G'day Bruce, i'm back in the land of Oz!

My flight to melbourne was for some reason split into two. I had to fly to sydney first-standing in sydney airport looking out towards the sydney skyline was a strange homecoming of sorts-and then down to melbourne. After a short delay i arrived in melbourne and was picked up by laura. It was quite strange finally meeting up with her out here having planned on it for years. We high-tailed it (what does high-tail actually mean) down to Geelong, which is about 80km south. We arrived at laura's friend Rubi's house and had all of 2mins to get ready before heading out to the Geelong A&E department's Xmas night out. Bit random my being there but a really good night was had especially once we got down to Lamby's, Geelong's infamous nightspot. This place is like a club from the 70s or 80s. Mirrorballs, carpeted walls etc and really grimy. That said, the place was chocka (i'm going all aussie!) and the band playing (all covers) were really good. The night ended back at Rubi's with whiskey and a mountain of McDonalds.

The rest of the weekend was spent in various bars, cafes and restaurants around Melbourne. The cafes here are amazing and there is so many of them it's incredible. Special mention to Pelligrini's which is an old fashioned espresso bar that also serves food. Its run by proper italian people and the food's great. There was even a letter from Billy Joel on the wall-he'd been there two days earlier.

I'm staying with Laura while i'm here and her house is so cool. A converted warehouse down a lane in Fitzroy. It's so good to have some home comforts after six weeks in hostels. I actually have spent most of my time in Melbourne on her couch watching Aussie tv (which is awful) and DVDs, brilliant! I have actually seen a fair bit of the city so far though-The Melbourne museum, The State Library, The National Gallery of Victoria, Flinders St station (the blog picture above) Federation Square, The ANZAC Shrine of Rememberance and a LOT of shops!

I met up with three of the girls i travelled with in NZ-Imogen, Jen and Katie and had a few drinks with them at their hostel in St Kilda last night and then saw a bit of the city with them again today. We had a few cold drinks in the sunshine on a rooftop bar earlier which was splendid! We also bumped into the two Swedish Charlottes (also from the kiwi bus) there which was very random, they weren't long of their flight from NZ.

All in all it's been fairly quiet since i've been here and i'm very grateful for it but now that i've been reunited with some fellow travelers i get the distinct feeling it's all going to turn messy again!