MELBOURNE BABY!!

Hello you all!

This time my blog will be in English, my laptop Internet code is not working yet, and as I therefore cannot write it at home, I am doing it at work. My boss is watching my screen the whole day, so I cannot write in Dutch, as the grammar check will show nothing but red underlining.

I am not sure where I exactly left off with my last blog, but I have done enough since. The biggest adventure was going to Melbourne, two weeks ago on Saturday evening I arrived at Melbourne airport together with Myrthe and Rachel, two friends from my house. We were picked up by my roommate Anouk and her friend Eva, and could spend some nights at the house from Eva’s au pair family. We’ve goon out on Saturday and Eva had arranged tickets for a very cool club! After we got home I haven’t slept so good in ages it seems! A clean house, good washing machine, lots of food and even a Jacuzzi! So there we were, chillin in the Jacuzzi on Easter Sunday, awesome! We visited Melbourne CBD and on Monday morning we packed our bags, got in the car, picked up four other girls and drove to the Great Ocean Road. The Great Ocean Road is a specific route that starts at Torque and ends near Port Fairy, you drive along a beautiful coastline and there is a lot to see on this 245km drive. We had a lot of fun in the car (you might have seen the videos on Facebook already), although it broke down twice, and have seen a lot of great things. Hurdles of kangaroos, wallaby’s and even koalas from real close, all in the wild! We took a lot of photo’s, which I will upload as soon as I can, the most impressive thing was the twelve apostles and the stunning views everywhere. At night we went out for pizza and fish and chips, had a few drinks in the hostel and after that went to sleep quite early because we were so tired from all the impressions and driving. We were with 9 girls, 3 from my house, 2 from Holland, 1 from Sweden and 1 from Germany. So we talked English the whole day, and even learnt some Swedish words as well! On Wednesday we stopped on the way back to visit a National Park, which is called Tower Hill, we were just having some coffee outside and all of a sudden 3 kangaroos jumped by right in front of us! Unbelievable, after that we were all excited and it took only a short walking route to see a lot more, even a one or two meters away. After this we drove straight back to Melbourne and the following day we went to St. Kilda, the beach area of Melbourne, and then it was time to go home again. Melbourne is a great city, really trendy with and especially at St. Kilda you have all kinds of different communities of people. We were at a ‘ restaurant’ for hippies for example, they served food for free, and you give a donation for what you think the food is worth. On Thursday it was time to go home again. Me, Rachel and Myrthe were driving for half an hour and needed to get the car back to the rental company before flying back to Sydney, but it broke down when we just got on the highway. Luckily Eva, Anouk and Betty were saving us by picking us up with the other car and drove us to the airport, as we had been waiting for the pick-up service for more then 2 hours. At twelve we got back home in Sydney, how weird is that? That you come home in Sydney! Haha, last week a cousin from Rachel was visiting Sydney with a few English friends so we have given them a small guide tour. The rest of the week the weather was not that good so most of the time I just spend time on my graduation project. Tomorrow I am going to do some volunteer work for a concert of the Script. You need to work 4 hours, and you will get a free ticket for the concert of Thursday evening, and on Friday we will head to Jervis Bay, with almost all people from the house for the weekend. In Jervis Bay you have beautiful beaches, you can go snorkelling there and you can see dolphins! So I hope we will see them this weekend!

Together with the girls we have started a 14 days balance ‘week’, which entails that we cannot eat any pasta, rice, potatoes and snacks. Further we got a lot of fruits and vegetables and do a workout almost every night that is called ‘ Insanity’. So we are living very healthy for the next two weeks.

At my internship everything is going well, two managers from a big company that sells blinds came down from Melbourne to have a meeting with us, and I could attend this all day, which was really exiting and interesting. I am now working on a Facebook account for the company.
The weather is getting a bit worse, it gets colder during nighttime and we need to start wearing vests and sweaters now and then. But today it is 26 degrees so most of the time we definitely cannot complain!

Overall, I am still having a good time here, but of course I am starting to miss all of you as well! I did decide to stay two weeks longer for my graduation project, as Aussie people take their time for everything; so it goes for my surveys that should have been sent out about three weeks ago. Therefore I will need some extra time to make sure that everything is finished on time. Expected date to get back to Holland: 20th June.

If some of you have not read my last blog and still want to send me a postcard (or anything else! Haha, here’s the address, I also got a new Australian phone number, which I will make use of the following weeks, you can still send me messages via Whatsapp on my normal number though.

New phone number:
+61420463250

Michelle Heestermans
50/52 Edgecliff Road
2025 Woollahra, Sydney NSW
Australia

I hope you liked the blog, and I will write you again soon!

XOXO
Michelle