Melbourne

We flew from Sydney to Melbourne and we were getting picked up by an airport shuttle, we were waiting at the taxi stop for around 30 minutes and it never arrived. So I tried to ring the airport company however, I did not know the code to put in to use my phone in Australia. After asking one lady and that being wrong I walked up the road to a cafe to see if anyone could help. The lady there looked like a bit of a hippy and while I only wanted her help with the number she continued to tell me her life story. Finally after guessing a few numbers I managed to get in touch with the company and they told me to walk around the corner, where the shuttle would be waiting and ready to go. When we got there and stopped the guy in the shuttle from driving off, he told us he couldn’t take us but another bus was on its way. We sat down and waited while this crazy lady who worked there kept walking back and forth and talking to us, she kept going on about this cat that talked to her. She seemed a bit crazy so we imagined she had an invisible friend. Then a guy who also worked there and walked past was called over by her and told him to show us the kitty. The guy got out an i phone and had an app on it called Talking Tom, she held it up to my face and told me to say something, so I said helloooo and the cat repeated it. She then took the phone off of me, obviously I wasn’t doing the best job, she started cooing to the cat, saying I love you and I miss you and when the cat repeated she turned to us and giggled. We found her funnier than the cat, however we also fell deeply in love with the cat and made Nat (an amazing individual) download the app on her phone. Finally we got the shuttle to our accommodation. Little did we know it was gonna be so similar to an old people’s home. I think it was the smell of cabbage in the hallway that made me first think it, and later the layout of the room. The room however was nice enough and it was good to have our own apartment again, even if we did have to share it with Bob and Jo the friendly couple from next door. That night we went in search for wine and food, we wanted a Chinese but everywhere was either too expensive or not available, so we ended up with fish and chips, without the fish and a nice glass of wine.

What we didnt expect of melbourne was how cold it was, we were sat in the apartment with covers round us like little old women...which was ironic! While we were in Melbourne we visited Ramsey Street, the home of the Australian soap Neighbors. One of the main reasons we came to Melbourne was to go on the Neighbors tour which was AMAZING! We got a tram to the centre, not knowing how to pay for the tram. We ended up not paying for the tram. We were later informed that not paying for the tram could have resulted in us being imprisoned. We got off the tram and asked a guy for directions, he pointed down an alley and to be honest didn’t look like he knew, or wanted to help us, just wanted us as far away from him as possible! We walked down the road and it was like Diagon alley from Harry Potter, I half expected to see to ginger kids working in a magic shop. After asking another person we found the road we were supposed to be on. We were running late and seemed to be on the longest road in the world, we were told we were a few blocks away, what the hell are blocks anyway? How far is that in meters? Luckily we got there in time and got on the Neighbors tour bus. The tour guide was really friendly and kept telling us random facts about the show and cast. We went to where the cafe and Police office set was and stopped for pictures outside the garage and Greece Monkey’s, everything was fake and made out of plastic and ruined my expectations of Neighbors. We then drove past Erinsborough High and headed to Ramsey Street. Our tour guide told us he had never crashed before, as he made jokes about crashing. As he swerved into Ramsey Street on that wet morning the van crashed into some signs and left skid marks on the road, this was not part of the tour. We got out the car and waited to meet our former Neighbors resident, I was extremely excited (more so than if I was meeting Justin Beiber) when Sting Ray pulled up I nearly peed my pants. I may have been the only one there who was a fan of Sting Ray, or knew who he really was, but I was really chuffed to meet him. When he had died in the middle of Ramsey Street, three years early, I cried for weeks. We got to have photos with him, chat with him and find out more about the Neighbors crew. We also got photos of the houses and the Ramsey Street sign, but it was very disappointing to think Susan and Kyle Kennedy didn’t actually live in that house, and Harold Bishop was not working in the coffee shop down the road. We were driven back to the city after a memorable morning, which i loved every minute of.

It was the day of my Grandma’s funeral and I had planned to take her on a fun day out, however finding something to do on the cheap, was not as easy as it first seemed. Luckily I noticed a sign for a free shuttle around Melbourne, so we got to see things like the gardens and the famous roads, and listen to the tour guide drone on. We then stopped off at a market where me and Charlene decided to have a little look....Three hours later we left the market with baby clothes, fruit, veg and an amazing Chinese in our bellies.

While we were in Melbourne we visited the old Gaol where Ned Kelly was hung and did a night tour there, it was really good as we got to explore the jail and hear ghost stories in the dark of night. However we thought it was going to be a lot scarier than it was. Before our flight out of Melbourne we had a day to waste, we asked at reception if we could have the room for longer, but we were told the latest we could check out was 12, so we headed into town on the bus and went on the free downtown shuttle again. Somehow we ended up back at the market, purchasing a few more souvenirs, which we really didn’t have room for. We also bought a couple of stuffed peppers and mushrooms, which ended being a wasted 20 dollars as they were completely disgusting. After sitting in McDonalds drinking the same cup of coffee for a couple of hours, we decided to head back to the apartment, because we didn’t have a room we sat in reception eating our Satsuma’s and looking on the internet. I don’t think the staff appreciated us being there, especially as we kept using their bathroom, but we had nowhere else to go. When the guy from the airport shuttle came in, I think he thought Charlene worked there as she was there on my laptop. The guy was friendly enough but kept telling us his life story. He worked doing free lance architecture at his home country in India and drove airport shuttles while in Australia, he was loaded but had a nose problem, which he kept going on about, and we really didn’t want to hear about it bleeding. We got to the airport, which was the smallest s***test airport in the world we couldn’t even find a glass of wine for under 20 dollars, but who cares cause we were on our way to Fiji!