Just Tom: Bartender/ Student
“Hey, yeah, so, I’m Tom. Just Tom. Tom from Melbourne. I’m 23. Born and raised here. I’m just a student here at Swinburne Uni, a tram ride away. I’m studying civil engineering. Yeah, we make anything that doesn’t move, and we don’t want it to move. If it moves, it’s bad, really bad. You don’t want a moving bridge, ya know what I mean. That would not be good. I’ll be going to Southeast Asia for a month with Engineers Without Borders, so that will be sweet. I’m going to be helping people while building buildings and bridges, so that’s cool. I’m excited, I’m keen. I got to make some money for that, so I got this job here at Riverland. My boss is right there so I can’t say much but bartending is pretty fun, it’s not hard and its good money so I can’t complain. It’s good hours too, I get out pretty early so I can still go out with my mates. Yeah, we head over to Section 8. I love summer here. It’s just happier ya know. I just love Melbourne, ya know. But yeah, like I said, I’m just Tom.”
Finn the Musician
“My name is Finn. I was born and raised in Melbourne. My family house is actually five minutes from here. I reckon I was fifteen or sixteen when I started playing music. That was like twenty five years ago now. I used to DJ at the local clubs around here and then I realized I wanted to make music so I started to learn the keyboard. Keyboard is now my favorite instrument. I vary between hip hop and pop and just corporate stuff which is where I’m off to now. I have a gig playing to a bunch of women for a cosmetics firms party that’s on a boat right down the river. It should be a fun night I presume. I guess something interesting would be when I had my whole cable rig collapse on me on the floor while playing on stage. It was terrifying and exhilarating; it made for an interesting performance. That was twelve years ago. I’m forty now and I love my career which is rare for most people to say. I mostly get to teach piano to kids and play often. What more can you ask for? My life is music.”
Ann, Artist
By Allison Iodice
“Before coming to Australia, I studied art in Italy, but after completion wanted more from life outside of that. After deciding that art was no longer for me, my boyfriend and I emigrated out of Italy. I left my hometown at nineteen. I lived in Salerno with my two sisters and dog, Baxter. They were sad when I left but excited too. I have never traveled out of Italy until now. My boyfriend, Claudio, and I traveled through south-west Asia and then settled into Melbourne. We settled into a small house in the suburbs. I have only ever lived in an apartment. In the last two weeks, we have traveled through most of Australia. Coming from north-east Italy, Melbourne makes me nervous because it is so different. I am definitely nervous we won’t like it. Tom studied marine biology and is an active scuba diver. He hasn’t found a job yet which also makes me nervous. He has been looking really hard for work but hasn’t found an opportunity in the city yet. I recently started my job as a sous-chef at The Pilgrim, but I have been exploring and learning more about the city in my free time. My favorite dish to make is Fried Calamari. That is what landed me the job at, The Pilgrim restaurant. I bike to work which is a forty-minute ride everyday but is entirely worth it to keep an eco-friendly lifestyle. My boyfriend and I are planning traveling the Outback and the other major cities in Australia, trying to stick in the warmer areas of the country as we have heard that the winters of Melbourne can be bad. I’m excited and nervous to see where life takes us.”
I grew up in a small beach town in Port Douglas. For some odd reason, Port Douglas is a touristy town, but I could never understand why. It’s just a small town on a random beach in Australia. I guess it’s because I have lived there my whole life that it seems like a boring place to vacation. I moved to Melbourne a year and a half ago in search of a more bustling lifestyle. I guess to stray from my petite town of 5,000 people. I admire this city because I can be express myself for who I am without the judgment of those who have known me my whole life.
Anything goes here, and it’s such a comforting atmosphere. I stumbled upon this restaurant and started to work as a bartender/waitress. Working here, I have met so many different people from the UK, China and folks from all over the world. A crisis as severe as the bush fires has brought people together and made the world smaller. Tourists are more sympathetic to what is actually happening and want to help. We are in the middle of a crisis, and the more people that can identify with the tragedy, the more likely we can come together to fix the problem. Spreading awareness about this devastation is crucial to Australia at this time.
Rose, Mother
“I’ve lived in Melbourne for the last thirty years, it’s really all I know. I grew up in the country, sort of around Daylesford. Small town of about 5,000 people, very different from where I am now. People aren’t as close in the city as in the country, the sense of community isn’t the same. Even so, I like the city better. My mom used to bring me into Melbourne for day trips. We would shop around and walk along the river. From that young age, I always knew I wanted to end up here. So now I live here with my husband and daughter. I will say the air quality is much better in the country. Although it’s obviously gotten worse with the fires. The bush fires are awful. And we’re not sure when they’re going to improve. I feel kind of helpless in it as well, there’s not much any of us can do besides donate. I think all we can do right now is to find a sense of normalcy to avoid panic. My daughter and I just got milkshakes and are now sitting by the river, trying to make the most of our summer. This is kind of a worst-case-scenario for our country, but I can only hope it’ll be over soon and we’ll come out stronger in the end.”
AUSSIE TRAVELERS 