Hello!

Sorry it's been ages since the last blog i've been busy travelling and adjusting to being back in a hostel!

Going to start a couple of weeks ago where Anu our finnish friend who was in the second room of base with us came back from Finland for her second year. To welcome her (and for a jar of beer) Me and Will did a Karaoke rendition of Summer Nights from Grease at the drag queen karaoke. Went down a storm, of course.

On the 15th of March we went for a beach day. We got the bus to coogee beach and walked to Gordons Bay where we stopped for a couple of hours for a swim and a relax on the rocks. We then carried on walking round a scenic walk to Bronte Beach where we got fish and chips which were DELICIOUS.

Sunday 16th I was invited to go to watch the Sydney Kings in the basketball with Jacob and Fraya. It was really good. They had a player who used to be in the NBA called Sam Young who just scored 3 pointers and slam dunks all game.

Saturday 22nd was Will's birthday so we went to Bondi beach. We were in the water for about an hour at one point just throwing a ball around with a load of randomers which was pretty fun. We got back at about 5:30 and went for a meal with Jacob and Tom to the really nice chinese restaurant that we always walk passed called Home. Wow it was nice. I had some spring rolls, chicken satay and Prawn Pad Thai, all of which were incredible.

Tom then took us to this Whisky bar which was absolutely incredible. Reminded me just of all the Mafia movies you see where the lights are off, only candles on the tables and bar, people with glasses of whisky everywhere and FREE PRETZELS. Me and Jacob got through 6 bowls of them haha.

As we paid for our own meals, Tom said that he'd pay for the drinks instead. WOW. He spent $120 on 4 glasses of whisky!!! It was really nice, but $120 worth... I'm not so sure! After that we went to Cheers to watch the Chelsea vs Arsenal game. Tom an Arsenal fan, Will a Chelsea fan. Cheers seemed to be an Arsenal's fan club so Will was one of three Chelsea fans. Chelsea won 6-0 so he didn't stop going on about that for a few days.

Sunday Me, Will, Dom and Chiara all went for a goodbye game of bowling. It was supposed to be everyone in the flat but only us 4 went. Hadn't been bowling in years so I thought I'd be terrible. Will came 4th with 60, Chiara came 3rd with 78, Dom came 2nd with 102 and I came 1st with 137! Didn't think I was good at it from previous times but i got two spares in a row followed by two strikes in a row!! Crazy.

We then got a flat picture with most of the people in the flat. Wasn't too fussed that the Mongolians, Japanese and Korean girls weren't in the photo as I didn't really talk to them but i was gutted that Michele was away for the weekend so could'nt be in it :(

At 8pm we got the night bus from Sydney Central Station to Mebourne. It stopped off on many places on the way including Liverpool, Newcastle, Canberra and finally Melbourne. I actually enjoyed the journey! Watched a documentary on the Killer Whales at SeaWorld and how they are taught and how they've killed instructors called 'Blackfish'. A real eye opener.. Give it a watch!! I also got a few hours sleep and watched a bit of Lord of the Rings with Will.

The original plan was to surprise the girls when we got into Melbourne at 8am but that failed when Will accidentally told Kat on the phone that we were coming and also when Dom posted the flat picture on Facebook saying 'Have fun in Melbourne'... Damn.

So we walked 1.7 miles to the hostel before finding out we weren't even halfway so just got a taxi instead. We got the taxi from the first turning of the Melbourne F1 the weekend before which was pretty cool. There had been a big crash there in the first lap and the taxi driver picked us up from that exact spot! JCB's were still cleaning up all the grit and advertisment boards.

So we checked into base hostel into room 210 where we met our roommates; two english girls (quite annoying) an American guy called Seth, a Finnish girl called Nia and a Canadian guy (Toronto!!!) called Dennis. We got on very well with the last two, especially Dennis.

We then went to the Boozy Bingo at night. During one of the rounds the Presenter stood up and started rapping Eminem and it was absolutely incredible, the place went crazy haha. The biggest price in the bingo was $420 cash which Will won! So I was able to get my $300 that he owed me back!! Never thought i'd see that again!!

The next day we mostly gave CV's out on Chapel Street. Most places just said you need to apply online which was quite annoying but i'm still going to do it. We went to a cafe to eat where we met a Welsh brother and sister in there 40's. So at one point we had England (Me and Will) Ireland (Jamie) Scotland (Lauren and Kat) and Wales all in Australia!!

That night was the trivia quiz at the hostel. Our team came 5th of 13 teams which was alright. I was quite happy with myself during the music round a couple of times where my musical brain came in handy a couple of times; one was when we had to listen to a song backwards and guess what it was, I got it in 5 seconds! Another was when we had to listen and watch a music video and say who it was and what the song was... MmBop by Hanson! I'd been listening to it pretty much all the time i've been in Australia as well as Down Under by Men at Work and loads of Red Hot Chilli Peppers. Really really REALLY missing playing the guitar and piano, the ends of my fingers have completely softened up for not playing guitar for 3 months!

The next day was the same, just giving Cv's out and then we went to one place to eat which was nice. I had a toscano toastie; cheese, ham and mushroom salsa with chips. Amazing. At one point the power went out in the cafe so we were plunged into darkness and were using the lights on our phones to eat and help other tables pour there drinks.

Today was exactly the same, just got in from giving out CV's at places in St Kilda... Need a job soon!!!!

Hope everything's doing good with everyone back home!!

BYE