This last week has been tons of fun with having my friends in town. I miss them already!! Jennifer and Onyeka left on Friday morning back to the US and Meredith left on Sunday morning. It was nice having friends to do stuff with around Melbourne. I went out with them every night after work and mostly ate alot! :)
From the tour that we had last Sunday, we met two guys from New Zealand (Simon and Kingsley). Kingsley relocated to Melbourne for work and Simon just came to visit...they are cousins. Simon's birthday was on Tuesday and it was also his last night in town, so we took him out for a celebratory dinner and then went to a bar afterwards to get him his birthday shot. We went to a place called the Carlton House inside the CBD and it was a really nice to place to hang out...but unfortunately, the drinks were not very good. We left after a short while and walked around the CBD looking for other bars, but seemed like everything was closed early! I guess that's expected on a Tuesday night?
On Wednesday, the girls and I went to check out Eureka Tower. It's the tallest building in the southern hemisphere. The top of the tower is cover in gold and there is a red stripe down the side of the building. My Aussie friend Michael told me a story about the Eureka tower that apparently very few people know (he says like maybe 5% of Melbournians know this). The Eureka Tower is named after the Eureka Stockade during the Victoria Gold Rush in the 1800s. I guess there were alot of lives lost during that time...so the gold crown represents the gold rush and the red stripe represents the bloodshed during that time. I thought this was an interesting fact and was surprised that the brochure from the Eureka Tower didn't speak about this.
Thursday was Onyeka and Jennifer's last night...so we all went out for a nice dinner with Kingsley. Kingsley took us to Lygon Street, which is where the Italian district is. We walked on a street where there were tons of Italian restaurants and we got bombarded with offers to get us to eat at the restaurants after turning the corner and hitting the first restaurant. Wow...these people really know how to PRESSURE you. The first restaurant was offering us free wine/beer, appetizers, and for me since I don't drink...free desserts. The guy kept telling us how his price is lower than everyone else's and kept pressuring us to go in. We were tempted, but kept walking and each restaurant we went to after on the same side of the street had same thing...they would come up to us and offer us discounts, free drinks, free entrees, etc. It was insane being bombarded by the desperate restaurant people. After awhile, we didn't even stop to talk to them.
We then crossed over to the other side of the street and it was a completely different atmosphere. No one pressuring us...we actually felt so unloved! :) The restaurants on this side of the street was more crowded, so I guess they didn't need to pressure people to go in. We learned later from our waiter that the restaurants that were pressuring us are higher priced and nicer...so they have to try to lure people in with free offers. Pretty crazy stuff! They should just lower their prices! The food we had at the restaurant we went to wasn't the greatest...wonder if we should've gone with the restaurants with free offers?!?
On Friday, Meredith and I just grabbed a quick dinner and I got some stuff to make banana nut cake to make over the weekend. (I had some bananas that were getting too ripe, so my coworker sent me a recipe to make some banana cake. I made some tonight and added in some nuts...my first time baking a banana nut cake...it actually turned out really well!!!) Anyways, back to my story. After we got back, we went to meet up with my Aussie friend Michael with some of his friends at a bar on the riverfront. We stayed there for a little bit and then they went to another bar called Madame Brussels. Apparently, Madame Brussels is one of the hot spots to go to since it was on the list of places that some girl gave to my friends as places to go check out. It was nice, but crowded...had a rooftop bar. Meredith and I didn't stay long since we were both tired, so we just walked out to the rooftop and then decided to leave. I know...we are old and lame... :)
Our Saturday was pretty mellow. We went to Victoria market to pick up some last minute souvenirs and ended up spending a few hours there. I ate my first Melbourne bratwurst from the Victoria market. It was pretty tasty!! The place we went to was packed, so I guessed everyone else thought so too! We ended up meeting Kingsley and Michael for dinner at Bimbos (the pizza place I mentioned before in my previous post) for Meredith's last night out. That was alot of dinners this week to celebrate everyone's last night and Simon's birthday! :)
Meredith left pretty early on Sunday morning and I slept in till about 9am. Since I had the day to myself, I went to the Camberwell Sunday Market (flea market) and met up with my friend Han for some swing dancing. The Swing Patrol group has an event there sometimes on Sundays. It was my first time back to swing dancing since I got back to Melbourne...it was tons of fun, though there were only a few songs for the social dance. The Swing Patrol does these events where they offer free lessons, do a performance and have a few songs for social dancing to try to recruit new members. It's really cool that they do that...I wish the Atlanta scene did something similar! The weather was absolutely perfect for the dancing! Han and I went and grabbed lunch afterwards and by the time I got home, it was already 3pm. I spent the rest of the day working...what a shame since it was so nice outside!
Today was just the usual day of work. Lots of meetings (same for the rest of the week). After work, I went to my pole class...the new term started today and we learned and practice some of the moves we learned previously. This class always kicks my butt...so at least I know I am getting a good workout. I'm sure I'll have some bruises tomorrow from trying some of the moves. I start the beginning spin pole class tomorrow...very excited since I hear it's so much fun you never want to go back to static pole again!!
Well, that's the update for this week! Sorry if my posts aren't very frequent...but I gotta try and have fun when I am not working!! :)
