This morning I got woken up at about 4am by a massive headache (beer+lack of water+air con) and couldn't get back to sleep. I drank water until it went away but by that time we were both wide awake. Stupid body clocks!
So we put on some cartoons and got back to sleep after the sun rose, around 7am, then slept til 11ish.
When we were ready we headed down towards the trolley (tram) station and passed a cafe with a sign for Stumptown Coffee.
I had been recommended this coffee by a guy from work, so I was a little excited, but turned out they only did brewed coffee, and no espresso. :(
I'll just have to wait for the real Stumptown coffee in Seattle!
So we kept on to the trolley stop where we bought ourselves a two day transport pass, called a Compass Card here, then went back up the street to a bus stop.
Turns out we'd missed one by about 10 minutes, and the next one was about 50mins away, so we went across the road to a little sports bar/diner for a quick coffee and a meal.
I ordered a veggie sub, which was massive, and Darren got an equally massive pasta, but the coffee machine was broken! Nooooooo!
So we just had food.
We ate, then went back to the bus stop with 5mins to spare, then jumped on the bus.
We went up to Claremont street, which was about a 15 minute ride, then got off and settled for a coffee from the Starbucks there. As we were ordering it started pelting down rain! Where's the summer we were promised?!
Everyone around us seemed quite happy with the rain, but we were walking! So we sat down and drank our coffees and waited for the rain to abate.
After a while it did settle down so we took the opportunity and headed out and walked down the street about 10 minutes to a little shop called Hale Ukelele.
It started pouring again when we were almost there, so by the time we got inside we were pretty wet!
It was quite a small little shop, but there were ukes everywhere! Apparently there were more than 150 of them in the tiny store! I went straight over to the baritone uke section where there were maybe 15 different ones! A nice change from the 0 or 1 in most music stores!
We spent quite a while there playing all the different ukes, and Darren had a go at a couple of ubasses.
While we were in there the sun came out again, and the owner of the shop, Ric, was telling us that they get a lot of overcast weather at this time of year, which they call 'May Grey' and 'June Gloom', but they don't often get rain, and as they're in the middle of a massive drought, they were pretty happy to see the rain!
We spent a while chatting with Ric and another guy who was trying out some ukes, as I slowly made my way through playing all of the baritones in the shop.
Eventually I decided on a pretty mahogany one, which had a beautiful smooth and warm sound to it.
We bought that, and Darren got a mini Marshall amp to plug his mandolin into, as well as a tuner and lead. Ric gave us a bunch of free stickers and stubby holders, and even a tshirt each!
After chatting a while longer, his wife, Monica, offered us a lift down to a pub around the corner, where Ric had told us that there was a ukelele jam session that night.
So we said bye to Ric and jumped in her van, and said bye to her when she dropped us off at the Offshore Tavern.
We grabbed a beer and got a seat on the patio. We had a chat with some of the people there who had ukes with them, who welcomed us to the uke group!
The organiser, Tim, sat and had a drink with us for a while then had to go off and start setting up.
It was apparently just an open mic night as opposed to the jam session that we thought it would be, so we settled in to watch some music.
We had a chat with a couple there, Sarah and Craig, who were pro uke players who play all over the world.
They were super friendly and told us about their travels to Australia.
After a while we had convinced them to play, so they put their names on the list!
They moved across to our table and we watched the performances together, and had a few drinks and chatted a while.
They even invited us to their house for breakfast on the day we were leaving!!
After a while longer, they convinced me to put my name on the list too! (After googling some easy chords!)
When it was their turn, they got up and played a couple of beautiful songs together. They were definitely the best performers of the night!
They had to leave to give a skype uke lesson, so we said goodbye then got another drink.
We tried quite a few nice beers while we were there.
Eventually it was my turn to get up, so I introduced myself and my 2 hour old ukelele, and played the Australian classic 'Throw Your Arms Around Me' by Hunters and Collectors.
I seemed to get a pretty nice reception from the audience which was nice.
Afterwards we had a chat with a girl named Alexis, who was helping to organise the night. I got a few playing tips from another uke player, on how to play uke less like a guitarist, and Darren and I got a couple of burgers for dinner.
We chatted with Tim a little more, then he offered us a lift back to our hotel, so when we finished our food and drinks we said our goodbyes and went and jumped into Tim's cool old VW Beetle.
We said goodbye then went upstairs to bed.