Melbourne Day 39

Well I've been pretty busy the last few days. My boss at my job nformed me that the old dishwasher guy came back so now i have to share shifts with him and I'm only down for 3 maybe for shifts this week so I tried doing stuff to keep busy. Tuesay I went to the Melbourne Museuma nd saw an AMAZING exhibit on insects. They had boxs of household spiders on display and let me tell you they aren't tin like the ones back home. I really enjoyed th eexihibit because rather than just show pictures of movies of how, say, a colonie of ants behave, they had an ACTUAL colonie behind glass. It was really something. Then Tuesday night I got a call from my friend Matt V. who I worked with in Sydney at Jordans. He was in town so we got together to catch up on things. It was fun talking to him and learn about all the cool things he's been doing on his trip. I also me this American girl in my room named Laura and we ended up checking out this place called the Australian Centre of the Moving Image (I thin kthats the name) and it had a sction with movie screen where we watched a bunch of animation shorts made by people who go to an Australian Animation school or some sort. The movies were really fun to watch. Afterwards we made our way upstairs to this art exhibition. One floor was Aboriginal Art and the other was historical Australian art form the 19th century but then we got tired and left.
Today I started a new job as a... wait for it... FLYER HANDOUT GUY! I basically have to stand in fron t of this internet/travel agent place accross the street from my hostel and say "15 free minutes of internet with this voucher! 2$ per hour but if you book one of our wonderful trips you become a gold member and get 1$/hour internet!". I'm so tired form talking so much tonight I'm not going to talk at all! (I know that for me it's hard to believe but its the truth!) I'm not really getting paid cash but I'll make 10$/hour and get to redeem it for one of their trips which can be used up to 6 months so I"m bound to find somethign I want to do and save a couple of hundred bucks. Or if I opt out for money I'll get 8$/hour after tax which isn't great but I won't get any moeny until I finish my time here in April so at least it's going to be saved up a little no matter which option I choose.

Expect tons of pictures of things soon!

Melbourne Day 36

Wow! I've been here over a month.
Yesturday was the Bris (circumcision) of my little nephew Charles! The whole family was together in Toronto for it. I wish I could have been there but I'll get a chance to see my nephew when I return to Canada.

Today was a crazy day. I woke up to discover my shampoo and conditioner was gone. Either I left it in the shower or someone took it but either way I need to buy new bottles of both. Afterwards I decided since I had no work today to try the street painting again. The last tiemI did it I made 50 cents. This time I went all out and bout cheap washable black paint and did this huge graffiti picture of the word 'Melbourne'. A lot of people came by to comment on it while I was doing it and at first my hat was empty but then it filled up with change. I might have had about 3-4$! However, afer about spending 3 hours on the street, when I didn't notice, someone swipped my baseball cap with the money in it! The money is nothing, I don't care abour 3$ but I loved that hat! I had it for about 5 years and it had 2 kool pins I got - one from the billy talen concert I was at and on from when I saw Interpol. Things got better shorlty after though when this guy from Malaysia commented on my drawing and was talking to me about graffiti art. He showed me his portfollio he just 'happened' to have on him and it was amazing! Him and his 'crew' can do some really awesome grafitti stuff. He had picturesd of walls and other things he's designed like cd covers and t-shirts. He gave me his e-mail and said we should go for a beer sometime so maybe i"ll folow up the offer. Then I went back to finishing the picture. It came out REALLY AWESOME and even though my hat got stolen I'm happy with the result and got some really good photos of it which I'll post onteh website soon.
The only other thing to add to this crazy day was on the way home someone handed me a flyer and it happened to be for Jews For Jesus. I havn't met any Jews and now i"m seing Jews for Jesus! I thought that was really HILARIOUS!
Well I"m tired and starving so I"m off to make a giant meal of chicken stir fry of (if my food hasn't been stolen! haha)

Melbourne Day 26

Good news and bad news. Good news: I am now employed! I'm currently a professional dishwasher at an italian restaurant called Di Palma and a cafe called Royal Domain Cafe. I worked 55 - 60 hours this week and because of it comes the bad news: I'm sick (BOO!). So I got this weekend off work and am resting up in the hostel. I stocked up on cold remedy supplies - Kleenex, cough drops, cold medicine, orange juice, chicken soup, etc. and I slept a bit better last night so I'm feeling better but still need lots of rest. I'm not too sure what I'll do this weekend if anything but maybe anice walk will do me justice. It's not too hot right now (pants and sweater weather) so some fresh air might be great.

In other news, I present to you all CHARLES SIMON BUDMAN (YAY!):

Melbourne Day 20

We break from the regular scheduled program to bring you this important news update:

I"M AN UNCLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Last night my sister in law gave birth to CHARLES SIMON BUDMAN, the newest addition to the Budman clan weighing in at a whopping 8 pounds 9 ounces.

MAZOL TOV CONNIE AND MARK!

Melbourne Day 19

Wow time is flying! I'm in Australia almost 4 months!

Looking back now I realized I forgot to include pictures of one of the most talked about thing on the great ocean road: The Twelve Apostles. And THIS is what they look like. The picture is tough to really see them properly but they are fantastic. There aren't really 12 of them, there are only about 8 or 9 and 1 collapsed a few years ago, but basically it's just these tall skinnet rock formations in the water close to the shorline.

I don't have the time or energy to put up more pictures right now on the computer but I still have a lot of great stuff to show. You'll just have to wait until I get back to see the rest on this part of the trip (if I show everything now there won't be anything to talk about when I get back home, haha). I promise I'll have more pictures of OTHER things though in the near future.

So basically I made it to Melbourne and have been up to a lot fo stuff since I got here. I spent 1 week in a hostel called Hotel Bakpak and promised myself I wouldn't do any work and just have fun. And fun was had by all. I went to a tennis match in the Australian Open. I randomly bought a ticket and ended up seeing Federer (world #1) play against some guy Suzuki. I also discovered this bar called Dallas. For 8$ you can get free refills of you glass for 2 1 hour peeiods (9-10pm and 11pm-12am) AND there is free kareoke! I've been there three weeks in a row now and sang about 8 songs. They know me now by face and I'm becoming friendly with the bouncer (always good to have big strong friends). Also, on January 26th was Austrlia day. I went to watch the fireworks display they had and bot was it something!
For the past 2 weeks I've been looking for a job. After not hearing anything from anyone and almost giving up, I ended up getting 3 job offers at once. Right now I'm a dishwasher at a tiny italian restaurant called Di Palmas. It's nice and laid back there and the people I'm working with are all a lot of fun. I've only worked there for 2 shifts so far and already feel accepted in the group. I opened my big mouth when my boss told me to not work too hard and chance tiring out too fast and mentioned that I was a 'machine'. For the rest of the shift he just kept calling me 'his machine' and if someone was distracting me he'd say 'Don't break my machine!' haha! On monday I'm trrying out a day job as a kitchenhand in a tiny cafe and if I can handle them both I'll work at both places and make a few extra bucks. Speaking of that, I thought I figured a way to make a few extra dollars but was terribly wrong. I endedup applying for a free busking permit. I am now legally allowed to draw on the sidewalk on 2 streets in the city. I saw a guy doing it and asked him how he got to do it and where he got his supplies. For TWO dollars I bougth a giant bucket of street chalk and spent 2 hours drawing this graffiti type thing on the street. I figured I'd make a few bucks... I made 40 cents! It was cloudy though so maybe on a sunnier day I'll be able to make a few extra dollars.

I better get going, I need to get things done before work.