On Our Own... in Melbourne, AUS

Since I last wrote, we have moved out from under Andy and Travis' wings and have acquired our own apartment in a great part of town just a few miles away. We actually fell into this lease since we were supposed to head to the Northeast part of town (Brunswick) to look at a warehouse conversion apartment for lease but as it got later in the evening we thought it might be too late to head to a strange guy's house and we decided to grab some coffee and head home. Talia, a waitress in the coffee shop from LA, suggested we go to a website her friend runs that leases fully furnished temporary apartments in downtown high rises for pretty good prices. We checked it out that night and had an appointment to look at our new place the next morning. It is pretty sweet. We share a kitchen and living area/computer with 3 other people but we have our own ensuite (room + bathroom) and a walk in closet big enough for both of our needs. Our place comes with a lane pool and a gym which you know we love! Hopefully we'll be able to try those out soon. Plus, we are about 20 feet from the Crown Casino's entrance and so we spend a lot of time eating and walking around the Casino. Maybe if we don't find jobs, we can just gamble and shop all day? Just kidding Mom! These are pictures of the area where we live along the Yarra River.

Until then, we're looking for jobs. We have been discouraged since most of the places we have applied have either said they had already hired for the holiday season or that our 7 months (slight exaggeration) was too short of a time to hire. grrr... hopefully we'll be able to find something nearby so we can start to have some sort of a schedule. It is hard being American because everyone knows we are only allowed to work for 3 months TOTAL in Australia but all the other countries are allowed up to at least a year! Therefore employers don't really like to hire Americans. Maybe we'll start claiming Canada as our homeland ... just for job opportunities!
We went to a really awesome bar on Thursday night that's only about 10 blocks away called Transport. It's very crowded but it's a huge indoor/open air bar. We learned our lesson about bottle drinks here though... $16.50 for two bottle beers is not such a great thing! We started drinking what Aussies call "pots" which are small sized beers glasses. Last night I finally tried to order 2 "pots" for Meagan and I and apparently my accent threw the bartender off and he served us PINTS which are the big beers! haha I never consider us to have an accent... do you?
Anyhow, I'm going to start my day as it is now 12:30 pm here and we haven't left the place. Tonight we are headed to a birthday party near Andy's parent's home in Hoppers Crossing (about 30 minutes) and that should be fun. I am really happy we have these guys that we trust and love to hang out with around... it makes the trip more fun!

Hope everyone is doing well and that you're enjoying your winter holiday season. It's not the same here at all... the streets are decorated downtown but it just doesn't feel the same.