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Melbourne Day 4

Katie & Sal arrived last night so we met up with them & Jac before heading to the Docklands to go to see the exhibition by that guy who had the anatomy dissection show on TV at home recently (European guy, silly hat?!). No photography allowed, obviously, though there were some people that had to be reminded. It was a lot like dissection in first year - though the things where they showed only the blood vessels in the kidneys, lungs and right arm were pretty cool. So yeah, I think it would be awesome for your average bloke on the street, but it was a bit too simple and same old same old for me at least. There was one couple who walked round the whole thing laughing at the bodies and the fact they were naked and stuff, which sucked. I really wished there was someone there to tell them to stop or kick them out or something.

We went to Starbucks after (mainly to find a toilet, and there wasn't one) but they didn't have any coconut bread. I think I'm becoming obsessed. Jo left for Sydney, and it was sad :(

We took the city circle tram into town, which is free and gives you a wee audio spiel about the tourist attractions at each stop. We did some shopping (with Jac in tow, bless him) then met up with another friend Sarah. Got the tram back to St Kilda (I like trams, I think we should put them back in Dundee) then went back to the Italian which serves the stupid amount of food. Sarah seriously got a bucket of soup, I couldn't finish my salad, and Katie got the same amount of lasagne I would have split between three people!

Sarah & Jac had to go so the three of us headed back to the hostel and I got ready for going out. Yaay pretty clothes! Then we had to try to find Katie & Sal's hostel. You would think they would know where it was, but apparently not. Once they were changed too we navigated a rather complex tram route to Brunswick Street, which is apparently an awesome place for a night out. We started off in the Black Pearl, which has barmen that actually know something about running a bar and drinks and stuff (one of whom was a little bit nice-looking, even if he did have a hairband on). Then we went to Bimbo's, which serves awesome pizza, even if Sally did find out she doesn't like gorgonzola. Then we ended the night (me & Katie were knackered) at a bar so posh it had a cigar menu. Seriously. It was pretty cool though, I wish I could go again.

The taxi driver got lost on the way home (apparently there are several Park Streets) so I ended up getting dropped off first, which was completely backwards.

Melbourne Day 3

Again plans of market-before-other-stuff didn't work out. We ended up getting breakfast and then meeting up with Kev (who looks like Thom Yorke) and some others who didn't bother introducing themselves and didn't seem that chatty and heading to the Telstra Dome for the Aussie Rules football. It was only $18, so that wasn't too bad. Kev's mate Dave was there too - he was funny. We saw St Kilda vs Fremantle (a team from Perth) - our team St Kilda (read 'Kev's team') won. Yaay! I quite enjoyed the footy too - it's a good sport, plenty of violence. If you lose track of play you just follow the trail of men lying on the floor to find where the ball's gone.

Afterwards we headed to some pub and played pool - me & Dave won against Jo & Kev (who has ridiculously blue eyes - like the colour of the blue in the Aussie flag, and they're not contacts) which means that either they're really bad or my skills improve far more than I thought when I'm drinking haha. Though my picking-the-right-tram skills weren't great - when we left the pub Dave yelled that it was our tram so I ran and got on to stop it, only for it to be the wrong tram so we had to pull the cord and stop it like 5m down the track. Oops.

Mlebourne Day 2

All mine & Jo's good intentions to get up early and go to the market sort of didn't work out, and we were up in time to meet my friend Jac in Federation Square at 12. Impressively we didn't get lost on the trams, though we did have to run after Jac who just walked straight past.

We went to the Eureka Skydeck, which is a new viewing platform that just opened in this huge building in the city centre. It's 300m up on the 88th floor - so high that your ears pop in the lift! The windows at the very top are covered in 24 carat gold for some reason. But the view is AMAZING. I thought it was better than the one in Sydney - cheaper and a lot less faffing on and waiting about. There's also this thing there called The Edge, where you go into this frosted glass box and it moves out (complete with breaking glass and creaking metal sound effects) over the 300m drop then turns clear. I didn't want to stand on the glass to  being with, but the whole thing is pretty cool. Bloody obvious sign of the day is the one which says not to go on the thing if you're scared of heights - really?! The whole thing is enclosed in glass, apart from this one platform where you can go out into a caged area - bit chilly. But cool. From there you can see The Edge thing going in and out - we watched when the glass went clear once and some really big guy almost jumped out of his skin - it was absolutely hilarious!

Once I'd finished laughing at the guy we caught the tram back to St Kilda and walked down by the beach, then had coffee and cake at an amazing cake shop. It's like one of those patisseries you see in France, with the whooooole window full of cake - YUUUMMMM. There are quite a few like it. I'm figuring it must be the immigrant influence. Two pigeons attacked me, and I was sad. I'll get them next time.

We went to an awesome Italian on Fitzroy Street, which gives THE biggest portions ever. The food was great. Sadly that, coupled with the red wine, made me sick when we got home. My stomach is a wuss. The food was pretty food though. The lemon meringue pie was almost exactly the same size as Jo, even SHE couldn't finish it!

Melbourne Day 1

Despite not going into uni today I was up earlier than I have been in a while, to be on time for my flight to Melbourne. Which, predictably, had been delayed half an hour by fog. I also managed to forget to take a towel with me, but Evil Jo stole towels from the hospital in Sydney for me and brought them down with her.

The flight down was ok, and I managed not to beat up the annoying woman with the nasal voice who either a) thought she was more interesting than she really is, or b) didn't like silence who kept on chattering away to the woman next to her (who quite obviously wasn't interested). But at least her nattering away stopped the woman next to her from reading her magazine with the feature on Princess Diana in it - seriously, the woman is DEAD. I really really wish people would stop going on about it.

My case was first on the conveyer belt :D so I rang up the hostel, got the code for getting a free bus ride to it, and then had to try and find the stupid bus. No signs, you understand. Once I got there though I had about 50 minutes to wait until it left, which really annoyed some random woman who seemed to just wander about being rude to everyone. The bus driver was lovely though - he fed like half his lunch to this one sparrow he calls Loulabelle that has something wrong with its bottom jaw.

First impressions of Melbourne are that it's weird. On the way to the hostel at one point there was some weird red and yellow sculpture over the road, at other points we were surrounded by lovely old Victorian buildings, and other bits it was just a dump. And there are some really inappropriately huge roads at points - like something the size of a motorway through a residential or shopping street. Plus trams. Apparently there's some weird rule on some streets with trams on where you can only turn right from the left lane. Yeah, thankfully not going to be driving here ever.

Once I found my room in the hostel, and found that it was all nice and clean and newly-decorated, I went for a wander. I found the local brothel, several 'milk bars' (read 'corner shop selling chocolate, juice, cat food and biscuits'), and the local base for the Jehovah's Witnesses. And some of the roads take so long to cross that you could die waiting.

Out of the window of the room there's the terrace of the house opposite - I've claimed ownership of the gorgeous grey long-haired cat that lives there, though I'm not claiming the bright blue model of a naked female torso.

Jo got here about 8.30 so we went out for dinner. And wine. Apparently I sounded quite desperate about the fact that there should be wine, and fast. It was yummy. We had pizza too. And for dessert the toffee and pear calzone with mascarpone was pretty amazing. An important debate was in full swing on our return to the hostel as to how much Kev (who works there) looks like Thom Yorke (he does), then we got adopted by a crazy drunk Kiwi called Jenya. Alcohol had given her serious short term memory problems - she must have asked us seven times where we come from, and she couldn't at all remember who Jo was.

"So who are you? I haven't seen you before!"
"I'm Jo, you brought me up here."
"Oh, ok. I'm Jenya."
"I know."
"Where are you from?"

She also introduced us to all the people on the roof as Jenya, then told us that they were all called Jenya. It was some pretty amazing drunkeness. I impressed some Germans by remembering the German word for snake (die schlange, which can also mean queue, for anyone who cares). And I knew that Noah's ark came to rest on Mount Arrarat, and Jo didn't, so I know more Jesus stuff than she does.

Our roommate is the most amazingly annoying Chinese girl ever. She spends the whole time hawking up spit (Jo was almost sick haha). Then once we were in bed and she'd finished reading she asked if she could turn the light off, we said yes, and then when we were still talking quietly 3 minutes later she demanded we stop. And apparently I was coughing in my sleep and she was making some weird moany-whiney noise in response to it, which wouldn't have been out of place in a porno.

More Skiving

More sleep today. I could get used to this. And I was even commended on my skiving by the doctors who say this is exactly what elective is all about :D

So yeah, nothing much exciting happened. Except that someone brought in two bags of oranges from the tree in their back garden. Yum.

 

I'm leaving for Melbourne tomorrow morning, and I'll not be back until Monday afternoon (Australian time) so you'll all just have to calm down and wait until then to hear about what exciting things me, Katie, Sally, Jo and people have been doing.

Quiiiiiiieeeet

Sleeping for 12 hours, this is definitely the life.

Nothing too exciting going on otherwise, just leafing through Melbourne tour guides and arranging meeting up with people while I'm there :)

 

"The tooth fairy teaches children that they can sell body parts for money." -- David Richerby

Sydney Day 4

We had to check out by 10am to get the $20 deposit, so me & Jo were out by about 9. Last night she'd been all for going to some pancake place down at The Rocks but this morning we decided it was far to far to walk with our bags so we just headed to Starbucks and I was gutted to find out they didn't have any coconut bread on.

Ah well.

Since my flight was 12.15 we wandered a bit then separated at Central Station. The train to the domestic terminals is about $13, and is SO convenient. The shuttle's $10 from the door of the hostel though, so I think I'll do that at the end. I ended up sat in the terminal for about 1h30 next to a lovely gay couple. They were hilarious. One of them rugby tackled his suitcase into the middle of the room and started fighting it like it was an animal while we wet ourselves laughing, then there was them stopping one of the security guys by yelling "well hello there, sailor!" as he walked past and getting their photo taken with him while he didn't notice them pretending to kiss him. Just as I was leaving to check in they decided they HAD to have their photo taken with me because I'm goooooooorgeous, hahahahaha. I wonder where on the internet that photo might end up!

Almost missed check in for my flight because they didn't put up on the departures board that it was checking in - how stupid is that?! All was well and I got on in time, though I did almost end up on the plane to Orange by almost getting on the wrong transfer bus.

An executive decision that I couldn't be bothered going in this afternoon was made, despite getting back in time, so instead I did a bit of shopping in Bateman's Bay.

 

Now I'm knackered and very much going to my bed. Zzzzzzzz.

Sydney Day 3

It would seem that I've inherited the Laws Tours gene from my dad. For those not in on the joke this is the gene that saw my dad taking us around the périphérique in Paris at least 4 times (at least) on one holiday, along with several other similar geographically-impaired incidents.

Anyway. You know I said my hostel was on Pitt Street? That's one of the main shopping streets in Sydney, and since all the others headed off to Melbourne this morning I decided that today would be a day of shopping. The whole thing seems simple, doesn't it? Out the door, go shopping. But nooooooo, I walk 180 degrees the wrong direction. Two hours in the wrong direction (well, in a big loop once I realised I'd gone wrong), down past Central Station, to the Powerhouse Museum, through Tumbalong Park and back to the hostel. Oops. Ah well, at least it helped sort out my sense of direction in Sydney, I now have a fairly decent map in my head of this small area of the place.

I still choose to blame my dad for it all.

Lunch (chicken, pesto and spinach wrapped up in a GREEN tortilla wrap, frankly I was suspicious about the whole thing!) then back out and the correct way along Pitt Street this time. I picked up a few pretty things, walking all the way down to Circular Quay, through The Rocks and following the water's edge to Napoleon Street and then home via Wynyard Park. There was some homeless guy there singing, only it sounded so much like a mynah bird imitating someone that I was looking about with my camera for it, until I saw the guy on the bench. Today was not a smart day.

It was also definitely homeless person day too. There was Mynah Bird Man, and there was the guy walking along Pitt Street who asked for 50 cents, so I gave him it and he was walking alongside me for the next 2 minutes yelling about "may Great Britain rise again!" and all sorts of nonsense he was obviously quoting out of a mishmash of political speeches and history books and all sorts. I only lost him because he walked out in front of a car and almost died while I chose to stop at the traffic lights. Why me? In fact, that's another thing I blame my dad for - all the weirdos speak to him too. Truly I'm genetically cursed.

While I didn't go and DO much today I've got a much better plan of what to do when I come back to Sydney for that break at the end of my elective and where everything is. And it's such an amazing place, I would love to be able to spend a month there at least to just live here and experience it some more and do as many of the things I want to do as possible (including going to Manly Beach - what sort of city calls an area of itself Manly?!).

Jo got back into Australia tonight so we met up (she booked into the same hostel for tonight so she can go get her keys at the hospital in the morning) and went to that same Thai place for dinner, then went back to the hostel and chatted in her room until about 2am. It was only a single room, but I can't imagine we were that popular with the people in the rooms on either side - ah well, sorry! Hehe. It was all important giggling.

Sydney Day 2

Waking up on Saturday morning is frequently not a pretty experience, and this Saturday was definitely one of the bad Saturdays. I claim it wasn't my fault (despite distinct memories of drinking at least 3 shots from the shot wheel because they were cheapest - think Wheel of Fortune, but with spirits) because nowhere here that I've found sells cider on tap and if I just drank cider like normal I wouldn't be as hungover.

What better way to cure a hangover than to go and laze in the glorious sunshine on Bondi Beach all day? That's right, there is no better way. There were so many posers - one guy in particular obviously went to the gym far too much and had probably spent hours in front of the mirror crafting the perfect way for him to stand to show off his muscles from the absolute best angle while drinking beer. And there are so many 1980s throwbacks about here, and not just in that awful Dundonian wearing-horrible-stripes-and-neon-shoes sort of way, we're talking actually could-have-stepped-right-out-of-The-Goonies throwbacks.

Michelle & Courtney were off to watch a show at the Opera House so we all went for dinner in this awesome Thai restaurant on Campbell Street - quick, cheap, delicious food. Could have done with the waitress spilling LESS rice into my handbag, but you can't have it all. Nice wine. Then the pair of them headed off and me, Laura, Julie and Graham went to see what was on at the cinema. Despite the wide selection of films on at least one person had seen everything that was on, except Die Hard 4.0. So we went to see that, and I have to say it is absolutely hilarious, and intentionally so. It does a fantastic job of taking the piss out of itself - definitely recommended to everyone, even to people (like me) who didn't really like the other films (aside from the fact Alan Rickman was in one).

Another fantastic discovery of Australia - their Starbucks has this amazing stuff in it called coconut bread. Seriously, I think I would sell my soul for the stuff. Yum yum yum.

Sydney Day 1

I got to assist in theatre this morning - vasectomies, a carpal tunnel release and a trigger finger release. It's always nice to actually get to DO something, rather than just standing there.

All done in time for morning coffee, and then it was time to head back to Fran's to do some last-minute checks before heading to Moruya airport for my flight up to Sydney. I used my pretty new black bag with the pink hearts on, teehee. The plane holds 30 people at most and it was quite windy so it was a lot more like flying through the air in a tin can than usual. But it's ok, I survived (obviously). There were PROPELLORS and they looked like they were about to come in through the window next to me. Eek.The flight highlighted again how very different the Australian countryside is to the British - here it's not all neat little fields and cities, instead there are occasional houses and mile after mile of forest.

Proper wilderness.

I even managed to not lose my luggage this time, and got the shuttle right to the door of my hostel which was at the top of Pitt Street. There were two other people on the shuttle, an Aussie woman in her 50s from Brisbane who had a ridiculously dirty smoker's laugh, and a Swedish girl about my age called Johanna who lives in Melbourne. By the end of the 15-20 minute journey to the hostel I'd invited Johanna to stay at mine if ever she was in Scotland, and she was all for me coming out with her over the weekend and staying at hers when I'm in Melbourne next weekend. I don't know about staying at her house because the hostel's booked and in a good location but I have her number so I'll definitely meet up with her sometime while I'm there :) seriously though, 15 minutes talking and invited over to stay, I didn't know I had that much chat!

So, the hostel. I was in the Nomads Maze (at the top of Pitt Street, like I said, maybe 10 minutes from Central Station), staying in a 6 bed mixed dorm. It was pretty much what you would expect from a hostel - nice enough, clean, but certainly not luxury. Main problem with it is the lack of plug sockets in the bedrooms, which apparently isn't the case in the Legend Has It hostel across the road. Oh, and it would have been nice to know about the $20 key deposit you have to leave at reception before I turned up so I could have the cash on me. For most of the time I was there it was just me, a Japanese guy who didn't speak and spent about 18 hours out of every 24 asleep, and an Irish girl called Tanisa (spelling?!) who's been working out here for a while now but just moved down to Sydney from Cairns. She was absolutely lovely :)

Straight away once I was done moving in I texted Mat, a guy I know who lives in Sydney. Creepily enough he was almost dead outside the hostel. He's absolutely lovely. We went to the Queen Victoria Building which is this fancy shopping centre inside a really gorgeous Victorian building, but I think I'd have to buy a house and then remortgage it to afford anything in there. Then we headed down Pitt Street, and ended up going up to the top of the Sydney Tower which has a viewing platform at the top. It's the second tallest building in the southern hemisphere, and seriously the view is amazing. Definitely recommended in daylight. Then we headed down to Circular Quay to see the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House just as it got dark. Sadly at this point he had to head off to the cinema with some friends, and I had to head off to meet Michelle and all that lot.

Of all the ridiculous coincidences it turned out that Michelle, Julie, Courtney, Graham were staying in the Legend Has It hostel and Laura was in the same one as me. I mean, of all the hostels in Sydney, we end up within 20 metres of each other?! Rosie and Pamela, two of Julie's friends were also there. We headed to the Hard Rock Cafe because it was Julie's birthday and after much smuggling cake, the staff forgetting the cake, Michelle asking for the bill then yelling at the guy that we didn't want the bill because SHE forgot the cake, and a dubiously short toilet break we all sang Happy Birthday right after discussing with Julie  how embarrassing it would be if that were to happen. Amongst all this she didn't actually realise until the guy landed at the table with the cake that anything funny was going on. The chat over dinner was amazing though - seems Michelle & Courtney et al went on the Alternative Tour of Sydney as recommended by tourist information, which really ended up as being a tour of a mortuary ("can you feel the dead spirits pressing in on us?" "no you moron, I'm a medical student") and a bondage house/brothel. And they saw some Chinese guy getting a blowjob IN THE ZOO. I mean, seriously. Only them. Anyway after all that we headed on to Scubar where I discovered one of the best cocktails I've ever had called Pash On (a lot like drinking strawberry milkshake, which could explain my sense of balance by the end of the night...) and we watched a very very camp man dance like he was having sex with the walls.