Melbourne in 12 minutes..

I'm guessing that's how long it'll take you to read this...guessing.

Quick update -- I never heard from the school teacher after I sent him a text declining his invitation to see his band play. Whoops. What can I say? I just didn't feel comfortable staying the night IN THE COUNTRY with some boy I didn't even know.

Back to the post. Ah. Yes. My last post ended with where I was off to next...

I was off to Lygon St. My friend Mick -- the one who picked me up from the airport -- picked me up to take me to Lygon Street. That place was something else. Let me tell ya...no, srsly, I'll tell you.

It's a Tuesday night -- not the busiest for Lygon Street a.k.a Melbourne's Little Italy. So, as we walked up and down the street deciding on where to have dinner, we were heckled. It was a bit much.

"Hey! Com'on in! We'll give you a round of drinks on us!"

*screeching halt* Por Que?

Of course, as we walked up the street we were offered the following -- in order --
1. 1 free round of drinks
2. 2 free rounds of drinks & free bruchetta
3. 2 free rounds of drinks & garlic bread -- and her mom was the chef
4. a bottle of wine

I liked the attitude of Door Number 2 -- so we ate there. Turns out this was the mob. The Italian Mob. The waiter even hinted that this was his -- 2nd job. Yeah. I'm convinced that's the truth.

Anyway. We both had two glasses of wine, bruchetta, italian salad and three different types of pasta for a grand total of $60. Thank you hecklers! Now that's how I like to do business. Thanks.

Afterwards, Mick took me to see St. Kilda at night.

It was boring. The end.

The next day, I ran into my hostel roommate Beth. She's 19 from South Wales and looks pretty much exactly like Elizabeth Hurley. Lucky girl. Oh. And she's super sweet. Couldn't hurt a fly.

Well, we decided to do a little sightseeing together and venture to St. Kilda Beach.

It was a lot better during the day, but still...nothing special. We took picture at the famous Luna Park.

We walked around Ackland St which is known for its cool shops. Then we walked through the Botanical Gardens...

which were...a bit...dry.

There was a cool chess game -- lifesize. The end.

Then, after looking at the map, we decided to go check out the awesome Peanut Farm Reserve. Sweet -- right?

Nope. It was literally a park. Made of grass. Dead grass. And dead dogs.

Okay. Not really, but easily could've been. It was dry. Really dry.

At that point we were ready to blow that popsicle stand and as we were walking to the tram we stumbled upon a Veggie Community.
Which was...hmm, how do I put this, a junkyard.

A shitty junkyard.

That was supposed to be all hippy and coooool, but it wasn't. It was just junk. In a yard.

But hey -- they had chickens!

Loved the artwork of this poster -- so did someone else that it made them paint on it.

Moving on. We hopped a long-ass tram to check out Brunswick St, also known for its shopping. We hopped off at the Melbourne Exhibition Hall -- beautiful.

And it was right next door to the Melbourne Museum.

We decided, eh, why the hell not, so we got our tickets (okay, I used my crappy FCCJ student ID which was ALMOST denied and poor Beth had to pay $8).

We walked around, the first exhibit being about bugs.

We. were. freaked. the. hell. out. There are some big ass bugs in OZ and I'm not looking forward to meeting them beyond the glass case. Ok?

OH. HELL. NO.

The bones of a Blue Whale. Day-um.

Looking pretty happy...

Real Lizard in the Museum

However. The worst exhibit was the human body. The brain info was cool, blah blah blah, but when they got into puberty. Oh HELLLLLL no. You walk around the corner and see pictures of kids -- KIDS -- naked. I felt like I was violating someone's - scratch that - some KID'S privacy.

Here are some pictures of the statues in the human exhibit...

And to top it off, they had a video of some lady shoving a kid out of her hoo-ha. AND, some dad was letting his 4 year old son WATCH it. Not. Cool.

*shudders* Moving on..

Anyway. There was some other pretty cool stuff, nothing worth mentioning really, but educational, for sure. At the end, Beth and I decided to check out the awesome gift shop (okay -- it wasn't that awesome) and a guy comes over asking for help.

Three things.

He was about 16-17 years old.

And he was definitely missing an arm.

And he was asking Beth to help him tie his shoe.

Of course she said yes, although there was hesitation on both our sides, and as she bent down to help this poor guy out, she looked up at the window of the gift shop to see a sh!tload of high school kids laughing their asses off. The guy who asked for help said never mind and took off running as I shouted to him, "That's just wrong!"

For those who are lost. This KID definitely had TWO arms and didn't need help. It was all a rouse. Ass.

Anyway. We walked out of there shaking our heads and then we couldn't stop laughing at how funny and stupid we must've looked. Those damn kids. That got us good. You can just say Beth and I kept bringing that joke into rotation everytime we hung out.

After the museum, Beth and I walked up to Brunswick St and checked out all the awesome shops. It was a pretty trendy place -- trendy like hippie trendy -- then I, yes I, decided I was hungry (what? *gasps* you? hungry? fatty). We ate at this place called the Vegie Bar. Guess what? They specialized in Veggies. No beef. Fancy that!

And of course, being the crazy kid that I am, I decided to order a veggie drink.

Spinach, beetroot, cucumber and carrot.

What the hell was I thinking? No. Srsly. It was GOD-awful. But since I paid the $5.50, I downed it. Blech.

Anyway. Beth and I got back to the hostel and I was off to Bikram yoga with Minelle. I did SOO much better this time around and actually really enjoyed it.
Plus the teacher came over and fixed my posture a few times, which made me feel special. Real special. (Like, do I get a gold star special?)

Afterwards, Minelle and I went our separate ways and I took a shower and ate dinner -- cereal. The kitchen was absolute chaos, too many people in the hostel trying to eat free pasta -- one of the perks of staying at Urban Central. "Perks"

Then Beth and I hopped back on the tram to check out Brunswick St at night. This place is usually pretty crazy, but um, not tonight. We stopped at a bar called Night Cat which was pretty cool. Wine's only $5/glass and they had a DJ spinning random music. I felt bad for Beth because she got to hear my life story. MY. LIFE. STORY. And she's a great listener. Not much of a talker. Or maybe she is, but I'm too talky-talk to let her jump in. Whoops.

Afterwards we walked up the street til we heard live music spilling out of a bar. We went inside, got ourselves some more $5/glass wine and sat and chatted some more. I tipped way more than I normally would ($2) because all the tips were being donated to the bushfire victims in Victoria. I figured I should contribute at least SOMETHING. Every little bit helps, right?

We wanted to try something different, so we started to walk up the street to find a place called Polly's. But. um. It was really dodgy. Like, crazy dodgy. They were definitely open until 1am, but there was no one around. And their door -- was a sliding door -- but you couldn't see in, so you might just walk in on a ...oooo I don't know, massive Australian orgy? That's what came to mind first...

Needless to say, we did not venture in.

We decided to call it a night, but on our way home on the tram I saw a bar that looked fairly busy. So I made Beth hop off with me and go inside. It was lame-o, but the wine was by far the cheapest yet -- $3/glass. WOO! Plus, I met a guy named Joe from Sydney. I told him I'll call him in April when I go back. And. I will.

The next day involved the Great Ocean Road, but I can't write that in this one. That just wouldn't be fair. It deserves its own post.

Three words.

A. Maz. Ing.

Bittersweet Symphony

It's over.

My summer romance with an English chap has come to an end. It wasn't disastrous, quite the opposite, but it's definitely a bittersweet moment. Bitter cuz we had such a good time together, sweet because we're both moving on to do great things with ourselves.

Sww-heet!


We spent our last night together in Sydney at the Observatory. It was something I had been wanting to do, so we did it.

Here's the breakdown of the night...

I picked up my camera after it got fixed, went to buy a battery charger (not gonna lie. Would've cost me the same to get a brand spankin new camera in the end. I digress.) and then we met up at Ship Inn located at Circular Quay. We had a glass of wine and then moved on to The Rocks where we went to a Bavarian restaurant called Lowenbrau Keller.

I had this mango beer which was...interesting.

We decided...okay, I decided to listen to some music on my ipod while drinking.

The best part of this pic is the menu behind us. Malty, Nutty and Dry. OW!

We were then off to find food -- or so we thought. We both thought the other one was hungry, only to find out we were both...thirsty. We ended up going to a bar called Argyle. Had the perfect atmosphere with tons of couches and sitting areas for two people to have delightful conversation.

After downing our drinks, we visited the Sydney Observatory. We walked around the museum and then entered the amazing planetarium. Okay. Not really. Since it was cloudy and rainy all day, they had to do a presentation of the sky rather than the actual sky. The guy "hosting" the show was so monotone, I literally fall asleep on the beanbags provided. Although, I did learn a lot about the stars by osmosis.

We then saw two HUGE telescopes and got to check out:
A. A clock
B. A flag

Wow.

Moving on. We went into a tiny room where we got to watch two 3-D movies. It was...probably the best part because the guy stopped talking. And I didn't fall asleep this time around.

We left the Observatory and took in the gorgeous sights of the Sydney skyscrapers -- rather cool.
Then we went back to Argyle for another drink. Then, since we were in The Rocks, I took Ross to Pancakes on the Rocks which we savored delicious pancakes. At 1 in the morning. My kind of eating! Haha.

He is drinking house red wine -- similar to drinking at Denny's...not the greatest.

Ross looks like a monkey here.

So that's about it. He left today to do his 10 day meditation in the Blue Mountains and I'm off to Melbourne on Friday. Moving on.

Here are a few phrases I picked up from my adventures with Ross:

"That is totally naff." -- basically meaning cheesy.

"Are you having a giraffe?"

"Excusé?"


Summer Lovin' -- Had me a blast. But. Bring on the next adventure. I. is. ready.

The Great 2009 Birthday

Whoa. Holy Birthday.

Where to begin?

First thing first. My camera, yes the third one in two months, is in the shop getting repaired. Remember I spent almost nothing for the camera -- did you think it would work?! So. I apologize about the quality of photos -- I went out and splurged on a disposable camera to capture the memories of my b-day in Oz.

Anyway. One of my co-workers, Gab, asked me to go to dinner with her on Thursday to celebrate the big 2-6. I just literally realized that that's the dates of my b-day too. Awww.

Anyway. I was game for doing anything, plus she's good company so I said YES. Then. One of the cooks, JR, found out about it and decided to tell me that she was planning a surprise party. Gee. Thanks.

Two things.

I'm a girl. I love surprises. LOVE surprises.

The other, I never get surprised. I over-analyze everything and never can get surprised. Thanks for ruining it.

After I found this out, I just pretended like I thought it was just the two of us, no big deal. I didn't know who'd be there anyway -- I just knew that it'd be more then just us.

The big day FINALLY came. And by big day, I mean Thursday night.

Gab and I met up for a drink at CBH, actually two drinks -- one, some guy bought for us because he was too drunk to put his phone back together. Then we talked about ex-boyfriend's and our lives now...without douche bags. Then we were off to a Tapas restaurant called El Bulli.

We hopped a cab and got to the restaurant. Of course, I was wearing some big shoes and fell flat on my face as we walked towards the restaurant. Classy, eh?

But here's the kicker. We walk up to the host and he says, "Oh. Your party's already in there." And Gab gives him this dirty, evil eye that says, "NO. IT'S A TABLE FOR TWO." Awww. Valiant effort on her part. I really appreciate her making it be such a surprise. Of course....it wasn't so much.

But that's the thing. It actually did turn out to be a surprise because of the people that were there. There was Pedro and Lisa, who I had thought would be there, but wasn't sure. JR, of course, was there. And then these two got me good. Nicola, the Scottish girl I work with, who had been telling me all day and week even that her b/f had a gig in Kings Cross and she couldn't go. Well -- she was there. And even Ross showed up.

I freaked. I know my face got super red and I was so happy to be...actually...surprised!!! It was awesome.

We had a fantastic meal, drank too much wine and they even brought out a cake with sparklers as candles. From now on, I'm always doing sparklers as candles. It's just so much cooler.

Afterwards, most of us hopped a cab to Kings Cross to go to a club called Candy's. It was AWESOME. And I don't remember much about the club, just know I danced my ass off. Literally. And my dress too. I exposed my breasts to a lot of Aussie's. Whoops.

The bad thing about all of this was I had to be up at 4am. I think we got home about 2:30 or 3am. And I was WASTED. It was pretty nasty, but I didn't have a hangover -- thank God!

Oh. You're wondering why I needed to be up so early? Welllllll....Ross was taking me on that Hot Air Balloon ride he won back at the OpenAir Cinema. WOO! And. It was just as spectacular as it seems. What an incredible experience. We didn't fly over anything cool, but we watched the sunrise and were flying above Sydney. P.I.M.P.

Afterwards, we had a delightful breakfast at a hotel in Penrith. It was right next to Olympia Park, where the Olympics were held, oh so long ago. Then we just relaxed the rest of the day.

Ross took me out to this amazing dinner at a place called Mezzaluna. It was in Kings Cross, which is a bit dodgy, but turned out to be phenomenal. You walked into the restaurant thinking it's very quaint, but as you descend down the stairs you are staring right into Sydney's Skyline. It was incredible. Not only did I see an amazing sunrise on my birthday, but I saw a spectacular sunset on my birthday as well.

We sat there for four hours just taking in the view and enjoying each other's company. Then we were off to a place called the Piano Bar, which was okay. We didn't do much but sit and talk and do a lot of people watching. There were some annoying drunk girls that kept dancing around us, but I think Ross enjoyed himself there more than me.

The next day, Saturday, I went into the City to buy a suitcase because I've bought too much already. Going to put that bad boy into storage when I leave for Melbourne on Friday (that's, um, 5 days). Met up with Ross and we decided to get some Lebanese Takeaway and have dinner with his flatmates.

That proved to be fairly disastrous. His housemate, Erin, who's a very nice, well-rounded woman, proceeded to get a bit tipsy and started to tell me how much Melbourne sucked and I should stay in Sydney -- since it's the best city IN THE WORLD to live. Of course, I took everything she said with a grain of salt and tried to enjoy the Pinot Noir. Proved to be rather difficult. And the Lebanese...I'm good. Don't need to try that again.

Anyway. My roommate was desperately wanting to go out to a Salsa club and we found one online located in The Rocks. Ross and I hopped a bus (after a petty fight) and were on our way to meet up. It was a lot of fun there. Within the first 2 minutes, a guy asked me to dance. Of course I said yes and made fun of myself for not being a better dancer. He was very nice and showed me all the moves.

We stayed there for a bit too long -- the music started to bore me and, since I can't dance salsa, I was feel a bit out of place. Melanie, my roomie, hopped a bus back to Coogee and Ross & I went to discover a club that'd still be open.

We found Jacksons on George which had a club on the first level (actually the 2nd floor, but they have levels backwards here). It. was. AWESOME. I danced my ass off AGAIN. I couldn't stop moving. It was so nice to feel the beat in my body. There was one point where the bass was so loud and heavy I could literally feel in all throughout my body. It was exactly what I needed.

Didn't get home til 4am and of course spent the entire day in bed. Then it was off to work at 3pm where I didn't get off til 11:30pm. Melanie had gone out to CBH with some co-workers and was on her way back home when I called her to see if she wanted to go swimming. Random. I know.

She convinced me to go to Bondi to meet up with some of the Irish guys in the house. Of course, I hesitated, since I'm not a huge fan, but decided I could use another night out! Why not?! I'm in Sydney, damnit!

We ended up at the Cock and Bull to find out it was closing in 5 minutes. JERKS. So we all hopped a cab to the City and went to Scruffy Murphy's. This is the place the Irish guys went to last time and I left early, homesick because it sucked that bad.

Guys. It all depends on who you're with, let me tell you, cuz I had another amazing night dancing my ass off. What great exercise! James, a Irish floater, danced with me and it was awesome. I'm telling you, American girls are the nasty dancers and guys/girls all over the world just aren't exposed to that. It. was. fun.

Stayed out too late again, but wooo! Had a damn good time, ladies and gents!

Now it's off to work again. I'll probably be getting off a little bit earlier tonight, but I had to work at 6:45am. I got a text message from the guy who taught me salsa dancing on Saturday -- he wants to get salsa dancing tonight in Darling Harbour. If my roommate's in...I'm in. I can sleep when I'm dead!

Thank you to all who wished me happy birthday -- it really was! I love each of you and can't wait to see you guys soon!

Muah! Muah!