After my mom left, I reported back to work the next day, but the good news is that because it was a Thursday, there were only 2 days left before the weekend. I never remember counting down the days like this to the weekend before haha...
The next few weeks were pretty low-key honestly. Renee had found a new roommate to replace me the weekend after I moved out using a website called Flatmatefinders.com. She found looking for a roommate online to be kind of like online dating. They match you with people they think you will like, and then you get to be shallow and look at their picture to decide if you could live in the same vicinity as them. I was also doing my own search online - looking for someone to take over my gym membership since I had only actually belonged for 5 months or so (otherwise I would have to pay $200 cancellation fee!). I put an ad up on Gumtree.com.au, but I really did not have high hopes for it.
One of the weekends after my mom left, Renee and I planned to meet up with a couple of friends for some after-work drinks, but the night turned into a massive dance party, so much fun! We all met at a bar on Bridge Road after work, and as soon as I walked in, I felt like I was in San Francisco. Not only was the ambiance reminiscent of my city by the bay, but the drink menu also felt very familiar. When I ordered a drink at the bar (cucumber gimlet of course), the bartender asked me where my accent was from. We started chatting, and it turns out that he had been working at the past 3 years at Bourbon and Branch in SF (yes, the prohibition bar that requires a password to enter), and he admitted to ripping off a few things and bringing them to Australia haha!
That night took us to a great many interesting places, but the most memorable was probably a place called the Croft Institute. It is entered from a graffiti-filled alley which is completely hidden down a street in Chinatown, very random. Once you get to the door of the place, you feel like you are in the know of something that not a lot of people are privy too. However, as soon as you walk in, the bar is packed with good looking people and weird test tubes are all over as decoration. It feels like half mental institution and half bar and gives off a very interesting vibe. In fact, the girls' restroom has a gurney in it and says something like Department of Female Hygiene on the door haha.
Then there were only a few weeks left, and everyone started talking about work Christmas parties. Compared to my last few years of working in agnecy world in SF, this year was going to quite low-key since I did not know any of my reps really well. And the bad news was that I was actually just going to miss my office holiday party by 2 days, bad planning! Actually, the Agency Directors came down from Sydney to tell us about their vision for the company for the next 3 years, and I also found out during that announcement that I was missing a Christmas bonus, Christmas present, and agency retreat that would be happening in February! Oh well, I was going off to travel again!
Our smaller team at the office also has a smaller Christmas party (there are only 8 or so of us) and we also have a Christmas party for our client as well. We had been discussing doing a poker tournament for our smaller party for a few months, so when my boss decided to do the tourney for the client after I already left, I was a little annoyed! They were hiring people to teach everyone how to play poker - it would have been perfect for me!
I was starting to feel like I was going to get completely left out of the Christmas party circuit when my boss made a mention that he was thinking about flying to Sydney to crash their office party. It would be him, the girl I worked closely with, and me for one crazy night in Sydney, all expenses paid (except my flight). I thought I could throw down for a cheap flight on Tiger Airlines and party the night away in style. The only compromise was we had to go to a few meetings on the Thursday up in our Sydney office, then we would go to the party Thursday night, and fly back to Melbourne on the Friday.
The theme for the Sydney Christmas Party was "When in Rome" and we struggled with coming up with creative costumes. Apparently, the prize last year for best costume was a trip for 2 to Hong Kong, so no pressure! We could not really think of anything that we could easily pull off, so we decided to go with the mafia. Although not entirely creative, we went all out and my boss was a mobster and Amy and I looked pretty awesome I think (although maybe a little more Chicago than we wanted).
Anyway, thanks to our amazing office assistant, we were staying at an amazing hotel on Wooloomooloo Wharf (I know, crazy name!) We experienced some of the best customer service I have ever seen in a hotel. All of the workers had earpieces like the secret service, so they communicated with each other without us knowing. People were literally waiting on us hand and foot, and a girl even carried our cocktails to the elevator for us on a silver tray!
As soon as we checked in, we decided to immediately make use of the hotel pool and jacuzzi, and then we went up to our rooms to get ready before the party. Since we had eaten a big lunch a few hours before, we made the rookie mistake of not ordering anything for dinner... We figured we could leave the party and grab some food if we got hungry, and there would be finger food there as well. The entire party was a blur but so much fun. We stayed out until the late hours of the night in King's Cross (sort of the Las Vegas strip of Sydney), meeting our Sydney co-workers and drinking a lot of free alcohol.
The best costume contest winner was a guy that dressed up as Jesus crucified on the cross (talk about not being PC!) but he was not even sure what he ended up winning. I made sure to schmooze with him just in case it was a trip for 2 to Hong Kong...
At one point in the night, I received a pretty big insult from one of our TV buyers who told me that I was "kind of okay looking." I think it was meant to be his weird way of Australian flirting, but apparently I was really offended by it and kept talking about it all night haha. He ended up hitting on my married Kiwi co-worker before he realized that she was married, serves him right!
When the crowd started to thin at the actual Christmas party and the free alcohol had run out, my boss, my coworker and I decided to try and get into the club next door. The bouncer was fine about letting Amy and I in, but wanted $40 to let my boss in the door. I stood there and argued with the bouncer for about 15 minutes before a guy came up out of nowhere and said, "they are with me.'" We had never seen this guy before in our lives, but we were in the club so we didn't care. He proceeded to lead us to the bar and buy us drinks and shots for the rest of what I remember of the night.
The next morning, Amy and I woke up and went immediately to use the pool one last time before we had to check out. Afterwards over breakfast, we chatted with my boss and tried to piece together the night. We decided that the guy who had gotten us into the club and gotten us free drinks must have owned the place... He never took out any money and was quite rude to all of the bartenders and they still brought him whatever he asked for. But after some further investigation, we found out that Johnny Abrahim actually owns that club supposedly (think Season 3 of Underbelly), so we are not really sure what happened.
After breakfast, we went to go catch our flights back to Melbourne, but even though it was Friday, we were not going back to the office. My flight was a little delayed (prob because it was Tiger Airlines!) but I was pleasantly surprised that my boss and Amy had waited for me so we could share a cab home. It was a nice day (for once!) so after the $70 cab ride back to my apartment, I went to go lay out at the beach. The clouds rolled in soon after though, crazy Melbourne weather!
The following week, Julia would be coming to Australia only 9 months late! She was already in New Zealand visiting a friend who had been living there that she had met on her Contiki tour of Europe and they would all be flying to Melbourne. Also, her friend from Perth was going to meet her also a few days after she got in. I was excited to have a few days to catch up with Julia since it had been so long since we had chatted last, before her other friends arrived. She had booked a hostel to stay at in Melbourne (although I am not really sure why) since she ended up staying at my apartment - even after I left for SE Asia.
We had a great few crazy days together in Melbourne (including late, late nights even when I had to work the next morning, lots of free drinks, dancing on tables, drag queens, and late-night McDonald's runs along with lots of cookies!). When I have more time, I will go into more detail...
I was actually pleasantly surprised that I received a few responses to my gym membership gumtree ad (other than the person that wanted me to pay $200 towards their membership!), but luckily I found someone and just in time too. She was really cute and had never belonged to a gym before, so I met her there, gave her a quick tour and did a little selling of the place before we signed whatever remained of my gym pass to her name. That was on my last day of work, the day before I left Melbourne for a few months...
For my last night, Julia and Sam took me to dinner at Cookie which I had always planned to do but had never gotten around to. It was really good food and a great way to spend my last night. Then, Julia helped me pack my backpack (it was stressful!) and I was really glad that she was around. She would be staying in my apartment until she went up to Sydney, so she was going to help Renee clean before the new roomie moved in the following weekend.
I woke up early to catch my flight to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and met Nashy at the airport. I was a little nervous about the trip because I really had no idea what to expect. And I was hoping that I (actually Julia) had packed all of the right things. She had insisted that I bring a roll of toilet paper for emergencies and swore it would be one of the best things I took with me. She would end up being right, but more about that later...
I am a little bit behind on my SE Asia adventures because I actually got here December 8th, but I promise to update soon. There is just so much going on and I don't want to miss anything. Just know that I am having an amazing time so far and experiencing things I never thought I would. After all, that is the point of this year's travelling though, right?
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