So, following on from the last one, the day after we got chucked out of the Neighbours night we were reunited again with all the others we met in Perth so we went to an all you can eat curry and a beer for $8... sounds great, although they had a few 'mishaps in the kitchen' which started with the vegetable curry being off so they took that away, they then ran out of chicken curry and said that would be on the way soon but after about half an hour there was no sign of it, so all there was was hot beef curry which was fine for all of us except Lois as she thinks korma is spicey! After more waiting the staff finally came over and said there was a problem with the chicken curry too so they just gave us some nachos to share... very Indian! We then just went for a couple of beers at Howards then off to bed for an early night as I had a cold :(
The next day I spent in bed the whole day trying to recover, then in the evening I thought I know what'll make me feel better.... lets go drinking again! So we played the French-Canadian version of Ring of Fire, which they call Kings, with Howard, James and some of James's room mates... it was very funny, someone made a rule that every time you swear you have to drink, then another guy added to the rule and said that every time anyone swears one of the French-Canadian girls has to drink too, so everyone swore a little here and there just to make her drink but Charlie didn't quite understand the rule and started a string of obsenities, it was only once she'd finished swearing that everyone explained that she had to drink as well, she thought that the F-C girl was taking all the drinks for her... haha! We then drunkenly headed to a cool pub called the vineyard, minus Howard (too skint) and James (too drunk - had to sleep it off!).
Next day we had a wander around St Kilda then went to a night market which was really cool, full of hippies and people playing bongos, with a very strange man (probably on lots of drugs) doing some crazy dancing to the bongos... after a while me and Charlie felt the hippy vibe so did a bit of bongo dancing ourselves (we were sober by the way!).
Next day we went into Melbourne and went to the ACMI - Australian Centre for Moving Image... Charlie and Lois loved it as they did media at college but I was a bit bored by it! It had quite a lot about the new Australia film which I've seen so I enjoyed those bits. We got on the goon again dinner and played Kings again, we made a rule that if you show your teeth when you smile you have to drink, which was extremely funny, every time anyone laughed they were trying to do so with closed lips so ended up looking like retards and obviously the drunker we got the more we did it and the funnier it was! We then went to the Vineyard with James again, he was absolutely wasted and kept falling into the bushes on the way there (which he didn't remember the next day and therefore denies it ever happened). There was a really good live band playing so, still feeling the hippy vibe, me and Charlie did some more bongo stylee dancing. We met Stefan (aka Mr Swiss) there, then all went back to our hostel where they have a club downstairs... twas a bit s***e though as all they played was r'n'b, although James invented the best dance yet, it has to be demonstrated to convey the excellence of it!
We had a nothingy day after that to recover, then the next day we left St Kilda to go and stay in Melbourne. We checked in at Hotel Discovery which was a little grubby (cockroaches in the kitchen, yum) but otherwise really cool, where we met our room mate, Yael from Israel. She'd just flown into Melbourne and didn't know anyone else so we decided to all go out together later that night. We spent the day looking around the Queen Victoria Market which was massive with the usual cheap market tat but we got a few bargains between us. After dinner we gooned with Yael and played our new favourite game... yep you guessed it - Kings! This time one of the rules was you have to say a foreign word before every drink which sounds pretty easy but in the moment you totally forget all the languages you know... Yael was struggling to find words then suddenly half way through said "oh, I've just remembered, I'm fluent in Russian!!' How she forgot that I really don't know! So she taught us some essential Russian phrases, including 'Ya lablou houi' = I love penis, and 'Ya lablou balshoui houi' = I love big penis... what more could you need to know?! We drank 4 litres of goon between us then headed out to find somewhere to dance but after wandering around China town for ages having found nowhere, we gave up and went home.
The next day was then a bit dramatic, Charlie had a dull ache where her appendix/ovary was in the morning, which then turned to bad pains by the evening so we took her to the hospital to get her checked out. After waiting for over 2 hours she got seen by a doctor who did blood/urine tests and took her BP and temperature which all came back normal. The doctor asked if she'd been drinking any alcohol and exercising so we told her everything and what the doctors in Bali had advised and it turns out that the Bali doctors had told us some dodgy things.... they'd told Charlie that she should have 2 weeks of strict rest, then could start drinking, then after 3 weeks she could start carrying her backpack... the Aussie doc said that if she'd had the op here, they would've said strict rest for 4 weeks with no alcohol for 8 weeks. So basically the pains she'd been getting were caused by over exertion and too much alcohol... oops. We also told the doc that the Bali docs had told us that the cysts on her ovaries were caused by the contraceptive pill and that she'd been put on HRT to make her periods normal... turns out that she didn't need HRT as one ovary is enough to regulate everything and that the pill definitely doesn't cause ovarian cysts, so we've all been told to go back on the pill now... although the Aussie doc couldn't prescribe it as they're a Catholic hospital so not allowed to give out birth control!!
The next day Charlie was feeling loads better after lots of rest, so we went to the Royal Melbourne Zoo with Yael... it was a good day out but a bit sad as some of the enclosures were way too small :(
The next day Yael left to do the Great Ocean Road so we said goodbye but we should hopefully be meeting up with her in Sydey at some point. Howard came to say goodbye too as he's staying in Melbourne to work when we move on.
The next day me and Lois booked everything from Brisbane to Cairns, we booked 5 tours; Fraser Island, Whitsundays sailing, snorkelling in the Great Barrier Reef, Cape Tribulation and a discovery tour called Uncle Brians in Cairns... all to be done in 2 weeks, it's gonna be jam packed!
The next couple of days were nothing exciting, then on Friday just gone we got our very first Greyhound coach to Canberra... we got on the bus at 9pm and arrived the next morning at 7.30am... 10 hours of evilness! We got almost no sleep as it was sooo uncomfortable so when we got to our hostel all we wanted to do was go to bed but we couldn't check in til bloody 1pm! So we went on a rediculously long walk to Parliament House.... so not worth the effort, we just looked at it then got the bus back to the hostel!
The next day we had to get up at 4.30am to get the next coach to Sydney, it wasn't such an evil one, we got it at 6.30am and arrived in Sydney at 10am, where we met Chris at the station. After a yummy fry up we got a train to Circular Quay and then a ferry to Manly where we'll be staying til Jan 3rd... the ferry was great, we saw the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge, yay! It properly feels like Australia now, it was lovely and sunny too, which made a nice change from constant rain in Melbourne. When we got to Manly we checked into our hostel then headed straight to the beach for some sunbathing, woohoo! After dinner we went for a couple of beers in a pub just near the hostel which had a cool live band playing, so we just chilled and caught up with Chris.
The next day was wicked! We hired some roller skates and spent about an hour skating along the prom... me and Charlie were crap, we put our skates on just outside the hire shop and the only way to get up to the the street was via steps or a ramp, Chris and Lois skated up the ramp like pros but after a couple of failed attempts at skating up it, me and Charlie crawled up on our hands and knees! After a lot of screaming from me and Charlie we started to get used to it and really enjoyed it, although Charlie crashed into a metal bench and bruised her shins! In the afternoon we headed back to the beach for some more sunbathing but it was so windy that we ended up completely covered in sand so we gave up and went for a swim in a salt water pool by the beach. We'll be in Manly for Christmas, plan is BBQ on the beach for xmas eve then the hostel are doing turkey dinner on xmas day so we'll probably do that. Then we've got a little tour of the Blue Mountains for a couple of days, then we'll be in Sydney for New Year, woooooooooooooooooo!!