Travel Blog: Australia

3rd May 2013 - Melbourne

So here we are, and it is exactly how I imagined.  Except colder.  It feels like a completely different country, which for us Europeans, it is.  It was a 2 and a half hour flight from tropical Cairns in the North, to cool Melbourne in the South.  That is like us boarding a plane in the UK rain, to get to popular sunny destinations such as Spain or Greece.  So on arriving, it did feel like I was coming home.

This city really does resemble my hometown of Manchester.  There is a huge cafe and bar scene, and Melbourne also boasts the largest tram network in the world.  Add in the cooler weather, and you can see why it feels like Northern England.  There are also an abundance of Northerners here - we've met more in our first weeks here than in our entire trip so far.  So this is what conclusion I've come to - Northerners are drawn to Melbourne, for it's cool and quirky style, and Southerners are drawn to the expensive, egotistic Sydney.  One thing Melbourne has over Manchester is its array of culture. There is always something going on, and more often than not it is free.  We arrived in the middle of the International Comedy Festival, which had hundreds of shows around the city every single day.  There is a huge live music scene, especially where we're staying in St Kilda, every single bar has a live act almost every single night.  And I've already seen posters for more film and music festivals coming up for the next few months, so I'm pretty set for reviews! It is easy to see why it has been voted more than once, the most livable city in the world.

Except I'm not too happy about the fact that it is identical to home.  I didn't travel to the other side of the world to feel like I haven't gone anywhere.  But that's the smallest of my problems right now, Melbourne is a great city to settle in for a while.  I am dangerously low on cash, and it seems harder than ever to get a job. It feels like everyone in the world has read the article about this city being the best in the world, and in their millions have descended here.  Thousands of job seekers, all fighting over the small amount of jobs on offer at this time of year.  You know it's bad when all you have to choose from is door to door sales, or nude photography.  I tried one for a week and couldn't carry on; soon I'll have to try the other. (I wish I was joking).

On another note, I've noticed another milestone - I've been away for exactly six months now.  It feels about six days!  I'm definitely having a bit of a low point, having no money to do anything at all, just jobhunting every single day.  There's still so much I want to do - need to see - before I go home.  So now I just have to focus on getting a full time job for a few months so we can get travelling again.

So I'm off to apply for a few more jobs.
Check back soon to see what I am doing for money, and realise that it's not all 'living the dream'...