G´day mate! (english)

YES, it´s time for the first news from Australia, more specifically Melbourne :) Therefore I decided to give it a new face with this blog. ENJOY!

The last few weeks have been emotional and as well a bit weird - but good. Another dream came true by watching my first (and as well favourite) Grand Slam the "Australian Open" and I´m more then happy to finally have a SUMMER again ;)

Sometimes I still feel like I´m in New Zealand and in the beginning I felt really lonely (not surrounded by about 8 flatmates, my brother or anyone else) and missed Wellington (ok, I STILL miss it). But it got better and I think I start feeling a bit more settled now after the first month. But here the full story:
           

DAY 307 – 311 / FIRST DAYS IN MELBOURNE

So I arrived in Melbourne, 8:20am, hung over, sad and the last thing I expected was a culture shock. But I think I had a little one... considering Melbourne has as many people as the whole of New Zealand. Southern cross station (big train, tram etc. station in the centre) was just too much for me this morning! You couldn´t buy a normal train ticket anymore so I had to buy a „myki card", which turned out to be the only possibility to use public transport. No one could tell me which platform my train is leaving and beside that I was hungry and tired. My overweight luggage (I was so happy to not get charged for) was no help at all and the people seemed really unfriendly (or maybe it was me – just pissed off by everything). Well, I eventually made my way to Brighton Beach Station, where I luckily get picked up by Aidan (a friend of Zoe´s brother).

Quick recap: During my travels in NZL I met Zoe and we both ended up in Wellington. We became friends and as she heard I was going to Melbourne she offered to stay with her dad during the 2 weeks of the Australian Open ;)

As soon as I managed to set up my new mobile number I went to bed and basically slept the rest of the day.
Living at Zoe´s house in Hampton was great! Surrounded by 2 dogs, 3 cats, 2 fish and not to forget the 3 chickens I wasn´t alone at all :)
Woken up the next day by Melbourne weather (about 27 degrees and blue sky) I already managed to apply for a TFN number (Tax File Number - you need to work in Oz), got my Aussie Open tickets and found myself looking for rooms.

The next few days I was switching between working on my application, going to the beach or walking the dogs. With a pool in the garden life isn´t too bad at all ;)
On my first Sunday I caught up with Bronya (I used to live with her sister Kim in Wellington) and she drove me around to show me the suburbs and where it would be good to live. It was great to see her again! We had lunch in St Kilda and later ordered Thai food and watched a movie at their and Tim´s place (her flatmate). They have a really nice house and after I got invited to come to their Mexican party they also offered me to stay there for a while. This is SO helpful in the beginning when you don´t know a city and where to go! Unbelievable friendliness here as well :)

DAY 312 – 318 / THE AUSTRALIAN OPEN

Let the show begin! As I got a 5 day ground pass and one day session in the Hisense Arena I was pretty much booked with tennis for the whole week :)

The weather was awesome, almost too hot, and I got my first proper tan in over a year – and more important I managed to not get burned.

It´s so true what they say about the Aussie Open – it is a party! The Australian fans make it such an event and are really enjoyable. As well the Grand Oval is a nice change if you need to get out of the sun or you want some refreshments and free gifts. You won´t miss a thing! It´s well organised and on every court they update you on the other matches when there is a change of sides. With the huge screens all over the place you can as well follow the “big” players who would not play out of Rod Laver or Hisense Arena. But to make it short: I saw great matches and as well a lot of practise sessions. Here an overview and I attached some pics as well ;)

Matches I´ve seen live:

Julian Reister vs. Guillaume Rufin

Tomas Berdych vs. Michael Russell

Xavier Malisse vs. Fernando Verdasco

Janko Tipsarevic vs. Lukas Lacko

Florian Mayer vs. Rhyne Williams

Tommy Haas vs. Jarkko Nieminen

Steve Darcis vs. Philipp Kohlschreiber

Milos Raonic vs. Philipp Kohlschreiber

Juan Del Potro vs. Jeremy Chardy

Annika Beck vs. Yaroslava Shvedova

Maria-Teresa Torro-Flor vs. Bojana Jovanovski

Melanie Qudin vs. Laura Robson

Julia Goerges vs. Vera Dushevina

Ana Ivanovic vs. Melinda Czink

Daniela Hantuchova vs. Yung-Jan Chan

Maria Joao Koehler vs. Karin Knapp

Angelique Kerber vs. Elina Svitolina

Angelique Kerber vs. Lucie Hradecka

Julia Goerges vs. Romina Oprandi

Julia Goerges vs. Jie Cheng

Maria Kirilenko vs. Yanina Wickmayer

Kimiko Date-Krumm vs. Bojana Jovanovski

Caroline Wozniacki vs. Lesia Tsurenko

Julia Goerges vs. Na Li

Practise sessions:

Roger Federer

Bernard Tomic

Novak Djokovic

Fernando Verdasco

Janko Tipsarevic

Richard Gasquet

Stanislas Wawrinka

Victoria Azarenka

Maria Sharapova

Ana Ivanovic

Venus Williams

Angelique Kerber

Of course I continued watching on the big screens or at home for the night matches – have been a few great ones! I took only one break in the first week, which was the Thursday when the temperatures went up to 39 degrees! That´s when I decided to spend this day on the beach :) Fiona informed me then that Maximilian Marterer (a young talent from Nürnberg) who quite often had a training session before or after us at the TCN with Gerald (our coach as well – seems we´ve done something different ;)) would participate at the Junior Australian Open. Luckily his first round match was on the Sunday, my last day at the tournament and I could watch it. He won 6:4, 6:4. I talked to his dad afterwards who managed to get burned within 24 hours in Melbourne already ;) Unfortunately Maxi lost in the 2^nd round but made it to the double finals with this Austrian colleague. Well-done guys! :)

It has been a great week and an awesome experience even if I would have preferred to have someone with me to share it. Of course I met some people but actually no other tennis players. At the end I treated myself with a towel as a souvenir as I didn´t bring one ;)

DAY 319 – 326 / HAMPTON

Of course I continued watching tennis a lot but as well got myself organised. Setting up a bank account, finding out about insurance, room search, job search… to name just a few things on the list! After Wellington I felt quite a bit lonely as I was used to be with other people basically all the time but once used to it again it felt great – getting things done and preparing for something you don´t know yet what it might be ;)

During that week Zoe´s youngest sister Tara and her mum Rosanne were coming home from Christmas holidays in Europe (where Zoe is now). So the house was kind of half full and it has been great to meet more of Zoe´s family :)

Before I knew it, Friday was here and Bron and Tim´s Mexican party was happening. I made my way there around lunchtime and helped with decoration and prep. Such a great location! In their back yard they had Piñata’s, sculls, colourful carpets, a shrine with so many hot sauces I have never seen before in my life (Tim apparently is a big fan of hot food – probably I should introduce him to my mum!) and the BEST: a Margherita machine!!! You can actually hire those things here – AMAZING! So we had our first few Margheritas already while preparing everything, OF COURSE ;) The party was great and I crashed the couch for the night - before I moved in anyway ;)

DAY 327 – 330 / FLEMINGTON – BRONYA´S PLACE

And here I was – moving to Flemington. I basically spent the week with working further on my applications. Bronya offered me help, which was great! She did that for a living and even if I felt all right with the help from Angela (the Kiwi girl who helped me in Wellington), she came from a finance and HR driven business while Bronya is a very creative person herself. It happened that I had to rework a lot but enjoyed it at the same time as it gives me much more confidence and feels more like me now, too. Chakaaaaa and THANKS HEAPS BRONYA!

She has as well spoken to her landlord and best friend Sam. It turned out he actually had a spare room I could move in. He lives with Suzanne and two dogs just a 3 minute walk away from Bron´s place and after looking at his house I took it :)

DAY 331 – 339 / FLEMINGTON – SAM´S PLACE

Here my new address in case you wanna send me PRESENTS :)

110 Shields street

Flemington, VIC 3031 (for Victoria)

Moving into the new flat was very different. In comparison to Jefferson´s it´s SO QUIET! Well, as we are only 3 people and 2 of them are working and really busy I have the house mostly to myself. But even I am out a lot :)

Sunday morning Bronya and Tim took me to their “Breakfast club” and I met more new people after the Mexican party. Yes, it might sound a bit old but hey – in your 30s it takes you about 2 days to get over a party so this is much more fun and you actually have something of the day (which doesn´t mean that we are not partying anymore!!!).

That´s as well when I met Dan, an old friend of Bron´s from Wellington. He was here for a 2 weeks holiday and so we decided to catch up in town as I was still jobless. So we hired some bikes during the week and cycled around Melbourne before we spent one day at the beach as we had 36 degrees again :) It was great getting out of the house!

That day it happened as well that I got a call for an interview at a Café just 10 minutes from my place. It went well and the set up is basically like the one I worked in Wellington. They gave me a trial for the following week – which is the latest status for now ;) Fingers crossed!

Nearly one month here now and it gets really busy – I LIKE :) Friday I played tennis with one of the guys I met at the Mexican party. After that we had Pizza and Beers at Bron´s and planned “Breakfast club” for Sunday again. Saturday we went to see “Les Miserables” and had a BBQ. Sam also invited a few of us to Apollo Bay (which is along the Great Ocean Road) as his parents have a Beach house there :) And Adam and me got invited for camping at Easter as well. You see… I´m busy with socialising! It´s amazing how quick it goes if you know someone – just AWESOME :)

Still… there is one person missing I can´t wait to arrive! Finally he booked his flight and it happens that Adam will arrive on my birthday :) What a present hehe.

Well mates, that´s it for now. I hope you enjoyed reading and looking at the pictures. How is everything in good old Germany? I´ve heard the winter is back (if it is not gone again already). Let me know what´s going on and especially when all the new born´s arrive ;)

Cu later,

Baba

P.S.: I have a little task for you: As this is my first web design and there are different computers etc. out there – Could you let me know how the page looks? Can you see the Kangaroo´s? That would be choice! Cheers guys ;)