23 tomorrow!

Things have gotten better since the last blog. Sophie now has employment until we leave, she is working on reception and doing admin duties for a software company just down the road from where I am still working. She is working 40 hours a week and is enjoying it as the people there are all nice. I intend to work until the 18th May so that I will have a week off where I can do and see some of the things I haven't had chance to do before, while Sophie is planning on working an extra week as she has worked less than me and could do with the extra weeks pay.
On Saturday we went on a tour to Philip Island to see the "Penguin Parade" which features the worlds smallest penguins coming home from a day in the sea. They are 33cm tall so about the size of a shoe and it was great fun watching them come out of the sea, take a look around, signal that it's OK to their friends who come and join them and then they either make a run for it across the beach or get scared and run back into the water because they saw a seagull. We then saw them marching along all the way back to their little burrows. There were several hundred penguins but apparantly there are about 60,000 on the island.
We also went wine tasting on the tour and went to an animal sanctuary and got to hand feed kangaroos aswell as see other animals up close including wallabies, dingos, wombats, koalas and emus.
Yesterday we went to the observatory which is in the city centre and offers incredible views of Melbourne, we may go back again during the evening to see what it looks like at night time as many of the buildings here look nice when lit up.
Next weekend we are doing a trip on the famous Great Ocean Road and also going to see the set of Neighbours.
We have had a bit of rain in the past few days which is good as there is a major water shortage here, thankfully we haven't got wet yet as it's been raining at night or when we were on the trip. Today is gloriously sunny.
As I've got a while longer until the end of my lunch break I'll tell you a few random observations I've made about Australia:
The Prime Minister looks like Norris from Coronation Street and regularly makes ridiculous statements that upset lots of people.
There are many more adverts on TV as there are in England, for example, during one episode of The Simpsons there will be about 5 or 6 ad breaks.
Fosters is definitely not the Australian national drink they'll have us believe in England. Whilst I have seen a few places that serve it, the majority don't.
Whenever you make or take a phone call, you can guarantee the person on the other end will say "How ya going?" and often don't wait for a reply before carrying on the conversation. When I answer the phone at work and they say "How ya going?" I'll say "I'm good thanks" and they then say "Yeah I'm not bad thanks" even though I didn't ask how they were.
Not all Australians have snags from the barbie every day. There are several places that offer free BBQs for public use which is a good idea.
In Melbourne, if you don't like the weather, just wait 15 minutes and it will change.

Better get back to work now I suppose. I turn 23 tomorrow and have had some cards arrive from England so I'll look forward to opening those. Sophie has booked something for the 2 of us on Wednesday evening but it's a surprise so I don't know what it is yet. We may go to the cinema tonight and have a special birthday tea tomorrow.
Remember to leave us some comments guys, emails are always welcome too. Anyone from BGCC, how did we get on last weekend?

Weak week

Unfortunately Sophie hasn't had much luck this past week. She was still looking for a full time job as her Nestle one is only 5 hours a day so she was quite annoyed when Renee, our Hays recruitment lady called to tell her that Nestle no longer needed her, this call came late on Tuesday morning (Monday was a holiday) as she forgot to tell her last week. This was especially annoying as she had turned two jobs down earlier that day as they were only for one day's work. She managed to get a days work on Friday but because she was so good she can't go back there on Monday (she finished all the work in one day). Hopefully a decent job will come along this week. I'm paying extra rent as I'm still working at Intermec, hopefully for a few more weeks at least.
Yesterday we went on the City Circle tram which takes you around the city and gives you a guided tour, there's several places we saw that we want to take a closer look at in the coming weeks.
Thanks for the comments/emails/texts you've sent us, keep them coming. I'm still trying to find somewhere I can upload all the photos.
PS It's my birthday in just over 2 weeks (May 1st) - get your cards in the post quick :-P

April Fools!

How many of you fell for my April Fool's joke then? That's right, we didn't go and see the Turtles film at all, fooled you!
Just kidding... of course the real joke was about staying in Oz to work. We will still be home August 26th.
My USB stick won't work on the PC at work so I'm going to have to try and do the photos somewhere over the weekend but it's not as easy as it sounds so please be patient.
Not much else to report so have a good Easter everyone.
Leave a comment if you fell for the joke.

Exciting stuff

Well we've got some pretty big news today. I had a call last night from my boss and he has offered me the chance to train as an Intermec technician, we had talked about it in the past week and he's had the OK from his bosses in the US to take on someone new.
I have to let them know by Tuesday but it's looking likely that I'll take it. Sophie has seen a Forensic Psychology course and may sign up to that if I take the job. Training is for 18 months and then I could either stay in Australia or work for the company in their UK branch. The starting salary is the equivalent of about 21,000 pounds which is great.
Taking the job would entitle me to have a 4 year visa, though Sophie would still be on her 1 year visa, which means that if I do accept the offer... we have to get married!
I guess this means it might be a bit longer until I see you all again but you're all more than welcome to come and visit us
Not much else to report, we've just been to watch the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie which I managed to convince Sophie to see with me. Next we've got Mr Bean and the new Transformers film when it's out though I think I may be watching that one alone.
I'll let you know what happens about the job, watch this space!