if you missed the last entry, get reading. it's the entries of all my blog entries. a combo of witty writing with pictures as well!!! get reading!!! anyway where did I leave off...

T.G.I.F.F. (Thank Gosh Its Freaken Friday)
after the great ocean road tour came to an end it was time to drop off all the passengers to each of their respective hotels. I was the last one to be dropped off as I was staying in north melbourne so I got in around 10:30pm and was in bed asleep by shortly after 11.

next morning I struck up a conversation with my fellow roomate. I thought she was going to be pretty fobby and wouldn't understand too much english but surprsingly her english was good, at times better than mine! haha! her name is jamie and she was travelling with her company up the coast and then had a few days so she came to see melbourne. I was impressed by her english and she's a very smart girl. she's a pharmaceutical rep who sells drugs to doctors. anyway so we went for breakfast at the local Queen Victoria Market, which is a huge outdoor market with everything and anything you want. it's a larger version of Paddy's market in sydney and it has alot of junk from thailand. breakfast consisted of toast, eggs, and sausages all for $4.50! I also got some hot chocolate as it was a chilly day in melbourne. after brekkie, we took a walk around the market and didn't come up with much. she wanted to go see st. kilda so I said we would catch up later at the hostel.

I wandered around aimlessly trying to kill time. I had heard about an Andy Warhol exhibit at the National Gallery of Victoria so I checked that out. for $12 it wasn't really worth it (for me) and I didn't know alot about Andy Warhol besides the whole "everyone will have 15 minutes of fame" quote and a few paintings I may have seen. but there were a bunch of time capsules of stuff he had collected over the years that had inspired his work. it was cool. I would have a good exhibit with all the shit I've collected over the years too!

anyway, I then had to use the internet and start this here extended blog entry. then I got a couple of cocktail buns and headed back for the hostel. shortly after, jamie got back and we chatted it up. I wasn't aware of the other common areas around the hostel so we went up to the rooftop. incredible view with comfy couches and a huge deck including BBQ! it reminds me of a ski lodge complete with electric fire place for those chilly plus 15 nights. too bad this particular YHA seemed to be on the quiet and reserved side...we could have had some great parties up there! anyway so we took a few pictures of the 360 degree views and the melbourne skyline and went to check out the rest of the hostel. on the 3rd floor there is a "quiet lounge" so we opted to skip taking a gander at that. we then headed down to the 2nd floor to the "TV lounge". I told jamie it smelled funky and she replied people don't shower here! haha! we watched the news and made small talk. she was waiting around until 8pm when the airport shuttle came to pick her up because she had a night flight back to malaysia. we then met a fellow canadian named mel who I flipped out with when we heard that katie holmes was going out with TOM CRUISE!!!!! holy #*&$ you GO Katie!!! but is it all a publicity stunt??? nahh. and then later on an english girl named cecilia came in and chilled.

so jamie left and I was sad to see my new friend depart. so me, the canadian and the english girl hit the town to see what trouble we could get into. mel mentioned nachos so of course that was all I could think about while we were looking around for a place to eat. we found a small turkish place that sold pizza by the slice for $1 and other turkish delights (hehe) so we decided to sit outside under the tent with heater warming us up from the cold melbourne night. the nachos turned out to be all wrong. nothing like BP's!!! holla going out to my BP nacho buddies!! :P they basically put cheese and tomato sauce on top of nacho chips. it tasted like pizza but we still nibbled away. I ordered spaghetti bolognese which is just plain spaghetti but they have to add bolognese here. try saying it outloud. it sounds like mayonnaise but it's not spelled even remotely close.

being young girls in a strange city on a friday night, we were looking for a fun time out on the town, we wanted to go to a pub or club or something remotely more happening than the tv lounge back at the hostel. so we hit a pub filled with an "older" crowd. some people's dads were there and then there were us girls. we guzzled some drinks and then left to find something better...with less of a "I just finished work and am still in my business suit" environment. we met a cute aussie boy from the country who was on his way to a quiet pub. we walked and talked with him a bit and decided to let him go on his way. he made a comment that he should visit canada because he can never get 3 "chicks" to follow him here. haha that was comical.

I led the girls back to my one day familiar stomping grounds, the Hotel Bakpak. it was the only hostel I knew that had a club in the basement so we turned the corner on Franklin St. and headed on in. it was dead. nice spacious place with Girls Just Wanna Have Fun followed by Hot in Herre blaring out of the sound system but it was empty. finally decided to make one more stop at a pub closer to our hostel and then maybe call it a night. Bev and Micks backpackers. now that was a good time! every drunken creep came up to us as soon as we entered the place at 11:30pm. the sign outside promised KARAOKE TONIGHT! but an hour later we were still waiting for the party to get started. in the meantime, we met a crazy drunk fellow from scotland who told us about the best movie ever saw that was canadian that turned out to be "shite". he had no idea what he was talking about and even said a couple times "what was I talking about?". he was entertaining. once he left we were bombarded by the crazy guy from perth who was born in melbourne who wants to visit canada because he snowboards and even broke his wrist the first time he went and cannot bend his wrist back and touch his thumb to his arm anymore and now he has to wear wrist guards when he snowboards. he was a handful and I was sure he missed his daily dose of ritalin. we then met his friend who had just come back from canada. he was a bit more subdued but equally as drunk but they both made for some hilarious conversation including one time the snowboarder was in finland and was in the same bar as yari kuri, the big hockey star from the Oilers who played with gretzky in the 80s. he was too shy to go up to him and kept making school girl noises. hilarious.

we stumbled back to the hostel at around 12:30 (how sad) and called it a night.

my melbourne adventures are taking longer to write about every time! so for those actually keeping up and reading...
to be continued.