to be sunny [thanks, weather.com], but it was nice to be there. There were rides galore and tons of activities going on, not to mention that it took place right next to the historic Luna Park, an amusement park that was built back in 1912. I also watched

Concert at St. Kilda Festival

part of a skateboarding and bike tricks demo, which was exciting to see. There were multiple musical performances going on throughout the day, most of which were entertaining to see and hear.

This past weekend absolutely flew so I felt like I didn't have a chance to relax. This week has been a pretty hectic one, but that also means it seems to be going by super quickly, which is never a bad thing. However, I'm happy that I'm working full time again [well, sort of.... haha] so I cherish my weekends.

Walking Through the Victorian Era

Cooks' Cottage

In continuing with the city walks I've been participating in, a few of my friends and I decided to venture out to East Melbourne to view the buildings from the Victorian era last weekend. Aside from exploring the gardens, this was the tour that had piqued my interest the most.

Victorian homes

After passing Parliament House, we entered Treasury Gardens and deviated slightly from the tour to visit the John F. Kennedy Memorial, which consists of a small monument and an adorned pond that was dedicated to the late president following his assassination. From there, we crossed the street to Fitzroy Gardens and were able to seek refuge in the Conservatory just in time to avoid the sudden downpour.

Church converted into apartments

Once the rain slowed down, we found Cooks' Cottage, which was built by the parents of Captain James Cook, who's credited with discovering Australia, in Yorkshire, England in 1755 and was transported to Melbourne in 1934. After that, we followed the map to view different homes from the Victorian era that featured beautiful columns, intricate

1868 home with unique balcony

ironwork, and to-die-for terraces.

This walk was pretty excellent..... even if the weather didn't necessarily cooperate with us. Unfortunately, due to the strong winds, raincoats and umbrellas did very little to protect us from the monsoon-like showers so we ended up absolutely drenched by the time we had completed the tour. However, we were resilient troopers and managed to finish it anyway.

If you ask me, it was well worth it.

A Little More Work, A Little Less Holiday

A pub in Richmond

Friday marked the conclusion of my first week of my new long-term assignment that will hopefully last me until I'm ready to move up to Sydney. The timing is pretty perfect though since I'm on a contract that expires at the end of April, meaning I would have almost a full six months up in Sydney, which sounds rather ideal to me. With all the people I've met and all the exciting things I've gotten to do, Melbourne has been exceptionally good to me though so I'm in no rush to leave this city.

This past week, I spent my days in a training session with nine others who have also been hired to complete this assignment. Only two people in our group are from Australia and then the rest of them are from the UK, Ireland, France, and New Zealand. My co-workers were relatively outgoing and bubbly, which made it fun to do the million and one icebreakers we did each day to get to know each other and to pass the time. It also helped that our trainer and supervisor were both vibrant and laid back and even took us to a local pub after work on Friday.

Out for Friday night drinks

Most, if not all of them, are pretty avid travelers, which was exciting to learn because well, I love travelers and their stories. Sometimes I feel like backpackers are such a unique breed of people, taking months or even years away from their traditional ways of life to explore the world..... but maybe that's because I'm from America, a place where, unlike Europe and Australia, taking gap years to travel is almost unheard of. I can't count the number of times during the past few months alone that I've been told, "You're from Pennsylvania? We get a lot of Europeans and Canadians doing working holidays down here, but there aren't so many Americans." I don't understand why that's the case though because I couldn't imagine my life without it.