Hey all

Im back at work on a Monday so what should I do? Perhaps my blog!

On the Saturday from where I was up to, I went to Sarah's apartment and we went round to the Pub next to work as she had lost her phone at our work party which was a bit unfortunate so we went round to see what the crack was but it was all closed and locked up as it was Easter Weekend, this country is crazy everything shuts on bank holidays (well the pubs do) so after we walked past that horrible wall area where those poor people had died we went and met the rest of the Scousers in Campari House rooftop bar which is right next to where they live its a lush bar with a lovely rooftop terrace and they have corporate cards for in there so we get champagne for $4 which is exciting. So we went there had some chips and champagne. IT then started raining amazingly (not impressed at all) and we went and sat inside the bar on one of the other floors in this lovely little booth. It was very sweet I was pretty impressed. We then decided to go back to the Scouse House for some movie time. We ended up watching lock stock which was pretty good and we were all nice and chilled out! I then headed home as we had a heavy day ahead of us planned for the Easter Sunday Session of the year.

I got up got myself ready had a nice breakfast of fried eggs on toast which became my all time favourite breakfast when I was in Asia, then headed on over to the scousers house so we could head on out together. We eventually managed to make it on the train and we got in to Chapel St around 3.30pm we were all very dressed up to the nines (not really) and on our way to the first pub which was an irish bar we saw Steph and Andrea indulging in cheesecake sessions in a restaurant!! We all had serious food envy after that as it looked amazing for sure!! They had been off the bad stuff for lent so it was serious catch up time for them! We then went to Bridie O'Reillys for a swift pint outside but it ended up being quite chilly and we were all dressed like really scousers and Geordies (basically no warm clothing at all) so we had to admit defeat to sit inside. There was some canny irish live band on so it felt like we were really in Ireland to be honest. Good Craic indeed!! Halfway in to my first pint of cider i started with the hiccups which was a disaster as they would not stop all day and I hiccup like a frog which is highly attractive I imagine. I tried to change my drink to beer but that didn't work either. Oh deary. We then headed to Blue Bar for some cheap jugs of beer. We sat upstairs on their rooftop part which is dead nice. Paddy had joined us by this point. Me and Sarah work with him but he has been off work for ages as hes currently on a bridging visa as they are investigating his claim for his 2nd year visa because for some reason Irish people get checked more than the English, and to get your second year you must have 88 days service of agriculture work which he has don't bless him but they are checking it out for sure so its taking ages and because hes proper irish when he got told about this bridging visa issue he told work he couldn't come in as he didn't hink he could work on it however this was just because he wanted paddys day off and the day after paddys day for his hangover and now he's kinda shot himself in the foot as i don't think he thought they would spend so long investigating him so hes been out of work now for ages bless him although lucky for him we've had bank holidays which he has been getting paid for. But no idea when he will be back working again. So he was out to drown his sorrows I think!!

We spent hours in Blue Bar taking many photos Sarah is obsessed with Instagram and continually shouts "INSTAGRAM MEEEEE NOW!!" as she doesn't have a telephone any more so she cant do it herself. She is a proper little nutter. It's definitely her drunken catchphrase. We then headed to some other bar I have no idea of the name but it was playing some good old choons and we well getting our dance on and the drinks were blue and amazing! So we danced there for a bit and then we realised it was time to head to Revolver as it was Revolver Sunday this is the club that never shuts from thurs to tues or something mad like that, so we trooped in to go in there and it turned out it was $25 entry and we are all very poor backpackers so we decided against it. We went next door to some proper ghetto bar, we told the doorman it was Sarah's leaving party so they let us in for free and then we got free champers. We drank that and then the rest of the guys decided they were heading home. Of course me and Sarah stayed out to party all night as we are hardcore. So we got another bottle of champers and then we realised we were the only white people for miles in this bar - it was like we were in the Bronx. It was a very cool bar indeed. We made loads of friends with people from Nigeria which was nice as not one of them even tried to pretend to be Australian. We then decided we weren't quite ghetto enough for this place so we went back to the cool bar we'd been in before, we managed to meet up with Tom, Kyle and Oosh in there and we all danced around like proper loons. Me and Sarah made friends with the doormen outside and spent ages talking to them while there was a massive drugs bust going on across the road which I spent alot of time taking pictures of and pretending I was working for the press (which I technically am) we then saw my French friend Vincent walking past with his friend and Sarah met one of her scouser mates walking past so we had a nice little street reunion.

Eventually after being out all night we went in hunt of some takeaway food. We finally found a souvlaki shop which are big here. It's not like kebabs from munchines in the toon that are on a stick spinning round. These are real kebabs proper pieces of lamb in a wrap with loadsa salad and garlic sauce they are amazing. I was very happy with my choice. We proper scoffed them down and got some chips to share with more garlic sauce!! Having not had garlic sauce since I left Newcastle I was soo happy!! End of the night food ends up usally being McDonalds or Hungry Jacks so I was massively happy with this fancy style kebab. We then got a taxi home as obviously at 4 am there are no trams or trains. Our Taxi driver was from Afganistan and Sarah was like 'ooh ive never met anyone from there before, is it nice there? You are lovely i think I all Afghanistan people are lovely' haha oh deary. Im not sure whether he believed it was true or not but it was funny!! I then went to pay for the taxi with my bank card but he tried 5 times and it kept being declined so we found $20 between us in our bags luckily!! My bank card had like $10 left on it oops!! Nevermind!! Lucky i don't usually get taxis anywhere as Im always just out in the city. We got in Sarahs house as I was sleeping there and there was just bodies all over the living room so we jumped on Steph and James, Andrea and Paddy all separately haha!! Good times they well enjoyed being woken up i think!! As James was sleeping downstairs I decided I would just sleep in his bed so I got myself all comfy and then he came up and kicked me back in to Sarahs room how bloody rude! That will teach me for waking up people when I get in haha.

The next day I woke up at around 9am and went downstairs as I was planning on leaving straight away but then ended up falling back asleep in the living room and then woke up at 1pm, not long after I woke up Andrea woke up and she was like whats the time as her phone had died so I told her and for next 30 mins she was like 'ten past 1 - oh my god' haha bless her. She had been planning on going to the gym but had totally missed her session!! Although how on earth she could manage a gym session after a day out like that is beyond me! She is a personal trainer though haha. I then eventually made it back home for a day of watching Ant and Dec Saturday Night Takeaway in bed all day which lucky for me is on youtube!! So I had a lovely cosy night in with a lot of cups of tea. It was so nice still being off work on the Monday this was my 3rd day off in a row and it felt like 4 as my 4.5 hour shift on good Friday barely felt like work since I was ever so slightly intoxicated haha. I love Easter weekends. Especially because on the Easter Monday, I was still being paid for being off work. This backpacker has well landed on her feet with this job!!

The next day I was back at work on one of my all time worst shifts ever 10.30-7pm. Its the longest shift ever as it wrecks your whole day!! And it feels like you're in work for about 12 hours!! It is good for the lie in factor though! At work all day I dreamed of steak so on my way home I went to Woolworths and got me T-Bone steak which was $3.25 not even in the sale and it was huge and did that for my tea with some salad and coleslaw. Best tea ever!! I am such a good steak cooker, it was almost as good as a M&S one!! For once Miki my flatmate couldn't say anything bad about my tea as she thinks I have a terrible diet I think she was very impressed with me. Obviously we cant all afford to survive on a diet of quail eggs though..

On the Thursday it was of course $1 champagne night, I swear I've never drank so much champagne in my life until I got to Oz, its brilliant as its so cheap here!! As it was Sarah's last day at work we went out to celebrate (any excuse really) I went straight from work with Nicola and Elaine. Nicolas housemates best friend Ava came out and met us too and he was absolutely hilarious! He proposed marriage to us so we could stay in the country and he knows somebody with a farm so he said for one night of passion he would sign our farm work off too haha. He had just been to his salsa dance class as he was a fan of shaking the old hips, and he was awaiting a phonecall as they were all going to meet up later on to start some serious salsa action randomly in a bar kind of like a flash mob. He was pretty cool he had us very much entertained. Then the Scousers all arrived with Steph, then all the other work guys turned up. It ended up being a very messy night as it always does, we all posed for photos with sarah looking very sad. The lovely girl from work who I don't like turned up rand the whole night costing me around $15 you cant be robbed like!! We left when it shut again, we then spent some time playing on Swanson St playing and shouting about chocolate croissants before we all went home for the night!!

On Friday after work I went on over to the Scouse House for my tea and to watch a film. I went to Aldi on the way to pick up some bargain red wine. James rang me and basically demanded I do a full on shop for him... not really! He wanted a box of red wine where I ended up having to send him some photographs of what they had on offer shame on him. Danny made us all some lovely kangaroo pasta with garlic bread it was very good I love Kangaroo!! We drank red wine and then we watched Slumdog Millionaire and had a nice chilled out night in!! I then went home for a nice rest as we were planning on a beach day the next day as it was actually forecast for a sunny day! Friday was also Ellie's wedding back at home, it was so weird not being there. When I finished work at 7pm it was 9am for her and she was heading off with Mc n Jess to get their hair done, then later on when they were back they facetimed me so I could see their hairs looking excellently styled! They were looking lovely bless them!! So gutted I missed the big day I couldn't sleep all night as I was awaiting updates from people about how the day was going haha!! The pictures on facebook looked amazing, she def had the best day of her life!! Happy days for them indeed!!

On the Saturday I was up nice and early and headed straight over to Brighton Beach to claim our spot next to the huts. I got there put my ipod on and fell asleep as it was sooo warm and I was sooo sleepy! And then I woke up as I could sense something was wrong - Sarah and James were blocking my sunshine!! Shame on them! They had came with Danny and Charlotte and we had a lovely beach day chilling out and making friends with a nice man from Israel and his aussie wife - the loved our accents obviously!! Although it was sunny the water was as cold as ice so I just popped my toe in the water and it almost froze off! We then went back to get ready for our big night out! I got ready went round to the Scouse House, Steph and Andrea came too. I gave Sarah her leaving gifts of a S keyring and a I heart Australia shot glass. And we went straight on over to Campari House where we get $4 champagne so we had that obviously and then we headed over to our favourite restaurant in Melbourne which is of course Max's which is literally facing the Scouse House! So there was 7 us of there, and the waiter George who we now know very well as we all walk past him numerous times every week had set us out some name tags so he could learn our names too bless him. We call Sarah Toots sometimes so we put that on hers and he was calling her Toots all night it was so sweet. It was amazing going there again as the food is amazing. We got some breads and dips and some garlic bread to share. And for the main event I ordered Kangaroo steak which is what Brucey got the first time we all went there and it was lush when I had a taste so I got that and it came on a bed of sweet potato mash with veg with a gravy boat with red wine Jus oh my goodness it was amazing. Kangaroo is my steak of choice from now on i think it was soo tasty and they cooked it medium rare so it was just lush. Some people appear to be grossed out by eating kangaroo but I have no issues with that! I think Lambs are way cuter and I def don't mind eating that too. With our lovely meal me and Sarah got ourselves on the champagne of course. We bought one bottle then we got a free bottle from the restaurant and we got free shots too which we loved. All the staff proper look after us in there they are very sweet. Charlotte ended up being really drunk for the whole meal bless her she was hilarious and hardly spoke and just ate as much as she could and one point had everyones glasses of water in front of her. She said later this was to sober her up but it didn't really work too good. She was texting her mam gobbledegook too and her mam was like 'charl how much have you drank tonight' so she rang her and had a drunken conversation with her for ages - her poor mam haha. During the meal Sarah made a lovely speech where she didn't quite cry but she looked quite emotional it was so sweet we all can't believe that she's actually going! We then headed on over through Chinatown to a really cool club called the Croft Institute, this is an ex mental institution and there is actual hospital beds you can lie in and pose on haha. To get there you have to go down about 3 rape alleys. You would not want to meet people in there if you were alone its so creepy round there. Lucky we were in a gang of 7, all the alleyways in Melbourne or Laneways as they are known here are well known for being graffiti covered by the most amazing graffiti you can ever imagine it is amazing what you walk past every day real life modern art all over the city! These alleys to the club were definitely no different to that, they were all looking amazing, when we got to the right alleyway t get in to the club it was all lit up above with red neon lights it looked well cool. We paid $10 to get in which we never usually pay to get in anywhere but we made an exception for such a funky place. As it is a mental institution when you buy cocktails they come with syringes instead of straws, and apparently you can get bags of cocktails like a drip bag. It was a very cool bar I treated myself to a very tasty cocktail complete with syringe. We bopped about and made several new friends then we decided it was time to go back to the scouse house for some party time. So off we went we picked up Liam and Aimee from work on the way and then Kyle, Tom, Sarah, Shauna, Jess, Sam, Osh, Ryan and some others came and we got partying. We played some flip cup, and all danced to the song on our dancing stations and drank goon from a syringe. Eventually James, Charlotte and Danny went to bed so there was me Sarah and our work crew partying hard. It was a very random night and at one point Liam and me pretended to be harry potter living under the stairs in the cupboard but we actually got trapped in there until someone let us out haha. Then Sarah went to bed and we were all having a party with no one who lived there present oops. Eventually it was just me shauna, kyle and tom left and I left at around 4am and they were still partying hard and also having a domestic as Tom promised Kyle they would taxi home together but Tom couldn't be bothered at this point and had decided to stay at Sarah's so they had words as they are like an actual married couple bless them! So canny! All night we took about 5 million photos on my iPhone and in the morning I was crying with laughter at how funny they were as they all kept stealing my phone to take photos of them selves. And they were in a terrible state!!

I woke up early the next day feeling horribly bad for some reason, I was meant to be going out for lunch and a few drinks with the scousers but instead I stayed in bed all day long which was amazing. I eventually made it out to Coles at 7pm to buy some food to eat, another bonus of living in Australia is that the shops don't shut at 4pm on a Sunday! You can go get anything you want from a supermarket until around midnight on a Sunday so no Sunday rush its so much nicer. I got myself some hot cross buns which of course taste nothing like bloody hot cross buns in the uk! I am now really wanting some real galaxy chocolate, salt and vinegar walkers crisps and a box of weetos would make me so happy at the moment haha. That night I also managed to ring my lovely parents and Skype Sarah Mc and Our Claire so all in all my duvet day (minus the duvet) was quite sucessfull. Just need to skype Angela, Lauriepops, Marie and Ellie next and I will be well up to date almost!!

On the Monday I was at work feeling very fresh for the first time ever ( i didn't do drinks with Janine on the Sunday night for the first time ever oh my gods spot the connection) and after work I went on over to the scouse house with steph for our tea. Sarah was teaching Charlotte how to make corn beef hash so we had that with carrots and cabbage and oh my goodness it was good indeed!! Proper homemade comfort food just what you need when its getting cold on the night!! So we had a lovely meal, then we got some cake with a cuppa which was lovely then Steph left then Andrea arrived

and we all sat down and had a nice little gossip about how we were going to miss Sarah and she was saying she was scared to go home! She's been away for 20 months bless her so shes excited but worried she will hate it back at home! I think she will be fine when she sees her parents n friends again she will be happy as larry. When me and Andrea decided to go home we were waiting to give her a hug while she was looking at herself in the mirror, she then squeezed a spot on her nose and it went all over the mirror!! Haha this was the point we realised australia is actually probably kicking her out of the country nevermind her leaving on her own freewill! What a tramp haha. We were absolutely pissing ourselves with laughter. Shame on her indeed.

The next day I had a lovely day at work then when I finished I went straight over to the scouse house so I could go to the airport with Sarah, Danny and Charl to wave off our Sarah. Danny has a car as he is a very glamorous backpacker. Poor James is currently working in sydney for the week so he couldnt come to say bye. When I got to their house I saw the biggest case in the world in Sarahs bedroom! I thought my backpack was big this case is HUGE!! We tried to weigh it and with a online conversion chart which may or may not have been correct it showed it weighed 33kgs haha which is mental for a backpacker!! So funny. It was literally bigger than her! I actually wish i had a case that big haha. She couldnt pick it up very well and danny had to carry it downstairs for her. Then when we left Danny, Charl and Sarah all helped carry it down the big stairs to outside!! She looked so sad poor lass, she posed for a picture outside their house and then off we went to the airport. Danny was getting stressed cos of the traffic as it was quite busy and we thought we were going to be late, and Charl was back at work that night. But we got to the airport and gave her a cuddle and our love and she cried of course. It was so emotional!! And off she went, it was highly traumatic!! We then had to go and park the car in some random street near a train station so we could train it back home as you cant really park in the city where they live haha what a nightmare?! I have no idea where he usually parks his car!? We were cutting it fine for the train so we ran like a bunch of forrest gumps down the street and in to the train station and literally just made it - but I have no seriously damaged my legs from the exercise having done none since I left the uk oops!! I really need to go for a run i think! All the way home on the train was a man muttering away to himeself?! Oh dear another crazy australian. I bloody love those guys!!

Its now Thursday today I have done nothing else exciting since then, just work, eat and sleep.

Tonight I am considering a night out for some $1 champers and tomorrow me and Janine are planning on going for a mexican on Friday night yey and then on Saturday im away on my holidays to Tasmania YEY!! I cant wait to get myself there!!! Muchos love and hugs all xxxxxxxxxxx