Day 1 in Melbourne- We arrived in Melbourne after the worst 12 hour journey you could imagine- well it wasn't as bad as all the rest but Scott hated it all the same- dam his long legs! We arrived at 8am and it was after 10mins of zombieness walking that Scottnav realised he was walking us in the wrong direction. He blamed it on coming out of a different door to what he thought....and now we had to "make a u-turn" and go back in the direction we had just walked in! We finally got to the hostel 20minutes later which should have been a 5minute walk but never mind! We went off and bought our porridge, our Coles $3 lasagne, some cheese and some bread! Yummy carbs! After eating our tasty tasteless porridge (not normally too bad but after a while tastes blooming awful!) We made a move to go find our free wifi avoiding McDonalds at all costs and going to Victoria library to sort out our Melbourne itinary! We were meeting Sarah, Simon and Jack in an English pub down Exhibition Street-how hard could it be to find it...well I forgot the name of the pub after 5minutes of reading it so that made life a little harder! So the target for the day was to remember the dam name! After watching the guy on library security accepting some people inot the library and rejecting others with the same size bag saying it was too big, we thought it best to make a move and do something with our day! Walking down the steps from the library we walked in the direction of Federation Square- which had a million different buildings all different shapes, sizes, colours all crammed around a square. It even had a 14+ (size) fashion show going on in the middle! Where to look...it also apparently had free wifi too- where you would sit and access this though was another issue! We walked from here to sit by the river and eat our homemade dry cheese sandwiches- mmmm- we were excited about lunch! (well Scott was- have you heard he likes food?!) A number of sporty looking buildings captured our attention whilst munching so we decided to head that way and see what was going down. First stop was the MCG. After several attempts of gaining access to the building without paying we had to use the main door only to find it would be $40 for both of us to have a tour round it. So after Scott picked me up from fainting at the prive, we sneaked into the MCG shop and tried to look out the window and see the pitch from there! From a distance and limited views of the pitch it looked pretty cool and green! But that was as close as we could get. b*****. Leaving MCG we thought we'd try our luck at the tennis and headed to the Rod Lever stadium. We managed to sweet talk the lady on reception to let us go on the tour for $6 each which we were rather chuffed with! The only problem was, that you couldn't see the main tennis court as it was covered with seating and blacked out ready for some little musician called Carlos Santana who Scott knew well... I had nooo idea who he was! At least we'd get to see everything else including Nadal's locker for poo! (sister) When we were in the changing rooms the guide showed us some graffiti left by the 2011 winner Drokovic but she didn't know what it was so Scott informed her what it said and what it was, he didn't even get paid for it! Common sense hey mr! We found out all the goss in the world on the players, like how Federer and Nadal are best friends in real life...really?!!! And how Andy Murray has had the same locker 2years running, and lost in the final 2years running! Think you need to change your locker mate! Whether these stories are real remains to be seen- I personally thought Nadal and Roger hated each other- but hey hum! After the changing rooms we moved onto the tennis courts, On the way the lady discretely pointed out the former Davis cup captain for Australia. So when we turned around there were 3 'older'men standing next to us...and we hadn't a clue which one it was. So after much staring we smiled...and moved on quickly! We went up in a lift to where the posh bozes are and peeped through the window to see Mr Santana warming up on the floor below! Unfortunatly we couldn't watch for long as we wern't meant to be there! After the tour had finished we walked back into town and through Federation Square. With it now being 4pm we thought it best to maake a brisk check in as we were meeting Sarah, Simon and Jack at 5.30pm and we still had noooo idea where the pub was...or what it was called for that matter! We ended up having to ask a consierge lady outside a posh hotel wgat english pubs there were....so by process of elimiation we found the correct pub! Yay! Was awesome to chat and talk athletics and about life in general with some familiar faces! And we were even treated to nice proper non pasta food too...we felt like we were in heaven! They then had to shoot off to go see Mary Poppins so we arranged to meet them and do some fun touristy stuff the following afternoon. So we headed back to the hostel where the girl on reception demanded we owed her money for the accomodation instantly...so we had to go in search of a cashpoint as she couldn't tell us where one was! She was useless and tried to charge us $30 each too much! A much needed early night was in order!
Day 2- We accidently on purpose layed in until 9am as we had coach lag! After our standard yummy porridge and making our lunch of cheese sandwiches we walked via McDonalds for an OJ and to use their extremely slow wifi! We then headed over towards the botanical gardens which were sooo much further away than we thought...I reckon they have moved as we walked a further 40minutes and we still didn't make it there! So we made a u-turn and went in search of a bus stop to take us to the Pines and meet Sarah and go see Pin Oak...thats Ramsey Street to you and me! We waited until Jack had finished school and he and Simon had never been- we couldn't believe it! Surely everyone wants to go there...thats what Melbourne is famous for surely! Sarah warned up that we were going to be disappointed as it is the smallest cul de sac in the middle of a suberb, and it was just a residentual area! We did however get to see all the houses we'd seen on telly over the last 15years or so, so we were happy even though I wanted to see Karl Kennedy! Next thing we knew, a security lady rocked up...did she seriously think some excited tourists were really going to steal a letterbox! We don't have room in our backpacks! (and shipping home would be a little pricey!) Once we'd happy snapped and outstayed our welcome we headed to a Coles and towards the mountains to go feed the ozzy birds! There were some lovely small colourful birds, and then some huge birds with big claws who as soon as they saw we had food, took a box of bird food right out of Sarah's hands- oh lordy! We left the box on the floor to be ripped to shreads by the birds- they had done that before! A couple of small cute birds landed on my head and shoulder which was nice until a large white cockatoo attempted to land on me, so doing my best bird impression (running around waving my arms shouting get off!) you can imagine his attempt was not successful! It was very cold so we didn't hang around long, next stop dinner, nachos and a rather large burrito before rolling off to watch Sarah play netball (well I did while Scott got the rundown on the latest pokemon from Jack!) After the game, they offered us a night of luxuary in their spareroom which we jumped at, it was good to get out of our bunk bed hostel! That night we slept well, very well!Day 3- We layed in until 8.30am, twas lovely and the fact we didn't have people getting up early going to work or packing was even better. We said to Jack we would walk to school with him, the shortexst walk to school I have ever done. Later we were back at the house for a relaxing morning of tele and breakfast. Simon took us back into the city around lunch time so we could continue our tourist bit, but first we had to meet Darren and Philippa for lunch, hard life this is. Navigating our way to Lygone Street we were confronted with millions of cafes so finding them was no mean feet. After 3 stops for directions later we arrived for a lovely lunch which consisted of soup, not very flashy but dam it was good! Catching up was great and we swopped stories (they found out I was a facebook stalker!) It was a quick lunch date as they had an evening performance at the dracula theatre to prepare for and we had to go meet Gustov (a friend from home) at our second date of the afternoon...at the casino. The casino in Melbourne is a third of a mile long so when you arrange to meet someone at the casino it's best to state whereabouts! After 30minutes of looking, we found him by the river thank goooodness. Right gambling time and spend the rest of our travelling fund or the other oprion of travelling five star for the rest of the trip. Gus started well and lost $15 on the first game of virtual roulette and $10 on actual roulette so learning from his mistakes Scott and I played the $2 slot machines twice and managed to win....wait for it..... 60cent, but hten went into the darkside and instead of quitting while we were ahead we gambled and lost the whole lot! There goes out five sar dreams! Haha! The highlight of the trip was the chinese guy playing grab the cash, a competition was running if you became a member you would get entered into a draw for your chance to grab the cash. With this Scott and Gus entered are are now bronze card holders of Crown Casino in Melbourne, they are very proud of this and Scott's card is prie of place in his wallet. The guy that got pulled out was sort of your token, you know 'not quite the ticket'. Well from the start we thought it was a fix, but we gave him a chance. Poor guy not being able to understand anything he was told and wasn't able to perform the demonstration, but they put him in anyway. Now this challenge, think the end of crystal maze but instead of the big crystal shaped glass cage it was a small tube lowing money up, and to make things harder you were not allowed your hands past your knees and you only had 15seconds. Well this guy had no chance, he started picking up money as soon as he got in but the guys hadn't given him the countdown yet do he had to drop everything! The guy counted down the clock and time started, it was like watching a fox and chicken in a small glass tube with air blowing up, there was a hell of a lot of flapping with money flying around in stead of feathers and the result wasn't a good one! Out of the possible $44,000 he could of won, he managed $500 so nearly there....NOT! Poor guy. From all that excitement we decided to say our goodbyes and we headed back to the hostel to pack our bags because Sarah and Simon had offered us another night in luxuary so the choice of single bunk beds in a shared room compared with our own room in a comfy house- which one would you choose?! We said hello and goodbye to our new roomies who were worried about us as we didn't come back last night bless them, we then headed off to the bus stop! That night was lovely and relaxed, pizza and garlic bread with wine and beers, a bit different to what we had been used to.
Day 4- The next morning starte with an hour and a half skype session so no lie in for us but skyping in bed was so much better than getting up extra early to hunt through the city and half 7 in the morning for free wifi! after the marathon style session, it was off to the Westfield shopping centre for a lovely breakfast with Sarah, Simon and Jack and their best Australian friends , we could get used to life like this! Again a very relaxed morning, I had one cup of coffee which was lovely but I still kept yawning me head off so Simon ordered me the strongest one you could get and told me you know it's good if your spoon stands up in it...this was going to be interesting! While this was going on Scott was getting another full run down on all sorts of Pokemon there were which he looked thrilled about (secretly loving it) This continued thr rest of the day, but for some strange reason he always looked so interedted-simple minds! From here it was a short trip home before going to watchi Sarah at a local open meeting and I volunteered to help officiate and do my British bit for Australian athletics relations- I think it worked too. Scott sat on the bank sitting and timing all the running events he could, hlaf the time it looked like he was in the race with them! We must have been lucky charms because Sarah managed to throw a PB in the Discus and that topped things off because it was their weeding anniversary, which they spent with their 9year old son and two lodgers from England-lucky people! From the track it was a short drive home for a quick change of clothes for Sarah and Simon before they gave us a lift back into the city. We went on a small detour around Albert Park which is the home of the Australian Grand Prix. Being the week before there was lots of setting up going on so you could only drive around half the circuit but it was still awesome- around the chicanes and down the pit straight over the finish line, Scott stuck his camera out the window and put it on record and made car noises all the way round, bless, I think he liked it. Sarah and Simon were heading to the Casino complex for theur special night out so we left them there and wished them a lovely night and thanked them for everything they had done. Our anniversary present to them wass a free car parking ticket Scott received when joing the Casino yesterday...well at least it would save them a bob or two! We woddled off back to our lovely hostel to have an amazing microwave lasagne and cheese sandwich whilst mentally preparing ourselves for the very long bus ride back to Sydney- 12hours! Around 8pm we got to the bus only to find the air con was stuck at 40 degrees- this was going to be fun! Sydney here we come!!!We would report back on our final 4days in Sydney but unfortunatly Scott still hasn't written it up! Silly boy! But just so you know in short what we did, we went to Bondi beach which was cooooool and saw the opera house and harbour bridge at night! We also sqweezed in a tour of Sydney Olympic Park and the stadium the 2000 olympics were held in which was super cooooool! (bet your all wishing every blog was that short hey! haha- but you have to be filled in on every occurence you lucky things!)