Hello Folks, Welcome to our new home for the next while...... no more bloody hostels, rucksacks, cold showers, drunken room mates.... etc, etc, etc.

Well here it is:


This, as you may have guessed, is the kitchen. It has a deadly FAN oven with gas stoves, dishwasher and microwave, Oh and a fridge.


This is the not-so-big sitting room, and thats our deadly 150 euro sofa (Thank you IKEA). Its pretty small, but we love it, ill stick up some pictures of the view over St. Kilda soon.


We are not too sure what this little room is yet? It can defo fit a mattress in so could be your bedroom if you come and visit us. Id say it could easily become a little study area with a nice desk (4 my Laptop) and a swivel chair. (My Idea) Or a boring breakfast area with a table and crappy non-swivel chairs. (Charlie's Idea)


Thats the bit between the study room and the kitchen area. Maybe a place for a nice bookshelf?


And back to the Kitchen again.......


This is our bathroom. The shower is SAVAGE, its really hot and is so powerful it hurts......... (I hate showers that just dribble water on you)


There's Charlie checking her email, We are stealing one of our neighbours wifi so we kinda have free internet (if you sit by that window!) We are getting our own soon, but its expensive to get set up so it may take a while.

One thing id like EVERYONE who checks this blog to do is send me an email telling me who you are and where abouts in the world you are (be specific)
send the emails to seanpburke@gmail.com even if I know you well and know the answer please send an email, im tracking the amount of people checking the blog and its quite impressive how many people check it per-day. we even have people all over europe looking at it.....

Oh and one last thing, we are now 9hrs ahead of you back home, We gained an hour and you lost an hour, so instead of 11hrs, its now 9. It was very confusing for a while...

Hope your all keeping really well, we miss all of you (well most of you!!) We are very happy in our own little house,

Travelling is amazing, but right now, so is a dishwasher.....

Sean & Charlie.

Hello Everyone!

Sorry we have not been updating this thing, Its been pretty stressful looking for an apartment, but it has paid off as we finally got the call today and we are moving in on Thursday morning!! The relief of finally getting a place is amazing, it was really getting to us and we realise we are quite lucky to have a "gaff" because while staying in a few hostels (we are on our 3rd!) we have met people who have been here 2 months+ and are still forking out crazy money to hostels because they cant get/find a gaff.
Along with that luck we added a bit of preparation, because we don't have jobs (yet!) we bombarded the estate agents with as much info as possible, Work References, Bulging banks statements (slightly outdated!!) contact numbers for former employers and landlords. Along with this a steady number of phone calls and visits to the estate agents so they know who we are and what we look like (but not too many to piss them off!) The worst part is the waiting though, we really didn't know what way it was gonna go, we had been to viewings of apartments and 28 other people had turned up to view it, and that was mid-week, the ones on Saturdays were mobbed!! So, if the phone call today had been bad, then it was like we just stepped off the plane again, except this time with alot less money, It was a stressful time, but its a big step and its over now, so we are both very happy!


Birds over here are pretty smart, instead of eating worms and crap they fly into cafes and open restaurants and scoot around the place eating crumbs and left overs. Cheeky little feckers.....


This is our current hostel, "Cooee", its by far the nicest hostel we have been in, its a little further out from town but its cheaper and quieter than the city center one we were when we arrived, but holy crap we are dying to finally shut that door behind us and have place of our own.


As I said the waiting was getting to us so we went for a walk around a park called "The Kings Domain"


That big building is a Shrine to all the people who died in the 1st World War.


The steps really reminded me of the temples we have seen through out Asia (Especially Cambodia), I wonder what kinda people/tourists will be walking up those steps in a few thousand years?


The view from the top was pretty cool, you had the whole skyline laid out in front of you, the city on two sides, the coast to another and then the mountains to the otherside.


Above Charlies head is the sea, its not really that far from the city center, about 20 mins on a tram, by the way the trams are bloody brilliant, they are 100 years old, so the city has grown around them and they pretty much go anywhere worth going to!!


Planetarium.


This is inside the Shrine, on the 11 of November (Remembrance day) every year a shaft of light hits a big stone in the middle of the room and travels across it.


Eh, the smart thing to do next would have been to take a picture of the stone, but I didn't so here is the roof again.....


Outside the shrine is a huge park, its very well kept and even though there is a big drought in Melbourne at the moment it looked better than a few other parks around town.

I got a little carried away with my camera and took quite a few pictures of trees, So, Eh, here they are.........


A Tree.


A Tree.


A Tree.


Its a...... (Answers on a postcard)


Charlie can only take so much of following me around taking pictures of trees, so she found a sunny spot on the steps and wished my camera to break.......


About 2 min after I took this shot, we found out we got the apartment!!


So we walked into town. The is the "southbank" of Melbourne City.


That's the Central Business District or the "CBD" to us "Melburnians"


This is our apartment building! Its a pretty old building but our apartment has been redone and is very fancy. There are only 5 apartments and we are at the top!


That's us there, we get the keys Thursday so only outside shots today! The room on the left is our sitting room and the roundy bit on the right is a small "study area" and the window on the far right is our bedroom!!


We could not be happier with it, it has loads of "old building" character but with stainless steel this and fancy shiny wood that and the amount of light coming into the place is unreal!

We hope your all keeping well and we will be back soon with inside pictures, Its not furnished so we could be sleeping in our sleeping bags on a mattress, but we kinda like that as will can make it ours over the next 12 months!!

Oh, I nearly forgot the address:

5/236 Canterbury Road
St.Kilda
Melbourne
Victoria
3182

Any post would be great, postcards or even shoe box's full of money, whatever, You decide!

Lots of Love,

Sean and Charle.

Hello everyone!

Feeling a bit worse for wear today, Hungover and sun burnt!! Our day at the Grand Prix was spectacular! Here are some photos:


The Paddys day parade was cancelled this year as the F1 was on, but there was still plenty of people showing their Irish Pride!


We were up bright and early, the race didn't start till 2pm but we were at the track at 8am to get a good spot!


To keep people entertained there was loads to see before the race, Plenty of cars to gawp at, this Mustang really caught my eye.


Great number plate and a sweet set of dayton rims too!


30" Wheels...... Very practical in the outback.


Aston Martin DB4 Zagato. My all time Favorite classic car, its one of the rarest Aston Martins you can get, and it was amazing seeing it being dogged around the race track!!!


Old's Cool.


Before the main event there were a few different things on, these Legend racers were brilliant to watch especially when they crashed in front of us.


There was a huge fence between us and the track (For safety) but it made taking pictures very hard as I had to manual Focus on the cars, and when they are flying around the track it made it even harder.


It was a very long day, but it was never boring. As soon as a race finished they would have something else on to keep us entertained.


The Army were doing some crazy stuff with the Helicopters.


After the legend races it was the final round of the Carrera cup (Porsche 911's) I bloody love 911's and these are about as fast as they get.


Glorious Machines!


Again after the race we had a quick airshow, I think that's an F16?


Then this big sucker snuck up behind the crowd and flew directly over our heads, it was so low!!
We have seen a few of these over the last few months, but not quite from this angle.


We both didn't know what to expect from the Crowd, would everyone be sitting down taking it easy or jumping around going nuts? Well we were very happy to find out it was the latter! we were beside a bunch of crazy Spaniards who were singing and getting the crowd going. Then, as it turned out there were a bunch of Colombians behind us and then some Brazilians down the front, so after a while it was one big party! It was a brilliant crowd and everyone was really friendly and good spirited!


This guy looked as Irish as Bosco, but it turned out he was Brazilian!


There was a bit of Chanting between the Spaniards and the Aussies:


But the Aussies only had one Chant and they were shamed by the Spaniards every time they tried, so after a while they just came over and sang along with us!


Charlie was granted a temporary Colombian citizen by our new friends!


It was a brilliant crowd and made us realise how International F1 is.


It was nearly time for the big boys. This is the pace car, its a CLK 63 AMG tuned Mercedes. Apart from the F1 cars, this was, hands down, the most amazing sounding car of the day........


Before the race they have the drivers do a lap to wave to the crowd, this is Kimi Raikkonen, He later won the race.


This is Jenson Button, He is a very good driver, but he has a poor car this year (According to the guy beside me at the race)


For the first few laps I didnt take any pictures, I just stood there watching in Awe! I had always heard that famous sound through a TV, and to actually hear it for real was something else, We were at a great spot. We had 2 turns in front of us and a long straight behind us. I could go on and on about how fast and amazing they were but I think a Video of it would be much better:





After a while I started taking a few pictures, they are hardest things I have ever had to shoot, They are just going sooo bloody fast.


Getting slightly better.


Not bad at all, although the fence was driving me nuts.


For 2 homeless and jobless Irish Immigrants (Charlie is now officially Irish, Check out the "Lucky Charms" T-Shirt) We are living it up here in Melbourne, hopefully we will have a apartment to call our own soon so all of you lot (*not you Sash*) can come out and Visit us!


Vrrrroooooooooooooooooooommmmmmmmmm


Well a combination of needing a pee and ironically another beer, I went for a bit of a wander.


Along the straight you were so close to the track you could only stand there for 2-3 mins before the noise became too much, as most people know I like loud stuff, but this was a whole other world of loudness.


got some good shots though!


I then spotted this chap, with roughly 30,000 Euros worth of "Glass" (Its what us Photographers call Lenses........) on his back, I pushed aside my lense envy and had the bright Idea to follow him......


And what did he bring me to? A bloody GAP in the poxy fence, I was very happy!!


Well, Now I had no excuse for shoddy pictures (apart from the lack of one of those fancy white lenses) but even with no fence the cars are going so fast the pictures are still a little blurry.


Not bad if I say so myself!


This is Kimi on his winning lap!! I have to admit, although all the F1 cars are special, Seeing the red of the Ferrari whizzing by is a just a bit more special.......


The Italian Ferrari fans are just plain mental aswell!


Although the "Irish" fans could give them a run for their money!!


After the race, the clean up started for the unlucky ones!! It was deadly seeing the smashed cars close up.


It was a bloody great day, The weather was savage, the crowds were brilliant, the beer wasnt too expensive. Our 1st F1, deffinatly not our last!!