Santa eats mince pie.

On December 1, newly healthy from a nasty sinus germ, I boarded a plane to Melbourne excited to return to Australia and begin to research jobs and apts so that after my final stint of volunteer work, I'd be able to stay in one place for a few months. But my immune system had different ideas and by the time I exited the plane, I was sick again. I spent 4 days mostly just hanging around the YHA Metro in North Melbourne reading in the rooftop sunroom during the day and overdosing on cough medicine at night in an attempt to prevent my 7 roommates from murdering me.

At the time I didn't know it but this was the start of a 7 week stretch of trickier and less excitig times. I can say this now because as of this writing, things have turned around and I'm back to being astonished by my luck. But you'll have to wait for the next post to hear about that.

Anyway, on Friday, December 5, I rejoined CVA in Bendigo. I had expected to be housed in Melbourne for at least the weekend but once again they threw me for a loop when they put me on a train to Bendigo and told me to stay there for 2 weeks. I practically had to drag out of them instructions on what to do when my train arrived in this alleged Bendigo; which further increased my former frustrations with the organization.

Bendigo began as a mining town and is now the second largest city in Victoria -- Melbourne being the first. If you saw Bendigo and knew this little fact you would get a very clear picture of really how sparsely populated Australia is. Bendigo's downtown area makes Toms River look like a major city.

Although the volunteer work didn't begin until Monday, the Melbourne office had purchased a train ticket for me to go out to Bendigo on Friday -- which meant finding something to do all weekend in this tiny town. There were only 2 other people staying in the house over the weekend, two 24 year old Korean guys. They had been in Bendigo a week already and were excited to show me the library (where we could use the internet), the lookout tower (from which you could see the whole town), and well that's about all there was do. But mostly I think they were just very excited to ask me questions about America, such as (take note that they frequently used the word "famous" to mean "popular"):
Who is more famous in America, Beyonce or Mariah Carey?
What is the most famous thing to eat in America? KFC?
Have you met any famous people?
What is the most famous drama in America?
Do you watch Prison Break? Do you watch Lost?
Is WWF wrestling very famous in America? Does everyone watch it?
Does everyone have a gun in America? Do you have a gun?
Is it very easy to buy drugs in America?
Are there lots of Christians in America?
What is the most famous brand of clothing in America?
Why do you eat so many sandwiches?

So many questions. Sometimes I felt like a Martian being subjected to questioning about my mysterious world.

We watched Ugly Betty one night and they couldn't quite get over just how "ugly" she was. There were frequent groans and "Ohh, so ugly!" Then they asked me "What is the name for the barricade on her teeth?" ...Braces?

On Friday night we went down the street to the center of town where there was a christmas tree lighting ceremony going on. It felt like going to see the fireworks on the 4th of July at Lake Carasaljo. Except it was December... and there was a huge Christmas tree... and christmas carols... and santa arrived on a trolley... and there were no fireworks... or lake.

Well I guess the extent of the similarity was just the warm weather and the crowds of families with their blankets and lawn chairs gathering at dusk in the center of town. But in anycase, it was an experience that was at the same time so foreign and so familiar.

By the time Monday rolled around I decided that I was going to finish one more week of volunteer work and skip out on my 8th and last week. I was getting anxious to establish a bit of routine in my life, and not the kind of routine that involves walking loudly to scare off snakes, digging holes, smoko time, or eating nasty mystery lunch meat. Of course there were quite a number of other reasons why I decided it was time to call it quits but I'll keep my explaination of them here brief.

I have plenty of criticsms on the policies of CVA and the attitude of some of their staff. However, having been on the inside of an organization responsible for managing volunteer projects I do understand the wealth of challenges involved in making such project happen. And CVA faces some additional challenges in language barriers, providing overnight housing and meals, and the great distances that often must be traveled to get to the locations in need. Therefore I hesitate to say that there is for sure a better way to handle things. There are small ways that improvements could definitely be made. For instance, teamleaders should be required to bring soap and cleaning supplies with them to any house where their team will be staying. And providing accurate directions when sending volunteers out on their own shouldn't be so hard.

That final week with CVA was the slowest week ever. The work we did was mostly easy, driving around taking water samples from the Murray River and running Ph and oxygenation tests on them; except for a few hours of painful cactus removal on Wednesday afternoon. On Thursday we were staying at the house to make some repairs and improvements and to clean out the shed. One of the suggested improvements was to hang a map on the wall at the house that labeled the local movie theater, pharmacy, parks, internet etc. I volunteered to create this map because, duh, I love maps.

On Thursday afternoon the new head branch of Bendigo Bank happened to be having a grand opening ceremony just a block away from the CVA office, and the Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd was going to be speaking. The other office staff were going and invited their new cartographer (me) along to check it out. We literally just trotted up a side alley and around the back of the stage where we joined a small crowd (less than 75 people) in perfect view of the ceremonies and speaches; although we had to look at the back of the heads of all who were speaking. I could not believe how close we were able to get to the prime minister, with no security checks and no huge crowd to fight.

That Friday I jumped on the train to head back to the city. I spent a good portion of the next week researching job and living options. It seemed there were plenty of places to live where you could pay rent by the week and not be required to sign any sort of lease. The jobs department was looking a bit trickier however since I couldn't manage to find any creative temp agencies like the sort I would use to find work in New York. I called and sent my resume out to many regular temp agencies expressing interest in both design work and administrative office work but the response, if I got one, was always that since it was less than 2 weeks until Christmas, nothing much was going on until January.

By the end of the week I decided that since city life making me antsy that i'd spend less time in Melbourne than the 4-5 months I'd originally planned and get back to traveling after only about 3. This meant that since I'd have less time to work, I'd need to get started doing it soon. So I created another version of my resume that included jobs I'd had in highschool and college and went off in search of restuarant or counter work.

The first place I tried was Fitzroy St. in St Kilda -- the beach town of Melbourne. Since I had no actual waitressing experience, just a few months as a hostess at Martells in Point Pleasant, I was doubtful that anyone would actually hire me for waitressing jobs. But when I spoke to one of the owners at a chain pizza and pasta place that day the conversation went something like this:

Him: Do you have experience?
Me: Not as a server but I did work at a very large restuarant in New Jersey as a hostess.
Him: New Jersey? huh? There are a lot of Italians in New Jersey.
Me: Yeah I guess so. I'm one of them.
Him: (Glancing at my name on the resume... first time he's looked at it) Heh. You are Italian. Come in tomorrow at 6.

And so I had a one day trial for about 4 hours, for which i did not actually get paid, and by the end of that 4 hours I was taking orders and using the computer. So even though no one told me so, I guessed I was hired because for the rest of that week they kept telling me to come back the next day. I still had absolutely no idea what I would be getting paid or when, how many hours a week I would generally get, or if my stupid ass knees would be able to cope with this kind of work, but it was a bit of income, and it was in the place where I'd hoped to live after Christmas, so I was content.

Speaking of Christmas, by now there were just a few more doors left to open in the huge advent calendar in Federation Square. Each night they made some sort of show out of opening one of the doors that involved a strangely costumed dude hanging from wires about 60 to 80 feet off the ground and lots of colored light beams. It was very strange. Even Maxine, who has a degree in dance and choreographs performances was befuddled by this odd event.

Maxine and I spent the week of Christmas in the same hostel being each other's substitute family. We'd both found it a bit trickier than usual to meet people since our arrival in Melbourne, so it was just the two of us for Christmastime.

Since December is both the start of the season of summer, the end of the school year, and Christmas there was a great mix of things going on in the streets that to my northern hemisphere oriented brain did not seem to fit together. For instance, there were salvation army musicians on the corners playing Christmas carols in the warm weather (although at only about 67-72 it was unseasonably cool for December in Melbourne). There were graduates leaving their ceremonies in cap and gown and lining up with friends to have their picture taken with Santa. There were beachgoers wearing bathingsuits and Santa hats.

Although the collision of the excitement of summer with the excitement of Christmas means that December and January are just one big party everywhere you turn, it also means that nothing too exciting happens six months later in June. I think it would be very depressing to have put all your fun eggs into just one month's basket.

It seemed to me that Christmas was more toned down in terms of the media and decorations and seeing it everywhere in your face, than it is at home. Maybe this is because there is also the start of summer to celebrate; or maybe it was my lack of access to media, suburbs and actual families... I don't know. But I do know that I saw very few instances of Christmas lights on houses or plastic figures in yards.

Maxine and I ate our Christmas dinner at the hostel. We were quite pleased with this purchase as not only was it a good price at $15 it looked and tasted like normal good food... not like hostel food.We spent the early part of the afternoon on the roof with our bottle of wine and the later part wandering about the mostly deserted streets, save for some groups of asian families.

It was a Christmas that was educational more than celebrational. It passed in a way that made me wake up on Dec 26 thinking, was that real? Am I in a Dr. Seuss book? Did I really see a huge tree made out of plastic stars that sang Christmas carols, did I really see santa with graduates on his lap? Did I really go to church and find that some of the christmas songs had the same tune and name but the words were completely different? Did Maxine really tell me the disturbing fact that in England children leave santa mince pie?!


View pictures at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=54297&l=d339b&id=802088251