Seven Days

Melbourne, Victoria
Australia

And so it begins, the countdown to my last seven days in Melbourne. The majority of today I was consumed by my hangover. But by the time I awoke from my third and final nap, I felt like a human being again (opposed to the crypt keeper, my hungover alias).

DAY 7: NECESSARY EVILS

1) Australian Taxes
2) Packing

3) Laundry

4) The other laundry I forgot I had
3) Cleaning

My beautiful room, after fourteen consecutive days of work.

Tomorrow looks more promising.

Lock Your Doors

Melbourne, Victoria

Australia

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2 mi

2 km

I'm currently working for Paddington out in Oakleigh which is two hours by public transport to The Sloaney Pony in Port Melbourne. And that's assuming your trains are in sync (and they never are).

Having exactly two hours in between jobs, I hustled to close Paddington and ran out only to watch my train depart from the platform. NEXT TRAIN: 23 MINUTES the board taunts. Well, still ok, maybe my trams will sync up (they wouldn't). As I waited inside I noticed it had begun to rain, but no surprise there; Melbourne is known for seeing sunshine, wind, and rain all in one day.

23 minutes later, I'm on my train as the storm brews. By the time I exit the train, I'm met by what looks like the end of the world. A downpour of rain so dense your can't see more than ten feet in front of you. From inside, it was almost a destructive beautiful, the lighting overhead illuminating the rain. And me in my new boots....

And without an umbrella! I used to carry my umbrella everyday because the weather is so unpredictable and cruel in Melbourne. After I left it on a tram, I refused to spend my precious coin on a new ugly umbrella, so I'm holding out for a cute one. It's been a wet month.

It's a ten minute walk to my tram connection, so with my new boots at stake I charged into the storm. Hair clinging to my face, already feeling the water seeping into my socks, I ran until I was under the overpass. In refuge, I watched all the other pedestrians run towards the bridge and realized I was nowhere close to the tram stop. But with The Pony in mind, I gathered my courage (and my foolishness) and soldiered out into the rain only to realize it had begun hailing.

Immediately pulled a 180 and headed back for the bridge and slipped. We're talking, laying in a puddle; really ate it. And of coarse the cutest Australian I've ever actually spoken to, comes to my rescue. Too embarrassed to even form words, he tries to help me up, but cars are racing by, driving through puddles that jump to the curbs. And it's still hailing!

"I thought this only happened on TV!" I cried, pulling myself up. "Ya, or like in a bad cough syrup commercial," he laughed. Humiliated and soaked to the bone I asked where I could get a taxi, sadly Mr. Beautiful not only didn't need to share one, but he just plain didn't know, and then ran off in the other direction to catch his train.

Normally, I would have just called a cab, but I busted my phone a couple days ago. Water damage, would you believe. Big fan of irony right here.

Back out into the rain and all but into oncoming traffic just to hail a cab. Finally a break, as the cab scooped me up into safety. And as we sat at the stoplight, I took a moment to assess the damage done to my boots, when suddenly an old woman swung open my car door, paused to look at me, slammed it shut and hopped into the back of the cab.

Then came the real storm. Ya know in cartoons when they have two cats fighting, but all they show is a moving cloud; that's what this experience must have looked like to the common passerby. This old woman springs into the cab and starts shouting, "I go church! I go CHURCH!" To which the cab driver immediately starts yelling, "OUT! OUT NOW!" and swinging his arms at her. Always lock your car doors.

"SHARE! SHARE!" the woman yells, the cab driver haults, clenched fists in the air, "She with YOU?" "No...." I reply meekly, from underneath the car seat. Yelling and swinging ensues, "I no speak Chinese! I NO SPEAK CHINESE!" the old woman yells. We're in Australia.

The old woman storms out of the car and the cab driver drives me home. Actually he got really lost, and my ride was getting pretty expensive, being as I paid for the grandma versus cabbie smackdown of the century, so I just got out and walked the rest of the way home. Oh, and soon after I got the cab, it stopped raining. Let us pause to be surprised.... Enough.

The nice thing about the hail is that it looks like snow on the ground and the window sill after it settles. The city was destructively beautiful tonight.