Happy valentines day!

Three weeks has passed and I thought I’d tell a little bit about my placement. Other students refer to their placement as “work” so that’s what I’ll be doing. Thought I should explain that so you don’t get confused!
I’m working in a microbiology lab at Monash Medical Centre in Clayton which is an south-eastern suburb in Melbourne. I’ll be rotating around the different sections of the lab and right now I’m in the molecular biology section. It’s a lot like the Swedish micro-labs with a few minor differences. It’s more relaxed in the way that the staff here are allowed to wear jewlery such as rings and bracelets and also nail polish which would be a big no-no in a Swedish lab. The clothing is also different. In Sweden you change out of your normal clothes and put on new trousers, blouse, labcoat and shoes whilst here you just put on a “gown” over your normal clothes, which is more of an apron with sleeves really.
When it comes to the methods, I believe the Swedish labs are a bit more automated when it comes to the bacteriology section. For example, the MMC lab doesn’t have a streaking machine and they do all of the streaking manually. There are some plates that are commonly used in Sweden that I haven’t seen here either, but I’ll be able to find out more about that when I get to spend time in the bacteriology-section.
I haven’t got any pictures from the lab at the moment, thought I’d settle in a bit before I run around taking pictures of everything but I will try to take some photos soon that I can post here! Instead I’ll show you some mixed pictures from outside of work:

Last Saturday was spent at Healesville Sanctuary.

When all of the good names for sushi restaurants are taken..

So apparently the maximum size of the photos you can upload here are 2 MB.. Have to edit some of my pictures before I can show you.

Happy valentines day!

Went in to the city centre today. Spent about 4 h walking around and still feels like I’ve only seen a fraction of the city. Countless different types of shops and food places and so many people!
The time I spent in the city made me realize something. I believe that I come across as quite rude to the Aussie people. The reason is that in Sweden when you are in a crowded space, you usually tend to squeeze yourself by an person who is standing in your way making your best effort not to touch them. If you do bump in to them you might mumble “excuse me”. So that is my usual way of interacting with people in crowded spaces. In Melbourne if you face someone in a narrow space going in the opposite direction as you, they will say “sorry” before you have even started to make an attempt of walking past them. Conclusion: I need to work on my manners.

Urban knitting

Mini burrito. So delicious!

Old-fashioned tram. Most of the trams are modern ones but I guess hipsters need some form of public transport as well.

One of the RMIT buildings. Check out the fancy architecture on the building behind it!

Queen Victoria Market. Everything from cheese and veggies to clothes and souvenirs.

Drinking coffee from a sippy cup. Very practical when you’re on the run!

Yarra River

After a 24 h long journey I finally arrived in Melbourne on Saturday night. On the plane I got to fill in a standard incoming passenger card saying that I’m not bringing heroin or machine guns in to the country, and also another card to make sure that I haven’t been in Africa and gotten infected by ebola in the last 21 days.
I live in a big house with one dog and 4 very relaxed people in a suburb called East Malvern. I Haven’t gotten around to exploring the city center yet, although Russel (one of the housemates) has been kind enough to drive me around different places in the area. Today he took me to Chadstone Shopping Centre which is the biggest shopping centre in Australia. Got 3 pairs of shoes for a total of $30 (= 180 SEK) and then we ate schnitzel in a roll.
The weather here is not what I expected. I expected every day to be around 40 C, but apparently it varies a lot in Melbourne and both today and yesterday has only been about 20 C. That means I’ll probably have to go and buy myself some more cardigans since I hardly brought any, but that shouldn’t be a problem with Chadstone Shopping Centre not too far away.
I haven’t got any picture to upload at the moment, but I will upload in the next couple of days as soon as I’ve got some pictures to show you!
Cheers!