Devin and I began out Easter Holidays on the train from Newcastle to Sydney. It was a gorgeous day and we were excited to be off for a few adventures of our own. In hindsight, the train ride was only the beginning of many encounters with some very 'special' and 'unique' people. The two guys sitting next to us were dressed up for the rodeo with cowboy hats, leather boots and some big shiny belts. They had an obvious interest in country music; their favorite song was "Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy". We discerned this fact after about half an hour into the 2 1/2 hour trip, at which point we had heard this song over 5 times. Not only were they obnoxiously drinking amongst themselves, but also one of these delightful boys felt the need to show us a picture (which he pulled out of his wallet) of his truck after he crashed it. He was wondering if we could tell if it was a two door or four door cab. He seemed quite delighted by the fact that his truck was so smashed up from his reckless driving that we were unable to tell.
After departing the train, we hopped on a plane to Melbourne. On arrival, Devin's bag promptly arrived on the carousal, however my backpack did not have so much luck. So backpackless I headed into Melbourne and we got a tram to St Kilda. Conveniently, I did not right down the address of our hostel, so after some aimless walking, I remembered that I had the number of the Hostel in my phone, and were henceforth given directions.
St. Kilda is a suburb that is right on the beach with tons of cute shops and bars. Unfortunately, Melbourne is not a good city to spend time in if you have an uncontrollable shopping habit. We spent a lot of time wandering around the city (in and out of many shops), spent an afternoon in the botanical gardens picnicking and reading, and meandered through an amusement park. We even saw a cute little penguin out on the pier!
We also checked out the Crown Casino, apparently the biggest in the world. I had never been in a casino before, so it was all quite exciting. There was a massive amount of slot machines; it would be hard to imagine everyone being in use at once. Not only was it a huge casino, but it also had restaurants, shops, bars, clubs and a movie theatre. After we checked everything out we made our way into the "Las Vegas" room where I decided I needed to play some texas hold'em. Apparently my time playing poker in Helmcken in first year was well spent, because I made myself $50 (which covered one of three dresses I purchased that day).
I found a lot of similarities between Melbourne and Vancouver, so it goes without saying that I loved it. Although there weren’t tons of sites to see, I feel like it would be a very livable city, however it could do with a few more beaches! Oh yes, and my backpack eventually made its way back to me, which I very much appreciated!
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Evatt House & Visitors
Life has been unbelievably busy since school started. With the numerous Evatt events, multiple excursions with friends and a visit from my family, there has been little time for my studies. Nevertheless, I am enjoying my classes and managing to get assessments in on time!
My parents and brother flew down for their break in March for two weeks and we got up to so much! We started out in Sydney and went to Mannly Beach, Bondi Beach and the Toronga Zoo, which was massive and so cool. I pretty much fell in love with the koala bears! After a few days back at school, I went back down to Sydney and then we flew to Cairns in Queensland. It was drastically warmer and the humidity was unbelievable. We took an amazing trip out to the reef and luckily the overcast skies didn't matter once we were under the water. It was like a whole new world! The coral and number of fish species was unbelievable. We were even lucky enough to see a sea turtle, which was the highlight for me. We also took a drive up to the rainforest, which was very cool. The giant spiders were great to see, but it was a little disconcerting to look up and see a spider bigger than your hand above your head. We stayed in an area called Palm Cove and on one of my parents nightly walks they witnessed a fisherman reeling in a shark. Actually they said it took a few guys as it was at least an 8 foot shark and was fighting for its freedom. My mum however wasn't interested in staying to watch the whole thing!
After we flew back to Sydney we headed up to Newcastle and after some very poor navigating on my behalf we made it. I gave them the grand tour around Newcastle (which didn't take up too much time) and we spent a good deal of time beaching. We also headed up to Port Stevens for a day where I went for a bit of a surf (I still am very horrible) and then we went on a sand dune adventure. We started off with some sand boarding which was fun, but crazy tiring to climb up after riding down. We also took a drive out to "tin city" which is a little squatters town. It 'surprising' has an all male population and their lives consist of drinking beer, fishing, drinking beer, watching satellite tv and drinking beer. Their houses looked pretty dismal from the outside, however our guide said they were nice inside.
Sadly I had to say by to the Fam, and the headed back on an unpleasantly long trek to Vancouver. That weekend we had a commencement for Evatt House, which was so much fun. Everyone got really dressed up (I of course felt the need to buy a new dress) and we had a formal diner and then a night on the town. At the dinner awards were given out for academic acheivement, community service and more socially oriented awards were given as well. I was the embarrassed recipent of an award (I'm sure most of you can guess under which section my award came at). The night didn't end untill well past sun-up and was overall one of the funner nights thus far.
Other things I have been up to: we went into Sydney or the gay/lesbian mardi gras parade which was a crazy crazy night; took another trip to Sydney to see a footy game which involved beer drinking and eating meat pies, unfortunately our team lost to NZ by 1 point; had a sex trivia night at Evatt, where our block one best costume for our vaginamite costumes!
I have been having an amazing time and miss you all! Next I am off on another travelling expedition for Easter Break!
My parents and brother flew down for their break in March for two weeks and we got up to so much! We started out in Sydney and went to Mannly Beach, Bondi Beach and the Toronga Zoo, which was massive and so cool. I pretty much fell in love with the koala bears! After a few days back at school, I went back down to Sydney and then we flew to Cairns in Queensland. It was drastically warmer and the humidity was unbelievable. We took an amazing trip out to the reef and luckily the overcast skies didn't matter once we were under the water. It was like a whole new world! The coral and number of fish species was unbelievable. We were even lucky enough to see a sea turtle, which was the highlight for me. We also took a drive up to the rainforest, which was very cool. The giant spiders were great to see, but it was a little disconcerting to look up and see a spider bigger than your hand above your head. We stayed in an area called Palm Cove and on one of my parents nightly walks they witnessed a fisherman reeling in a shark. Actually they said it took a few guys as it was at least an 8 foot shark and was fighting for its freedom. My mum however wasn't interested in staying to watch the whole thing!
After we flew back to Sydney we headed up to Newcastle and after some very poor navigating on my behalf we made it. I gave them the grand tour around Newcastle (which didn't take up too much time) and we spent a good deal of time beaching. We also headed up to Port Stevens for a day where I went for a bit of a surf (I still am very horrible) and then we went on a sand dune adventure. We started off with some sand boarding which was fun, but crazy tiring to climb up after riding down. We also took a drive out to "tin city" which is a little squatters town. It 'surprising' has an all male population and their lives consist of drinking beer, fishing, drinking beer, watching satellite tv and drinking beer. Their houses looked pretty dismal from the outside, however our guide said they were nice inside.
Sadly I had to say by to the Fam, and the headed back on an unpleasantly long trek to Vancouver. That weekend we had a commencement for Evatt House, which was so much fun. Everyone got really dressed up (I of course felt the need to buy a new dress) and we had a formal diner and then a night on the town. At the dinner awards were given out for academic acheivement, community service and more socially oriented awards were given as well. I was the embarrassed recipent of an award (I'm sure most of you can guess under which section my award came at). The night didn't end untill well past sun-up and was overall one of the funner nights thus far.
Other things I have been up to: we went into Sydney or the gay/lesbian mardi gras parade which was a crazy crazy night; took another trip to Sydney to see a footy game which involved beer drinking and eating meat pies, unfortunately our team lost to NZ by 1 point; had a sex trivia night at Evatt, where our block one best costume for our vaginamite costumes!
I have been having an amazing time and miss you all! Next I am off on another travelling expedition for Easter Break!
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