It’s been a busy few days! My jet lag is almost resolved, although it’s pushing me to go to bed early (is 7 pm too early?), and I’ve been getting settled in, tackling lots of administrative stuff, and having just a little bit of fun starting to explore. Here’s a recap of my first few days:
Day 0:
On my layover in Brisbane, I applied for my tax file number (TFN) and emailed Tradewind (my employer) about coming in to fill out paper work and get ready to start casual relief teaching (CRT, aka substitute teaching). After landing in Melbourne, I bought my prepaid SIM card with my new phone number so I can get calls for work. It was $25/month with 25 gb of data and like 500 minutes – Canada could learn a thing or two from the folks down under! I took an Uber to my Air BnB in the central business district (aka the CBD, basically downtown) of Melbourne. After that, I took my documents to the Commonwealth Bank, to finish setting up my account that I opened my account before departing Canada.
I went to the grocery store!! I went to Woolworth’s in the Docklands area, and perused until I found enough food to not starve. I can’t say I’ve ever experienced decision paralysis in the cracker aisle before, I guess a new country will do that to you!
After getting back to the Air BnB, I unpacked and got settled. It’s only home for three weeks, but I still want to feel at home! Using my packing cubes made it easy, I just unzipped them and plopped them into the little IKEA drawer organizers my host has. Then I had to call my credit card company to reassure them I am, in fact, in Australia(!!? Who let me do this!?) and that the charges on my card weren’t fraudulent because it was frozen at some point, but that’s all resolved now. I set up a VoIP number so I can make calls to Canada without a worry about long distance charges (although I’m pretty sure they are included in my mobile plan, but I think it’s better to have a Manitoba number on the caller ID when I make calls to North America).
Day 1:
I braved public transit and went into the CBD and met with Tradewind, the company that will be facilitating my CRT placements and got my ducks in a row for that. I have to do four training modules before I’m fully on boarded, about anaphylaxis, asthma, COVID, and mandatory reporting. Hopefully going to finish them up soon so I’m good to start work!
The transit system is neat, they have buses, trams, and trains, with one transit card to rule them all. I bought a month pass for $168 AUD that will give me unlimited fares so I’m free to go wherever I want. There is a ‘free tram zone’ in the CBD where you can just get on and off without needing to tap your card, which is handy. For buses and trains, you tap on and off, so they can calculate your fare accordingly (if you don’t have a pass) and I’m still getting the hang of it.
I met a potential roommate in the Footscray neighbourhood, the apartment (or is it a flat here? According to google, the terms are interchangeable but I’m not sure what is more commonly used) was really nice and I would have my own bathroom (SCORE!) but I want to explore my options a bit more and see what the other suburbs are like. There was Footscray Market within walking distance for groceries, with different vendors for meat and produce and whatnot, which is new to me as opposed to a one stop grocery store. I got some produce there that was way cheaper than at Woolworth’s (one of the two main grocery chains, the other is Cole’s).
Day 2:
The other person staying in my Air BnB and I went touristing! She’s a lawyer from Philippines, here on a three week vacation, but will be headed to Adelaide next week. It worked well for us, she knew what she wanted to do and see, and I served as navigator (typical Kate, right?). I still really haven’t had a chance to figure out all the touristy things I want to do, because I was so busy making sure I had everything I needed for my visa, getting my teaching stuff organized, and packing.
We checked out Fitzroy Gardens, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and the Queen Victoria Market. I loved the gardens, there was a conservatory and all kinds of plants growing and walking paths. I would love to live nearby so I can enjoy them and go for walks, we will see what happens! The cathedral was MASSIVE and had such neat architecture. I really enjoyed the little bit of the market we got to see, as we got there at two and it closed at three. I’ll definitely be back, and when we were leaving, I must have looked like a local because someone asked me how the tram worked.
In the evening I cooked up a frittata to have for food for the next couple days, and worked on finding a place to live. They have a site called Flatmates, where people post looking for roommates so I messaged a bunch of people to see what the prospects are. I’ve got a couple introductions lined up, we will see how they go in the next couple of days.
Day 3:
I spent the morning cleaning up, and then went to Brunswick to check it out and meet another potential roommate. Apparently the vacancy rate is REALLY low (the host of the Air BnB said <1%) so getting my long term living situation sorted is priority right now. Brunswick seems like a really nice area, and I’m definitely going to keep looking in this neighbourhood, but following the advice I’ve heard from multiple sources of “cast a wide net”. After I got home, I had some lunch (I picked up a bagged salad from the grocery store – man it felt fancy! It had butter crunch lettuce, shredded daikon and beetroot, with toasted almonds and a honey mustard dressing) and continued with the roommate search using the Flatmates website. My Air BnB roommate and I ordered Chinese food for dinner, and it was really tasty! We got spring rolls, chicken fried rice, pork dumplings, and stir fried Chinese broccoli with garlic.
That’s all for now!
Kate
You have been BUSY! Glad to hear what you have been up to.
Glad to hear you’re getting settled, and so looking forward to hearing more about your first days at work!
I can’t wait to hear more about the comparisons between Canada and Australia. Have fun and stay safe.