"It's not trying to be something it isn't, it just is" : Our Melbourne Adventure- Part I

To start our tale, I must begin with the night of Felix's going away excursion. Felix had a flight back to Germany on the Thursday that Katie, Jenah and I had our flight to Melbourne. The difference was we had to be at the airport at 430am and he had to be there at 230pm.

Wednesday night we decide that we are going to go to a place called Karaoke World...Classy I know. The place is actually really cool because you get a room to yourself with just you and your friends and you get to set the play lists and its only five bucks a person per hour ( the hour goes by REAL fast, let me tell you. Anyway, we get to Karaoke world and it's me, Katie, Jenah, Chris, Felix, Thomas, Vanessa, Brit and Ali. Some of those names dont mean anything to you but Ali definitely should. Here is Ali....

He is basically a teddy bear until you find out that he does Krav Maga which basically means he will kick the hell out of anyone. He is also in the Danish army and if one of mine and Katie's best friends here. LOVE him. He was the highlight of Karaoke to his girlfriend Brit's dismay. He basically stole one of the microphones for about an hour and sang his Danish heart out. My favorite was his rendition of "Shout" to which he sang every word, including the part where it lets you know there is a "musical break". So Ali is hammered as is Jamie our Canadian who is obsessed with the bay and refers to Katie and I as "Katie and Jacque- Baythizz" Aww. So after Karaoke we all end up going to Scruffy Murphys except Katie and Brit who are reasonable. Katie decided she needed a nap before the flight. Jenah and I decided to stay up until we got on the plane.

So, we're at Scruffy Murphys, Ali is motor boating Jenah and I like we are in Wedding Crashers and Jamie is just being loud. It gets to a point where everyone is just wrecked so Jenah Felix Chris and I jump into a cab and go home. Chris passes out and Felix Jenah and I wake up Katie and have a cuddle. Good thing Jenah and I had already packed because about twenty minutes later the cab calls and its time to go to the airport. Felix was passed out and the last image I have of him is being unconscious in Katie's pink sheets with his mouth wide open, our resident German (MISS YOU!)

We get in the cab and I am instantaneously tired and about to go into major bitch mode. You've all seen it. I get it from my dad, I'm sorry, I'm working on it. So we get out of the cab to find out that we are so early the airport isn't even open yet. Typical Australia. Open at the very last second just to get two more minutes of sleep. So finally we are allowed through the sliding glass doors which lead to comfort. At this point all Katie and I want is a fruit cup. Katie sees that there is one coffee place open outside the security gates (since we couldnt even check in yet) and goes over. There is CLEARLY a bowl of pre-cut fruit and a VAT of yogurt ready to be made. Katie asks the guy is she can have a fruit cup with yogurt. His response :"Uh...well umm, (looking around cluelessly), yea, youre going to have to wait for the chef to get here" WHAT! IT IS FOUR AM AND YOU CAN PUT FRUIT IN A CUP!!! I was LESS than impressed.

So we finally check in and nothing is open and I have to wait like ten hours to get a Boost Juice which was mediocre and then off we were to the terminal. I pretty much got on the plane and passed out. I fell asleep right after take off and woke up right as we touched down. Keep in mind Katie has been reading the Twilight series so throughout this whole trip (until the end of the Great Ocean Road) she's reading.

We get off the plane and have to decided where we are going to stay. You know how good Katie and I are at picking hostels so Jenah chose a place called "Bozo Backpackers". I rolled my eyes in extreme displeasure but was too tired to care. We got to the hostel after two shuttle rides and it turned out to be really clean. There were hardwood floors and the beds all looked really good. So we though until we laid in them and they creaked worse than the doors in a haunted house.

We had decided to take a two hour nap and then go walk around Melbourne's Central Business District and then go see Kate! We napped and when we woke up one of the girls in our room was there. We chatted to her for a bit and she said "Also, make sure you guys dont bring food in the room. While you were sleeping a mouse was running around because one of the other girls had left fruit in the bin". OF COURSE. Mice and cockroaches are something you just have to get used to here. We thanked her and went out on our way. We were FREEZING.

After being complete spoiled and having gorgeous weather in Sydney it was hard to believe what cold felt like again. I mean it was about the equivalent of 60 degrees but we FROZE. This clearly meant shopping. We went and met Kate at the bowling alley she works and and caught up with her. She told us we should go to the outlet malls and there was a free tram that would take us there. Excellent.

We jumped on the tram and got to the outlets. The first store was a hit and Katie bought an AWESOME jacket there that was about 200bucks cheaper than I thought it would be. We then went to an accessory store and Katie fell in love with luggage. She took forever trying to decided what she wanted and all the while I was trying all these crazy hats on that one would wear to polo match or something. Katie couldn't decide what she wanted so we moved on. The next stop was the UGG outlet. Jenah had been wanting a pair forever so Katie and I gladly went with her.


We all left with UGGS.

More shopping continued, Katie got one of the bags. I got jeans wooo exciting. After our adventure we went back to the hostel and changed because we had to meet Kate to go to St. Kilda for dinner and to see the penguins!
Here is St. Kilda, the long pier jetting into the sea is where you have to walk out to some rocks where the penguins come out at night.



We met her and took the tram which seemed to take forever as it was so crowded. WE got there, ate and went to the penguins! You arent suppose to take pictures of them because it blinds them. Of course there was a dude there snapping away with his camera and Kate had to set him in his place. These penguins are the smallest in the world and are nocturnal. SO CUTE.

Afterward I could barely keep my head up and we were finally on our way back to the hostel. We had decided to meet Kate at the Hertz rental to hire a care for Friday to do the Great Ocean Road. We met at 8am to find out that we are idiots. It wasnt just ANY Friday, it was Good Friday. Every car in all of Melbourne had been rented until the following Tuesday. UGH. So we decided to book a tour to do the Great Ocean Road for Saturday and Friday turned into a free day. We booked our trip and then realized we had a whole day of nothing ahead of us. We set out to checkout the city again.

Most of the things were closed because it was early on Good Friday but we had breafast and then left Kate and Sophie (her friend that was going to go with us) and Jenah Katie and I just walked hoping to get lost and find something awesome. We did.

Melbourne is known for being a more bohemian, laidback city compared to Sydney. Very very true. We found a back alley called "Centre Place" that was just rows of chops and cafes in little garage like things and it was COVERED in graffiti. All the furniture down the alley was milk crates to be used as you please. We found our own crates outside of a place called Hells Upstairs. It was awesome. I had the BEST bagel sandwich of my life. NO JOKE.





I dont think we could find that place again if we tried.

After that we walked down to the Yarra river and saw some cool art down there, nothing was overdone or overly modern or trying to hard to fit some kind of standard. Everything seemed to be just where it belonged. While we were down there Jenah said "Melbourne is just so cool. It's not trying to be anything it isn't, it's just like 'Im Melbourne, whatever'". It was so true.