Ollie here. So as we took so much stick for taking so long to post a message here I am with a slightly more punctual update for all you wonderful people. We know you cant live without it! Last we posted was the day we were off to see St Kilda play Melbourne at Aussie Rules (or just football as the call it) in the MCG.. ah we love it there. It was a pretty good night, we went for a few beers, to take in some pre-game atmosphere in the center with Manny, Rich and Big D and then strolled over to the stadium with the masses. It wasn't sold out and around 50,000 people watched but at only 8 quid we would never complain! Anywhere you sit in that place offers great views so we had no problem following the match even from our position in the rafters. It did take us a while to get our nuggets around what exactly was going on but by half way through we got the jist of it and were all cheering for the St Kilda (the underdogs) to come back from a poor start. Our encouragement of course paid off and our team kicked major ass! A good sport to watch, even for us tourists with no idea and definitely a must see if you can make it to the MCG. Gotta get the classic pie & sauce while you're at it too! That night was the start of our big final weekend in Melbourne and the saturday night was the big send off. We whipped together aboutrn20 people to go to a sleazy karaoke bar in town. With the prospect of singing in front of a crowd we all, of course, got smashed prior to the performances. Luke and I (ollie) did a duet of Jimmy Eat Worlds 'The Middle' (which is now a classic and over-played song of mine!). I started belting out my best rendition but due to the alcohol i got slightly confused and experienced a little hearing loss as i couldn't hear my voice through the speakers, i then proceeded to say 'my mic doesn't work... give me a new mic' throughout the song! obviously my mic was working and made myself look a little silly i rekon! Thankfully the crowd consisted almost entirely of Nunnery folk so they were all cheering us on however bad we were!rnJon was obliged to sing his classic 'Hero' by Enrique which went down a storm. Luke was dragged up again with Sabrina to sing a beautiful version of Like A Virgin at the end. Everyone seemed to have a rocking night and it was a great way for us to say goodbye torneveryone, even if they were slightly inebriated goodbyes.. Luke, yet again, had to be carried the whole way home! Luke here, yeah the karaoke night was awesome. That's Jimmy and Green Day that I have sung to an audience now, it won't be long until I am a punk legend. I was actually down to sing a few other songs with some of The Nunnery people but the DJ was rubbish and wasn't very organized so i had to make do with two! Sabrina if you're reading this, next time we should pick a song which we both know the words and tune to! Check out the photos in the new album, there are some great ones in there and some give you a good look at how we totally took over the place with our nunnery crew! After all that singing I don't really remember much because, like Ollie said, I had to be carried back by Jon and Dave through the whole CBD back to the hostel. Whoops. Back to Ollie.. After a quick recovery from the hangovers Luke, Chris and I went to see Reel Big Fish who were performing in town. Thankfully we were able to get tickets on the door as we were as unorganized as usual. Luke (seen them about 5 times), and Chris are fans but I didn't know too much about the band and had only heard a few of their songs but they have a reputation for being very high energy and their gig have a party atmosphere to them. I wasn't disappointed as we got 2 rows from front and moshed our way through the set. After the show we hung around near the stage to see of we could see the band.. one of the guys walked out and Chris shouted 'Garden Grove' which is the bands hometown in >California. The guy came over and asked us a bit about the place, Chris had done his research and claimed that he went on a student exchange there and stayed with a vietnamese/american family for a couple of months (random!!) i couldn't help but laugh but the guy totally bought it and asked if we wanted to go backstage and speak with the other guys from the band! We said hell yes and he took us on through. As i said i really don't know the band well at all so didn't recognize them as celebrities but I still thought it was pretty cool! We didn't actually stay long as they went off to their hotel but we did have time to have a ginger beer (not drinkers) with them and have a bit of banter. We got our photos taken with them andrnsome autographs as we left too.rnWe were pretty tired from the night before so went back to the hostel to tell everyone the story. Luke here.. It was a great gig. Not as good as +44 obviously but they still played well and put on an entertaining show as per usual. To see a big international band over here you have to pay between 50 and 60 dollars (in places the same size as the Academy Group venues) which works out to be around 20 pounds. Bit more expensive than back home but still not bad. Like i said previously, seeing a band you really like play in a foreign country makes up for the extra few quid. If we had stayed an extra few days then we could have gotten to see New Found Glory. There seems to be a lot of bands playing over here all the time so anyone reading this who is into their music and is thinking of visiting Australia then Melbourne is the place to be. I'll pass you back to Ollie again.. The Monday meant the infamous Neighbours Night with the quiz and star appearances. I don't think i'll be the one to write about this though as Chris and I left Stu, Jon, Luke and Manny there after an hour as it was pants cus I don't watch the show! Why did i go? Yes I wondered that myself afterwards! Luke take over.... Although we didn't get to visit the famous Ramsey Street (sorry guys, I know some of you wanted to see photos of the street!), we thought we would go to the Neighbours night as it's advertised as one of the best nights out in Melbourne for backpackers. When we fist got there it was rammed with people and we had to stand up. It was held in a pub and there was a stage at the front. It felt like we were at Butlins to begin with (not that I've ever been); really cheesy and full of tarty women and townie lookin' guys but it got better once we had a couple of drinks. Libby (remember her?) came on and sung some weak songs with a guy on an acoustic guitar then they introduced her properly along with Darcy, Izzy and the legend himself, Karl Kennedy. They spoke for a few mins and then people asked a couple of questions. After that Darcy walked around the place having his photo taken with people while a general knowledge/neighbours quiz started. He was hilarious. Really dirty, sleazy all completed with a full head of grey hair. He was loving all the attention from people and made sure that he looked perfect in all of the photos people were taking; "which camera is going first? I need to look in the right one". After meeting him (he was pretty cool) we then got dragged off to another part of the pub where we met Libby, Izzy (who made a comeback over here...she gave birth to Karl's baby on a boat about a minute after Karl and Susan got re-married). We had photos with them which was funny and then headed back to the bar. We waited around for about half and hour and then Karl's band came on stage. The floor filled up quickly and he and his band started belting out Kaiser Cheifs, Foo Fighters, Oasis covers and loads of others including some of their own songs. The place went crazy and we even started a bit of a mosh ha! We all had a couple of our own pints flung all over us. It was a great laugh. The photos give a bit of an idea as to what it was like. The band was actually pretty good and it was the first time Karl had attended a neighbours night in 18 months so he was absolutely loving it. It was an awesome night, even though I've not seen Neighbours properly for years. Myself, Jon, Stu and Manny all said it was one of the funniest and most entertaining nights we had had in Melbourne. I'd recommend going to it if you're up for a laugh. Fairly cheap too, and so were the drinks. Ta for that... Ollie here again. After all that all we had to do was wait to pick up the van from the mechanics on Wednesday. The hostel was already quite quiet as most of the people we knew had moved on at the weekend. The van ended up costing about 1200 dollars (80 quid each with the money from Ed the seller) but we were all glad it was done and ready for the road. We bought all our camping gear- tent, gas canister, stove, mats, jerry can and such like and then went back for our long awaited final sleep at the Nunnery. We went for a drink with all our buddies that were still there and headed for a club near our place. It didn't get too messy as we knew we had to be up early the next day (see we canrnbe responsible!). Saying goodbye to the Nunnery was really quite sad as we had some awesome times there and made some real good memories and some true friends. We'll keep in contact with them all im sure but that place totally made Melboure the place for us! ANYONE who plans on seeing the city for however long should really stay there for some, if no tall their visit.The city as a whole is a great place with endless things to do and a rocking music scene. Fitzroy (our area) is a real cool, chilled out place to stay. The prices for everything can be quite high but the bargains are there if you look for them. I suppose its a good thing to move on and experience new things and see more places but we truely loved it there. BooHoo... goodbye the Nunnery Luke again. As Ollie said, leaving The Nunnery was quite sad but our time had come and over the last few weeks of our stay some of the other regulars had been leaving so it was probably the best time. Had some great laughs with all the people there and I would happily stay at The Nunnery again even if it isn't the cheapest place around. Thanks to Tom for teaching me some basics on my Ukelele. I still can't tune it properly though. If any of The Nunnery folk ar reading this then cheers for the good memories and sorry if we didn't get to say goodbye properly to any of you. I won't name drop everyone in case I miss someone out but it was great while it lasted! Keep in contact. Bye for now but we'll be back with another update sharpish i promise The guys x