The rest of the week was rather uneventful. I continued to hassle with the headache of paying off my bond. I finally opted to open up a bank account at one of the major banks here in Australia a. to be able to pull out a bank cheque and b. so that I could have a card that I can use at the ATM without having to worry about obnoxious fees and the like. Once I got my bank account set up, the next fun hurdle was trying to get money put into it, but after a few days of confusion my brilliant dad was able to wire money to it. Otherwise, I occupied my time doing a bit more necessary shopping, hanging out with people downstairs in the lounge, and spending evenings with Elisa and her friend, Jess, who I met on Friday night. One fun thing that I have discovered about shopping in a city is that there is a fine line you must balance between buying in bulk to save money or not, because you don't want to have to haul it all back. Needless to say, I've been getting my daily workouts in, that's for sure.
My weekend started Saturday afternoon after some skyping. I headed out into the city to take some pictures. I had been so preoccupied with getting settled and the like that I hadn't really had the time, but I was itching to get out with my camera. Instead of wandering around completely aimlessly, I decided to follow the same route down my street that Elisa had taken me down a few days before. It was a lovely day for walking about and taking pictures. A bit down the road I ran into a very boisterous bunch of Egyptians parading down the street celebrating Mubarak's resignation. I stopped into Federation Square, the big square place across from the Flinder's St. Station (the largest train station in the city), and listened to some live music being played by a band there. Then I crossed over the Yarra River and wandered down into some gardens along the river. After a little exploring I found a really cool little skate park and decided to hang out there for a bit to take some fun action shots of the kids. I left the gardens, then, and went across to the other side of the bridge to an area called South Bank along the river. There are a lot of really nice restaurants and things that line the bank there.
It wasn't long before I ran into a guy who was starting to set up for a street show along the walkway. Whatever it was he was planning on doing looked interesting, so I stopped along with another small group of people to watch. The guy's name was Callan, and he turned out to be quite entertaining. There weren't very many people there to start, so he was doing some funny modeling for me. I decided to stay and take pictures of the show. As it went on, the crowd kept growing and by the end it was quite formidable. His show included stunts with fire torches and things, at one point he was doing some impressive balancing and handstands while his shoes were lit on fire. For the finale of the show, he was balancing on top of a ladder while juggling two flame torches and a machete. Once the show had ended and the crowd had generously thrown some tips into his top hat, I went up and had a chat with him. He gave me his email to send him some of the pictures I'd taken, so I'll have to get around to doing that at some point.
Oddly enough, as I was watching the show, Elisa texted asking if I remembered where south bank was--funny story. Her and her guy friends were en route to the city to meet up for dinner and drinks, but I realized that I hadn't brought my purse or anything useful out with me other than my camera. I hopped on the tram back up to my apartment to gather my belongings and the like and the headed right back down to where I'd just been. The boys had decided to eat at a restaurant along the bank called Automatic. I got to meet some of Elisa's guy friends: Zach, Jay, and Michael. They were all really nice and easy to get along with. I gave them (and everyone else that I've met since I've been here) a nice geography lesson about how New York is, in fact, not only a city, but also an entire state. It's quite a mind-blowing concept to wrap your head around, but I think after enough enthusiast insistence I had them convinced.
I had some really tasty potato and cheese gnocchi that ran me 22.50, but it was quite delicious. At one point during dinner Elisa dragged Jay and I out to the front of the restaurant. Apparently there are a couple of large pillar things, maybe like a story high, that start shooting off fire shows every hour once it's dark out. It was rather impressive how warm it was, even though we were standing pretty far underneath them. At first they just spat out some small puffs of fire, but by the end of it there were some rather massive mushroom clouds of flames roaring out of the top of them. Many discussions about ill-fated birds ensued. I also discovered that here, instead of eating chicken parm over pasta, they eat it over french fries. Such a good idea. Also, they don't have tootsie rolls or reeses here (more things to add to the list of things I need to have shipped over). Funny story about that list, by the way. So far, the number one thing on the top of it is buffalo sauce. Much to my dismay and despair, I discovered one night at McDonald's that they haven't even heard of buffalo sauce here. The woman at McD's looked at me light I was slightly crazy when I asked for some.
Despite my greatest efforts, Elisa and the boys demanded that I drink with them, even though the drinks were 8.50 to start. I don't think I'm ever going to get over the price of things here, no matter how long I stay. For some reason, though, everyone else kept buying me drinks, so I actually made off pretty well. After we ate there was a very engaged debate about whether we should leave to look for another (cheaper) bar, or stay put and drink there. Laziness won over frugality and we drank there for another hour or two. Elisa bought a round of Illusion? shots for the table. They were amazing. For starters, they were lime green (winner winner) and I think they consisted of midori (some green watermelon alcohol?), vodka, and pineapple juice. Don't ask how, but somehow watermelon + pineapple = apple slash super tasty. After the first round of shots, Elisa tried to stack the shot glasses, which resulted in a leaning/falling/broken tower of glass. They tried to hide the broken shot glass amongst the others, but our little asian waitress lady may or may not have cut herself on it when she tried to pick them all up. We heavily weighed finding another bar over angering the waitress even more, but Zach was generous and tipped her, so I think she was fine. After that I had two vodka sunrises (so pretty) and another round of yummy green shots--all courtesy of Elisa or the boys. I've taken up the practice of yelling at Elisa every time she pays for me: "you're killing me!... with kindness, but still!" etc.
After dinner and drinks we ventured out to start walking to the train station around 11pm. The train ticket out to Elisa's town (about a 45min-hour long ride) only cost me 6.40, which wouldn't have even bought a drink back at the restaurant. Cuz that makes sense. Zach left us at the train station to head home, while Michael and Jay bought loads of onion rings from Hungry Jacks (apparently their version of Burger King) for on the train. Once we got to the Woodend station, Jay's sister drove us the short drive back up to their house. We ended up watching The Blair Witch Project at their house, Elisa and I had never seen it before. We mostly laughed our way through it. At one point Elisa was asking if I'd met any of the people appearing in beginning of the movie, insisting that they were in Maryland and well, I'd been in Maryland, so naturally I should have met them. I slept on a comfy pull out couch in Jays room. The next morning/afternoon when we all got up Jay made us pancakes before we headed to Elisa's house.
I still haven't gotten used to the whole driving on the wrong side of the road bit, it still freaks me out. I also kept on trying to get in on the wrong side of the car. Silly australians. I got to meet Elisa's parents briefly before they left to take her younger brother and his friends out for laser tag for the day. Her house was really nice--it sat on a little bit of land with two small ponds (or damns, as they call them). They also had to cute labs, Max and Sephie, that were loads of fun to play with. After getting the tour of the house and property we settled down and watched How To Train Your Dragon. I sat on the couch squeezed between the two dogs, it was quite cozy. We lounged around until her younger sister, Nancy, came home so that we could steal her car. She showed me her town, Woodend, which was quite small and quaint like Clinton. After the drive by I pointed Elisa in the direction of the nearby mountain, cuz it looked pretty and she said we could drive to the top of it.
We spent most of the afternoon driving around, blasting my music in the car, and occasionally stopping out in the middle of some country road so I could jump out of the car and take pictures. I told Elisa that I'm going to make her get out and explore her own country with me, luckily she's down with that. After braving some very narrow and windy little roads, we made it to the top of the mountain. Turns out there was a giant cross memorial for veterans, so we walked around and took pictures. At points I was climbing down over the little lookout areas to take better pictures, leaving Elisa safely up top yelling down at me to not slip and fall and die. She kept saying she wished she had a camera to take pictures of me taking pictures slash me falling to my death. One or the other. Fortunately, I survived the excursion, and afterwards we stopped at the little cafe on top of the mountain and had some tasty grilled ham, cheese, and tomato sandwiches for an early dinner. Down the mountain a little ways there was another road leading to a little lake that we got out and walked around, it was really pretty there. Eventually we headed back to her house where we hung out for a a bit longer until her parents came back with her car.
Around 7:30 or so we left to drive out to Jess's house. The drive took 30-40 mins but I loved every minute of it. Originally the plan had been that I was going to drive Elisa's car around on the crazy back roads, but I decided to defer my driving opportunity to her to take in the sights and snap a few more pictures. It's quite shocking how many of the roads out in the country are just tiny little dirt roads that wind around--most of the drive to Jess's was unpaved. After a while, I took up the habit of hanging out of the sunroof of Elisa's car while she zoomed down the bumpy dirty roads to take pictures--it was well worth it. And then, just because Elisa's such a good sport, she would stop the car every time I enthusiastically yelled "SHEEP" or some other fun farmyard animal so that I could jump out and take pictures. Unfortunately, the sheep weren't nearly as excited to see me as I was to see them, and they usually ended up running away, but I had loads of fun.
Once we got to Jess's house I got to meet her parents, they were fun. Jess and her mom are both artists, so there was lots of pretty art and sculptures in and around the house. Elisa and Jess and I hung out in Jess's room for a while. Mostly they talked and caught up while I would enthusiastically jump off the bed and run out the sliding glass doors in Jess's room to survey the outside. Firstly, there was a beautiful sunset over the trees right out the window, and secondly, THERE WERE KANGAROOS. I was so excited, my first kangaroo sighting! At first I saw two off to the side of the house, but then once it got darker, an entire herd? gaggle? group? bouncy bundle of fun? of them showed up in the backyard. There were probably 20 or so out there, so I had loads of fun trying to get up close to them to take some pictures. I was quite tempted to run out and frolic around with them, but then Jess warned that I find the biggest one in the lot and avoid it, or it might box me in the face. I decided against the frolicking, maybe next time, when there's more light. Eventually we had a lovely three course meal that Jess's mom had prepared for us: tasty pasta, grilled chicken over salad, and lastly chocolate pudding with cherries and cream on top. We stayed up a little while longer hanging out before calling it a night.
The next morning I was pleasantly woken up by some loud, slightly obnoxious bird sounds. Upon further investigation, I found that the back yard was filled with maybe 10-15 giant white cockatoos. So exciting. Jess's mom made me some tea and we had a lovely chat about the birds before I decided to take pictures slash chase them all away. Jess came out then, to inform us that her Valentine's day had taken a turn for the worse and that we needed to leave asap because her boyfriend's car had broken down on the way to his aunt's funeral, so she needed to go chauffeur him. I'll have to explore their 25 acres of fun and animal filled country later. Jess drove me to the train station back in Woodend because Elisa had had to wake up early and leave for work that morning. Another 6.40 dollars and not even 5 minutes later, I was on the train heading back into the city. The scenery on the train was beautiful, it was a great hour long ride. Once I was back at the city I caught some trams home--I'm getting so good at this whole tram business. Unfortunately, upon entering my room I proceeded to break the little plastic loop thing that raises and lowers my curtain, so I got to spend the next 20 or so minutes trying to fix it. Let me just tell you, it's a lot harder than it should be.
After that was all settled, I had a lovely skype date with my friends in State College during the Sunday party, ate my ramen lunch, and then headed out to run some errands. I went to the bank first, to get my bank cheque for my bond. Unfortunately, I seem to be slightly retarded and didn't make it out to the proper organization, so I'm going to have to go back and do it again tomorrow. Oh, and when I tried to give it to the dumb asians (oh yes, the very same) at the front desk in exchange for my passport they seemed to be having a hard time of finding my passport. Needless to say, they'd better have found it by the time I come back tomorrow with my cheque or there'll be hell to pay.
Then I trammed back down into the city to QV to go shopping for a bit. I really needed to buy some sunscreen because apparently the sun down here is vicious. I'd never heard of the UV index before, and I'm sure most of you back in the states haven't either, so here's a fun little lesson. Apparently the UV index runs on a scale from 0 to 11, with 11 being the most dangerous level of UV radiation passing through the ozone to give us all skin cancer. The reason why you've probably never heard of it is because it isn't really that big of a deal in the states, but down here in the summer the rating is usually up around 10 or 11. So, sunscreen was quickly added to my shopping list. I also stopped by the grocery store and bought a few things--namely one of those precooked chickens and a head of lettuce. Yep, you guessed it, I made a super yummy chicken caesar salad for dinner.
And now I'm off to find something to do for the rest of the night. Stay tuned for more later :)
No comments:
Post a Comment