Melbourne vol 6: shenanigans

We celebrated Valentines day on Friday with self-made delicious burgers, ice-wine, an “Unwell Bunny” street-art gallery exhibition opening, a concert in Hi-Fi lounge and a lot of random new acquaintances.

 The concert in Hi-Fi was fenomenal. “Better than the Wizards” new album launch. The second time I saw them, but this concert was soooo good that I think it goes into my top 3 ones of here in Australia, with “British India” and “The Lumineers”. Warm-ups were “Soul Safari” who we also have seen before and “The Simon Wright Band”. The last one is a new discovery but once again good. Love the music scene here in Melbs, especially The Espy who puts on so many local bands. Discovered yesterday that the place is up for sale. Oh there definitely are gonne be riots if somebody would dare to close it down, There has been a lot of discussions that the local music scene and rock music is dying as most places are investing into big names from abroad, I wish they'd support local Australian bands more, as there truly are many with great futures.

After the concert had a quick chat with the guys from the band, told them they're awesome and got to eat cake with them in return. It was someones birthday! At some point we discovered, only people in the club left were the band members, their friends and family.. and us. Headed back to Chapel street with some of their highschool friends. Keiu has the "Wreck this journal" journal, boys decided to fill one page with a elderly priority sticker from a tram. Needless to say none of us had a valid ticket for being on board.

Next day went to the Irish bar on our street: Birdie O'Reilly's, there was a cover band playing upstairs. Somehow we ended up in front of the stage dancing around like crazy, the singer awarded us with lollipops ;)

Went to the cinema to see “Dallas Buyers Club”. A believable, emotional story of change and second chances. Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto!!!! wuhuhuhu! It has its witty dialogues and fun parts but definitely is inspiring! I am very thankful to Optus here. We bought a portable wifi router from them and got a movie discount card. Soon we discovered the router is shitty and also figured out a scheme for free wifi, so we took the router back to the store, sneakily kept the film card. I would never-ever pay 22 dollars for a ticket to the movies. The card gives us 2 tickets for 1. 11 dollars is not that bad, so yay, seeing the most promising oscar movies in the cinema. And one is right on our street, a ten minute walk away.

Got a random flyer on the street: 14 dollars for 14 days of group trainings in a sportsclub that is 1 minute walking from our home. Different types of pilates, yoga, weight and physical resistance trainings. The club has lovely instructors, passionate in their field and very very social. Everybody seems to know each other well but welcome newbies to the “family” as warmly. Going to the trainings there fixates my opinion of Australians being extremely active. Going for runs and swims 5am before work, running in 45 degree heat, never just laying on the beach but playing all kinds of sports and so on. In the club there are people from all ages. 70-year-old ladies who would probably make most 20-year-olds feel like shit working out in tabata and circuit trainings.

Jonathan was having a morning coffee on the balcony of our apartment a couple days back. The balcony is also a veranda and serves as an opening to the apartment from the staircase from the alley. A young man with a black helmet and face-mask runs up the stairs, grabs a bag (nobody of us noticed was there) from behind our bbq and runs away. What made it funny, is that he found time to say good morning. And Jonathan wished him good luck and a good day and described him to us as a polite, young criminal. Gotta start locking the door I guess or the next time he is leaving with our tv and personal belongings.

And I got a package!!!! A christmas package to be precise. Thank you dear Galia!!! If I would have to name two things unreliable in Australia, without thinking they would be: postal services and public transport!

Yesterday night went to Cherry lounge on AC/DC lane. A band from Adelaide called "Tracer" was playing. Nice classic, melodic rock. Thanks again Clair for more music discoveries!!

Ending with some work stories: 

One day, walking to work, waiting behind a traffic light, a ute does a fast illegal u-turn and loses a vacuum cleaner from its trunk during the manouver. Luckily nothing or noone except the pride of the driver got hurt.

Working in a car wash has been and continuously is.. interesting. Starting from the moments when I'm alone in the store with a bunch of workers from Africa or Saudi-Arabia, who basically don't speak english and while the boss is away, they refer to me as boss and ask all kinds of questions in basically their own languages. Also, the clients decide to come out with every possible technical question about their engines or clay washes when I am the only one around to answer. Google my friend!! And ending with endless arguments with the boss about for example how I cannot answer his personal mobile phone while it is in his back pocket, or, why it is not wise to yell at the customers.

Sometimes the boys who work here at the car wash don't know at the end of the day where are the keys of some car or sometimes the whole car has gone missing. When the client is already close to calling a police, somebody remembers they parked it behind the building.

Explaining details to the workers can also be mission impossible. When you go and show them a fragrance bottle, shake your head and say NO! NO! And point again at the fragrance bottle, they for some reason understand they should not vacuum the car. Or, when you go to them point at one particular car, tell: quick quick, this car is urgent, and point on the clock, they decide to leave that car for last.

Clients are usually talkative and friendly, give their dog or child for you to hold while they are searching their voucher from the handbag and wanna know everything about you.

The cars itself, in general in Australia as well, are mainly silver, white, black or any other neutral dark or light colour. Bright colours, you see everywhere in Europe or USA are quite rare here. Then again there are so many cool old american cars or just cool old pimped up cars and quite a lot of posh Lexuses, Porches or Bentleys as well. Speaking of materialistic world, here at the carwash, clients with the posh cars are automatically treated as vip.

Sometimes, the boss has his kids here, to babysit a 6 year old boy (change the tv after every 10 minutes and answer all his questions) while assisting the clients, is double madness.  

I had live entertainment at work one day, a handyman who came to fix a couple of problems, hang up a clock and spray the sliding door. He is from Ukraine but has lived in Australia for 35 years, And, he loves to talk. He probably should've spent here an hour, but altogether ended up staying for six. Altho his self-praising stories get annoying at times, I truly respect his positive nature and at the age of 79 he looks below 60, still works as a handyman and takes his 80 year old wife out to dinner-parties every weekend.

 Once, a young Scottish man paid for his car wash, smiled and asked if I've got a “PIPE-h”. With an extremely confused look I hesitantly raise up a box of electronic hookah-s our boss just brought in for sale (yes, he is egyptian). The scottish gentleman bursts into laughter and laughs sincerely for a good two minutes. “No, no PIPE-HHH !!!!!” I asked if he needs paper.. that was close enough, he actually wanted to know if we have todays newspaper.

And noww!!!! I'm going to meet my mom in THAILAND! Cya in 10 days!