For a change, I didn’t have work this week – I hurt my back so I wasn’t allowed to come in. I made pretty good use of my time off; I went down the park and played Frisbee, went out for a couple of drinks and was part of a team who won a pub quiz. Saturday, I went for a walk with some other long termers in the hostel around the lake outside – there was such nice weather, the kind of morning that made me realise that I’m lucky to live here.

I actually booked Tasmania up this week and spending two weeks over four places, then heading to Sydney for a week, where I think I’ll be spending New Years Eve this year too.

This week at the moment I only have one shift so I may be out doing touristy stuff. After this week I only have a week left until I leave Melbourne.

As predicted, this week has consisted of the fun stuff: getting up at 4am for work, getting my back sorted out, and the stuff that is actually fun in a non-sarcastic manner: beer – I went for drinks a couple of nights in a row.

When I am travelling, or rather away from England, I get mistaken for being German a lot. It happened to me four times in one week before, my favourite being asking for a ticket for a national park in Croatia in English and being handed the map in German. This week, I was making my dinner and someone asked me a question – all I understood was the word professional, so then I asked them to repeat themselves and then I had to ask them to repeat themselves again… in English. Turns out they thought that I’m German.

Over the weekend, or rather my day off, I booked up with a small tour company to go on a road trip through the Great Ocean Road. I’ve been meaning to do it for ages and hopefully in a few weeks time the weather will be good for it. I also looked into Tasmania which seems to be difficult, but possible, to do without a car. I’ll enjoy it more without being confined to a multiple day group tour though I might have to book a few one day tours. There’s a distillery that produces either the world’s best whisky or one of the best near Hobart so that will definitely have to be done.

Once again, I have a six day work week, four(ish) weeks left until I’ll start spending the money that I’ve been earning, and I’m bloody excited to do that.

This week has been pretty much the same as the past few; I have done pretty much nothing. Friday was a public holiday so I had the day off and ended up playing football with some people from the hostel in the park outside. Yesterday I had to change rooms in the hostel so I had to pack my bag for the first time in a month or so and it’s pretty much safe to say that I have my own personal off-license in there. I worked four days and been out for drinks a couple of times, but that’s as exciting as it has been.

I also figured that I should probably get my shit together and figure out when I should start travelling again, so there should be six more weeks of work, before going to Tasmania, Sydney then up the east coast to Cairns, Hong Kong then back to Australia to do my farm work.

I havent really done much over the past couple of weeks – I had one day off last week which turned into a duvet day and had this weekend off. Yesterday I went out in the city, and I have spent most of today vertical.

One of the things that has struck me about Australia is that it is more American than English, in terms of the language. Peppers are now called capsicums, courgettes are now a word that I’m not going to attempt to spell and aubergines are now called eggplant. I’ve also greeted someone with “how you going?” And I’m guessing that it’s not going to be too long when I describe something in a quantity of more than two as “heaps” without taking the piss.

Outside of work this week I went out for a couple of drinks with an Australian friend and I went out on Friday twice – I’d just gotten in after spending a few hours out and a really good kebab, then I got invited on a night out so I figured that I might as well.  It was a decent night, not amazing by any means. There’s one club over here that everyone in the hostel raves about that I went to for the first time. It turned out that there’s a $25 entry fee and it was shite for what I paid for.

Over the next week I have nothing planned apart from work but I’ll probably have a duvet day and try to go out for a few bevvys at some point.

This week wasn’t eventful besides work; I racked up 45ish hours by Thursday night – three ten hour shifts, then a fifteen. I’m very glad that I have done this on Australian wages rather than British.

I went out a couple of nights: Wednesday wasn’t a mental one then I went out for a drink with people from work on Friday, despite it being my day off. Saturday, I watched the second film in the Hobbit series and chilled – I had been woken up at 4am by a roommate and struggled to get a decent nights sleep. I was off today, supposed to go out but the plans have been pushed to next week which I don’t mind, so instead I took the opportunity to chill – I slept for almost 13 hours and spent the day watching films.

This coming week I have work six days in a row, which I’m expecting to be a 55+ hour one and am hoping to make it to a rugby game. I doubt the posts over the next few weeks will be more exciting than this as I’m hoping to pick up a lot of hours to pay for my travels once I’ve left Melbourne.

It had been a while since I’d been to a part of Melbourne that I haven’t yet been to, not that I’ve seen much of it anyway. I woke up at half 10 on Monday and started talking to one or my roommates about should I either stay in bed watching Family Guy all day or go to Brighton if the weather was nice outside – my bed was too far away from the window to see.

After a bit of reasoning, both of us got up, I made the pair of us some breakfast then we got the tram then train to Brighton Beach, where it was so warm that I didn’t need my jacket – in the middle of winter. It’s a pretty nice place to walk if you don’t mind filling your shoes up with sand. The girl I was with is hilarious and one of the people I have met on my travels who I get along best with, but left the country this week. We walked from Brighton back to the hostel, taking well over an hour. Once back at the hostel I didn’t get up to much apart from chatting to people, watching some Family Guy and making myself some chilli con carne cheesy nachos (minus the chilli because I have none). That night at around half 12 we had a snorer so I sent a Facebook message to someone across the room saying “do you play pokemon go? You’ll be able to catch a f–ing Snorlax in here” and laughed so hard at my own joke that I woke the snorer up.

Tuesday, I didn’t work and didn’t get up to much. I had a shit day on Wednesday, then during the evening I was going to go to the night market, but saw a friend in the hostel so we chatted and took advantage of the cheese and wine night, where the hostel was pretty tame.

Thursday and Friday I worked, volunteered to do overtime both days so I had a well-deserved lay-in. As I’ve been getting up for work at 5.15am recently, 8am does count as one. Saturday I caught a few hours of the Olympics, watched Deadpool and Borat, then after dinner the rugby. The hostel gets lively on Saturdays and I wasn’t in the mood for partying and drinking games; I would have much rather been in my pyjamas, in bed, watching cat videos. I’m pretty sure I’m on of the youngest in this hostel but I feel like I’m  one of the oldest.

Today, I went into the city for a bit, mainly because I shrunk some clothes in the wash,  then came back in to watch the first Hobbit movie – definitely one of the films that require a tea break or two. I haven’t got anything planned for tonight, but hopefully I’ll get a phone call in the morning asking me to work.