09.06 General Update

Well its been a while since we've added anything of note so we thought that we'd give you a general round up of what's been happening around here for the last few weeks.

Social Front
We done a couple of meet ups around docklands, one for 'meet your neighbours' and another was about environmental awareness for residents. The 'meet your neighbours' was a little disappointing as was really an over 50's club in disguise! The environmental meet was similar but more interesting, and the people were friendlier! There are plans for more social events, Joanna has a knitting group meet (no sniggering from the back!) next week and I'm still doing my screen printing course. Plus, there is also the Melbourne 30's club to revisit. We did have dinner with some people and met someone who was an actress on Neighbours for 26 episodes!

Shopping Trips
Have been spending far too much time in the local DFO! Helen photos will come very soon! A trip was also taken to Bridge Road (factory outlet stores), in fact its very convenient as the tram takes us from our apartment straight there! We have also been doing some veg shopping in the Victoria Market too! A lot of trips always coincide with some form of replenishment. In fact, one trip to Ackland Street took us to a cake shop and we saw Rosie from Neighbours in there!

Cultural Events
We had a recent visit to National Gallery of Victoria to see the History of Sneakers. Took me back to the days of Air Max trainers - they had a few examples of these too! We also saw the View ('I've had the same jeans on for four days now' fame) the other evening in one of the many venues here! It was quite a good show, just a shame that we couldn't understand what they were saying, it wasn't just that they were from Dundee but it was too loud! Did I just type that?! It wasn't just us, there was also a Scottish bloke behind us and he couldn't understand them either!

We also saw 'The Holidays' from Sydney, these were the supporting act. In fact this was the second time we had seen them, as they also played with Jamie T (they've only played twice in Melbourne!). They were so good we got their CD! Can't find any links to them though. There was plenty of stage diving at the end and a couple of people had to be ejected during the show too! We also headed out for food before the gig where we managed to get two meals and drinks for $20! Yes it is possible, but we've found only from noodlie-doodlie bars (v. nice though!).

Work
Joanna continues to do temp work for VCAT, she has just been extended until the end of the month. She's still applying for proper jobs. I on the other hand am slightly unemployed at the moment, but am also applying for proper jobs too. One job is designing semi-trailers (lorry trailers), looks interesting though. Have spent some of the week taking photos for screen printing ideas - blog to follow on progress in this area, and have also redesigned 'vesma.net' so take a look!

We're currently within a long weekend, as its the queen's birthday! She's coming round to ours for afternoon tea! We've had an excellent day out today, a blog will also follow on this with plenty of photos!!

Love to all,
Nathan.

03.05 Lessons in Stalking (Part 2)

They'll be a flurry of post comings over the next few days and we try to bring everyone up to date with whats been happening here and what we've been up to.

As the title suggests we went to the meeting with Melbourne 30's Club last week. It was in this bar called the Trader Bar, where the prices of the drinks fluctuate according to whats being sold! The drinks were very reasonably priced too!

The bar full of city types but no sign of our potential friends. So we sat in a corner so we could see everyone coming in and waited. After some time we recognised some people from the last meeting, but that was all who turned up. We've decided that we won't be attempting anything here (other strategies are being devised!), but we'll still go to the bars they suggest as they seem to be very good!

Fortunately by the time they arrived we had to leave and head out to a gig at the Comedy Festival. This time we saw a guy who spoke about the history of swearing and the differences between UK and Oz. It was very good and it ended up with Joanna shouting the 'C' word at the end! Oh, the potty mouth! The gig was a very intimate affair and was held in another cool place called the Loop Bar.

After the gig we headed to another bar called the Caboose Restaurant and then headed back to the Lounge Room for more drinks. Woke up the next morning with some sore heads for some reason!?

22.04 White Wine Wendy Strikes Again!

Honestly, we really don’t know where the time is going to as we say goodbye to another week. Jo’s worked all week and I’ve done a couple of days. It’s given me a chance to get other some bits and pieces sorted, but not the important ones though!

As many of you know, we had a ‘social evening’ planned on Thursday, this was a meet set up by someone that Jo had seen on ‘GumTree’. After some email contact we had secured the time & place in the city. It was an impromptu club called ‘Melbourne 30s’!

The time had come and we spent a few minutes psyching ourselves up by walking around a music shop opposite the hotel. Once we were ready we headed over the road and entered the bar. We ordered our drinks and sat at the bar, as we tried to decipher who was who. It was a shame that there was no one there to introduce themselves.

After a couple of sips of the ‘ole dutch courage’ we had worked out that a group of ‘dowdy’ and ‘slightly older than we imagined’ people were probably them. We think that first impressions are very important and we weren’t particularly impressed, there weren’t any cool dudes or chicks like ourselves in the eight – yes EIGHT! Anyway, not to be perturbed by this we decided that we’d head off and come back.

After a little walk around the laneways we had a drink at a bar and headed back to the hotel. Unfortunately it hadn’t improved much, if at all! There were still the same numbers of people there, so decided that we’d head back to Docklands.

It wasn’t a wasted evening as we headed to the Lounge Room bar and after a few more drinks, Jo heckling the band and a short stumble home I think it worked out very well!

We received an email from the Melbourne 30s the following morning saying it was a great success and he’s organising another event. We’ve said, surprisingly, that we’ll go and hope that some others might turn up. Just got to get some of those nose & glasses combo’s just in case we get noticed!!

Lots of love,
Nathan & Jo.