Marines, we are LEAVING!

As I type this, only one hour of employment remains with Sensis, and still plenty to get finshed ! Leaving drinks were last night at the basement cafe, a friendly little bar in the center of town run by a very enthusiastic French guy called Sylvestre & his charming wife Elizabeth. I can't remeber the last time I went to a bar and wanted it so much to be my local !

There was drinking of 6% Corsican beer, cocktails, french music, dancing and complementary champagne opened using Ye olde sabre trick (if anyone knows the actual name for this, I wanna know...). Today at work was of course long and painful, but it's all over now and time to go snowboarding for 3 days on Mount Hotham! Very excited about that...

Just a little longer - but leaving soon !

I pondered the whats and the whys, and I've decided to extend my time in Melbourne a little bit longer - but only by two weeks. This gives me time to wrap up work, tax and travel stuff, and get ready for another few months of backpacker living (no more lattes for a while, anyway...) At the end of the day, Melbourne is very nice, and I've got some great friends over here now - but I'm not really putting roots down here, and as such life has felt a bit too static. I can't gather possessions (such as cooking ingrediants to learn to cook better, cocktail stuff for mixing of fine beverages, or a kick-ass PC for the playing of Doom3 !)

So I am hitting the road again August 20th, and probably travelling into Novemeber at the very least. As I have booked a snowboarding holiday the day after xmas, I am looking at being home for quite a bit beforehand, but won't really have time to get a decent job, so some major budgeting may be required ! Prehaps it's time to hit Thailand / cheap East Asian areas...

Anyhow, plans change, and I'll try and avoid making every post nothing more than a "returning home date update" from now on ! Esp. as I might have some adventures and things to report on again. Recent happenings have been some heavy partying and general rock and roll behaviour - and the discovery that the day after always hurts more than it did last time ! All worth it though, Melbourne really never sleeps - we went out to a club around 2:30am the other night, no cover, and walked right in. Can't often do that back at home...

Final news is new Melbourne pictures are on the website - these are some real old pictures (pre-Tasmania) that I found lying around on my PC of a few backpacker parties and social dos, including the infamous Saint Kilda lawn bowling session (that I won along with my elite partner, Rob). Mainly of interest to fellow Pink house people, I reckon, but feel free to have a look see.

Wrapping up or staying put ?

Life in Melbourne suffered a large shakeup recently, with my house/work/drinking mate Hardy heading off back to Europe today. This means I am now sleeping on friends floors, moving each weekend to avoid over-staying my welcome ! I am also now working in a brand spanking new futuristic office building in the middle of the city, so spending lots more cash on smoothies and coffee.

But when will this life of city decadance end ? The current termination date for my contract is set for the 5th August, just over 2 weeks away. Plan is then to travel for a couple of months around Oz and head home, possibly with a stop over in Japan or even Taiwan.

So does this finally answer the enternal question of my return date ? Erm... well... it kinda does... but then I met this girl... but I want to travel... Hmmm, let's just say "watch this space" :)

Picture this

So far camera course has been fun, but I got homework - how is THAT fun ? I've picked up a cheap old manual camera and a couple of lenses to play with off ebay. Early results - appaling! Aside from drinking, I've been watching movies and playing some board games (Chess, Settlers of Catan and Formula De) to fill up the evenings. Basically being very un-rock and roll at the moment, but saving dollar for future stuff.

Thoroughly bored of my job at the moment - a problem that has arisen in all many career choices so far ! Definate need to figure out what I really want to do, or who I want to work for needed before my next career move. Just counting the days really and starting to think about travelling onwards. Ah well - it's Friday - it's 5pm - and that signals beer'o'clock !

Itchy feet and Photo hassles

Firstly I have finally uploaded my Tasmania pictures - however it seems the website I am using to host them is finally making it's financial play and charging for memberships. I have membership access for a year, enough time to migrate to another solution, but I am kind of worried this may affect access to photo alubums for other people ? Let me know if you encounter any problems - all album links are on the left-hand side as always :)

Oh - and you get asked for a login, you can always use benguest123 for both the username and password. The only reason to create a login is if you want to add "personal" comments - you can always e-mail me them instead, of course :)

Speaking of photos, after the cancellation of my cocktail course (not enough interest - go figure), tonight I am starting my camera course. Should be fun to do something different in the evenings, and maybe learn why my photos suck half of the time :) Have to sign up for advanced photography to find out why they suck the other half of the time...

Recently I've been to a classical concert, a bit of bowling, drinking frozen cocktails and a few movies. Still waiting for the new Micheal Moore film to come out here, until then looking forward to the unobjective but fun McDonalds slur/documentry, and of course the "bet it's rubbish" remake of a horror classic.

I've also been reading e-mails for travellers and ex-travellers alike, both giving me itchy feet and a desire to get out there and travel again. Only 7 more weeks... hmmm, that's quite a long time. I also fancy a spot of snowboarding - seems we are geting some snow down here and I'm not sure I can wait until January :)

Back to (Melbourne) life, back to reality

With business visa in hand I finally returned to work a couple of weeks ago. And I'm now dealing with trival daily stuff like sorting out camera repairs and sorting out lots of neglected finacial stuff.

Nothing really blog-worthy aside from the discovery that a friend of mine has broadband + firewire ports in his computer which = new tunes on the iPod ! It can be a drag being stuck with the same 4,118 songs for 10 months :)

Currently dealing with the "nesting / consumer" instinct that wishes I had my own place to deck-out and put lots of things that I want to own. Possessions do not = happiness as I know, but when your livin' the city life, the city instincts kick in, and I want more stuff :) I need to learn to be engaged and happy without computer stuff and toys, but sometimes I'm jsut sh*t bored in the evening.

So much so that I've signed up for a couple of evening classes - firstly, a one-session class of the art of cocktail mixing, which should be fun - and secondly a six-session course on Basic Photography skils. Think I need my own SLR camera for that though, and not a busted digital one ! Have to see if someone can loan me one for the classes (bit suprised that the course doesn't offer deposit based camera loans).

Was going to learn a new language (Espanol), but remebered how much I hated GCSE French, so canned that idea quite quickly !