Come to Australia

Had a bit of a slow and relaxing morning and afternoon today. Kirsty had to go to work today so I woke up a bit later to take a shower and whatever else. Kirsty’s mum, Heather, was the only one in the house and needed to get a few things done for work, so I just played with the pets and wrote while they got their stuff done.
Around 11 or 12, Heather and I went to Robina so she could meet another friend, Janelle (I think) and talk about some work stuff. They invited me to have lunch with them, which was super nice so I stayed until they were done. The place we ate at was called The Coffee Club – pretty decent cafe type food in the Robina mall with a really cool dining room wrapped in windows. I had a ham and pineapple open grill which was pretty tastey to say the least.
After lunch, Heather took me around the mall to show me her and Kirsty’s favorite stores. This mall is freakin’ HUGE! So finding different types of stores wasn’t very hard. In the end I got a long cardigan and a cute top from an awesome shop called Chica Booti.
After doing a couple of other things we got back home around 2:30 or 3. Wade and Grant were home from work and uni for the day so I chatted with Wade and Heather for a bit and tried to help Wade find some missing boxes for his room. Then, since Grant has been upstairs for a large chunk of the afternoon, I went up to see what he was watching. We ended up watching a pretty funny TV show then shared traveling and drinking stories. Before I knew it, he had to get ready for work and Kirsty had come home around 5.
Turns out that some of Oli’s friends just across the New South Wales border invited us to go over for dinner and a movie, so Oli picked us up not long after Kirsty got home.
I can’t remember for the life of me what these other guys’ names were. The couple’s house we went to were married and had three kids. There were a couple others who worked in America and/or Australia, but… yeah. Dinner was great and we ended up laughing a freakin’ lot. When that was over, five of the eight of us went out to get a movie to watch. Somehow we ended up with Sorority Row – slasher film. A quick stop for McFlurries ended our night time journey and we started watching the movie when we got back.

Oli, Kirsty, and I ended up leaving around 11pm or so and pretty much went straight back to Kirsty’s place. Kirsty and I talked for a while before finally getting to bed. So hopefully we didn’t wake anyone up in the house while we laughed and chatted. Kirsty’s cat Cotton also spent the night with us more or less as a fluffy white bed warmer.

The first group left around 3am this morning to catch their international flights to the states. Once we were up and moving, Heather came over to chat with us before we had to head downstairs to catch the shuttle bus. As always, it’s weird that I’m not going to see a number of these people again. We all sort of formed our little family in a strange way in just just three weeks.
I’m now on a Boeing 737 on my way up to Brisbane to see Kirsty for a week. SO EFFING EXCITED! Hoping it’ll be a bit warmer up there ’cause I’m pretty pumped to do some outside stuff.

Well, Brisbane is definitely warmer – so warm that I got to change into a tank top after I got to Kirsty’s.
The drive from Brisbane airport to Kirsty’s was pretty nice – mostly highway, but it was coastal which made it all the better. Kirsty said she moved houses a few days ago, but she still lives about an hour south of Brisbane near Surfer’s Paradise on the Gold Coast.
Her new house, even though they’re still unpacking and moving, is quite nice. They bought an old brick house and remodeled it almost completely. It’s really quite stunning, pretty much like a house that I would one day like to own.
After we got her bed upstairs, I moved all my stuff up to her room, got introduced to the family as they came in and out of the house, and relaxed a bit. They had some funny friends over at one point that helped them move some bigger things around the house.
After hanging out a bit with Kirsty and her twin brother, Grant, Kirsty drove the two of us down the coast a bit to show me her favorite beach and to go walk around Surfer’s Paradise for a little while. Even if you don’t’ really want to go shopping, Surfer’s is pretty cool to go walk around in. There’s heaps of people of all different sorts walking around as well as some street performers and musicians. Quite a nice vibe for young people.

As the sun went down, Kirsty’s boyfriend, Oliver, called and we ended up planning to go out to a Turkish restaurant called Taboon. We went back to Kirsty’s place for a bit before heading back out again and when we got to the restaurant, it turned out that Oli’s parents were going to eat dinner with us. The food at this place equals awesome. I had a garlic and rosemary lamb kebab type thing with Egyptian rice, salad, and yoghurt. Ohm nom nom.
When dinner was over, Kirsty and I went over to Oli’s place, rented some movies, and watched an Aussie film called “Castle.” It was pretty funny… slow moving, but definitely something entertaining. When that was over it was about 11 or 11:30 so Kirsty and I went back to her place and crashed.
So yeah, that was pretty much my first day in Gold Coast. I feel like this week is going to be like no other since I’m staying with a bunch of Aussies rather than with a bunch of Americans.

Got up this morning, took a shower, walked back in my room, and noticed that I had forgotten to leave my black and white print on the stack of enveloped that was to be taken to Neil’s office this morning. Basically, I took off with my print across Mildura and ran to Neil’s office at 9am. Fun stuff. Only he wasn’t in his office, so I ran down to Art Vault – luckily eh was there while people were hanging photos so I was able to get the print in.
Later that morning I went down to Stefano’s Cafe to buy some wine to take back to the states since I have a hunch I won’t be able to find it back there. Once that was done, Shelby and Sam showed me a place that sold a lot of fabulous European antiquish jewelry, clothes, and nick-nacks. Because I wanted everything in the store, I freaked out – all of it was SO awesome! I found a couple of things to get my cousin, Liz, for her birthday. Yay!
After this the video guys asked a few of us to go back down town so they could get some footage of us in Mildura. So back to Stefano’s Cafe we went for some coffee (that us kids didn’t have to pay for!). Brandon turned up again and gave the video guys a hard time while they did their work. When they were done, we went back inside so Caleb could buy some wine to take home also. I guess I’m the wine girl because when I was walking down the sidewalk, Meghan wanted me to go with her to pick out a few bottles too. I’m sorry, but three bottles for $50 ain’t so bad – it’s really like a buy two get one free.

Someone, how the midst of all of the last day craziness, Shelby and Sam decided to get some tattoos. Sam got the big dipper constellation on her foot and Shelby got the southern cross constellation on her foot. After going with them, watching all the excitement, and hearing the buss of the tattoo needle, I caved in (under the peer pressure of Sam *ahem*) and also got the big dipper on my ankle in a color that ca only be described as “Australian Dirt.” So yeah, three of us got tattoos. We rock.
I remember shopping around a bit more, being outside a lot, and showing up at the hostel to pack a few hours before the gallery opening. Thankfully, packing wasn’t all that bad and got done quick so I could get ready like everyone else for the evening.
Since we were ready a bit early, a good number of us found Geoff and Darren in Stefano’s Cafe, so we went in to have a glass of wine before hand.

The opening was pretty cool – La Trobe bought several peoples’ photographs which was neat and Peter Peterson had a cool little welcoming for us while another guy played the didgeridoo. It lasted for about two hours as people mingled and talked about their artwork. Sadly, though, a lot of the local community didn’t end up coming, so it was just the usual crowd and their families.
Afterwards, a bunch of people went to The Pizza Cafe for dinner. Since Shelby and I needed to pay a tab, we went back to Stefano’s Cafe with Heather and Ricky and ended up staying for a bottle of wine. Thanks to Brandon and Mario, a bottle of wine turned into two bottles and a meal. The chef, Adam, made us a huge pasta dish with the most amazing meat sauce ever. Ohm nom nom. We were there until well after closing and only had to pay $10 a head. Seriously, a friggin’ awesome deal if you ask me.

Next stop? The Brewery. A bunch of people were already there and we were able to lure the video guys, Danielle, and Vicki over from The Pizza Cafe. After a beer, we pulled out our last Cuban cigar to celebrate the night. Even though some people (ahem, Kristian) vowed to not partake, the cigar was shared by many. And thanks to Neil’s lack of guillotine, Darren had to cut the end off with a Swiss army knife. Awesome.
Kristian began to whine about being cold, so we went back inside and had some more fun. At one point I got into a political argument with Brandon’s wife, which I tried to promptly end but basically wasn’t allowed to. Kristian, thankfully, kept checking in to see that I was alright and soon enough, I finally got it to end. Nick and Jeanine showed up and announced that they were heading to Kristian’s house. Before Shelby and I could catch up, they were gone, so we said goodbye to everyone and went back to the hostel.
When we got there, Darren, Heather, and Ricky were hangin’ out in the living room. Since we were leaving at 3am, I decided to stay up all night rather than sleep for two hours. Shelby ended up feeling a bit bad, Darren went to bed, and the other three of us stayed up to work on Heather’s movie and talk. Nick and Jeanine showed up sometime around 2am, so they chatted with us while Nick made some sort of potato, broccoli, and cheese thing. Not only was it much needed, but it was actually really good!
At least 3am came quickly. Soon enough everyone was up and we got out luggage outside to the van. Geoff and Neil met us and took us to the bus station after everything was loaded up. Sadly, Geoff wasn’t coming to Melbourne with us so we all had to say farewell on the bus.
Two and a half hours later we were in Swan Hill to transfer onto a train to Melbourne. Though we didn’t have our own bus like on the way up, this trip was a lot quicker. Maybe it’s because I slept part of the way, I don’t know…. The train ride was pretty nice and we pulled into Melbourne between 11 and noon. We weren’t booked into the Victoria Hotel because of some booking errors, so we instead stayed in a VIP Backpackers Hostel. This place was super nice – there were only two people to a room and it was really clean and quiet.
Pretty much as soon as we put our bags down, it was time to go to the footy. Kayla and I left a bit earlier than everyone else because Darren wanted to show us where the center of contemporary photography was. Once we got there our next mission was to find a spot to park his car so we could walk over to the stadium. Because we were so late in finding a spot we just barely squeezed Darren’s little red car into a barely available spot. Eh… it was all good.
Before we met the other group at the stadium, the three of us got some food real quick. Our group had some pretty high seats up in level four of the stadium. Though we were pretty far up, it was still easy to see the game. I guess the stadium can hold 90,000-100,000 people and there were close to 80,000 there. Awesome stuff.

As for the actual game itself, it’s pretty hard to explain Aussie Rules Footy. The only real rules I remember were that you can’t tackle above the head or below the waist and the point system. There’s four posts and if you kick the ball between the middle two you get 6 points. If the ball is kicked between the outer two, it’s one point. Though I didn’t really understand the rules n’ things it was still super fun to go to. The game was between Collingwood and I want to say Callaway, but I could be totally wrong. I have no idea where my ticket is.
We went to the hotel briefly after the game before dinner to take a quick break. Dinner was at a pub down the street from the hostel. Being a pub, the food wasn’t great but at least it was food. Darren and I got to talking about grad school in Australia again, which was awesome, and he gave me some ideas for possibly getting some things published in magazines. Right on.
The group went back to the hostel, we said goodbye to Hyesung, and a few of us chatted in the lobby for a while. What was cool was that Heather finally finished the movie she had been working on and we got to see it play on her laptop. Man, what a great memory that’ll be to have on DVD.
As the clock approached 11pm, since most of us hadn’t slept in about 27 hours, we all sort of dispersed to our rooms and totally crashed out. It helped that our beds were comfy and that our rooms were dark and quiet.

Filed: Melbourne, Mildura, The Aussie Life, Traveling Days | No Comments »