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Captain Tom's Voyage of Discovery
Howdy all!
Sorry about the lack of a proper Melbourne update & sorry if this one is a tad on the long side!
Well I have decided to skip getting the OZ Bus to Sydney. The reason behind this is that it would take me 4 days and leave me with only 2 in Sydney. Instead I have managed to score a Virgin Blue flight on Sunday for only $80 - which is about 35 of our good old British Pounds!
Sunday morning involved my obligatory piece of culture in the form of a trip to the immigration museum - wooooo thrilling! On my return, I was convinced by my room m8 Alistair and two new Brit lads in my hostel (Adam & David) that a trip to 'Federation Square' to watch the Socceroos take on Brazil at 2am would be a laugh. After the staple back-packer meal of pasta, the four of us ended up having to run (hurrah!) for the last tram in to town. Being good English lads, we decided that it would be improper of us not to get a ticket, but which one? After debating for a few minutes about the finer points of Melbourne's tram ticketing system a young local lad - who from this point onwards shall be referred to as 'random guy' - helped us out and kindly offered to show us the places to go in Melbourne before the footy.
All was going well until he made us get off at some random tram station and preceded to make us walk down the middle of some huge 6 lane road with only a small patch of pavement in the middle. At this point, the 3 lads and I were wondering if Random Guy was going to take us down some crazy back alley before pulling out a gun or something along those lines. Don't worry Mum - he didn't. He actually took us to some HUGE street which was, according to him, a good place for a night out. Well not on a Sunday! We did manage to find a good Irish pup though. However, Random Guy, when asked to produce some ID, couldn't! So after asking Adam to pretend to be his Dad, we went inside and offered our apologies to Random.
So a few pints later, we headed outside only to find Random had been waiting for us! Ha-ha! He then took us on another unnecessary trek to get into town. Oh Alex- if you are reading this you need to check out Melbourne's public toilets - automatic toilet seats. We all know how much you like to impress the ladies with your knowledge of 'fancy' toilets! If you don't know what I am talking about, Stef will have no problems telling you that story!
On our arrival at Federation Square (a big version of Exchange Square back home) we headed of to another local establishment to get our 'beer jacket' for the big match. And guess what? Random got rejected again - this time pleading with Adam to pretend to be his dad. Now Adam is only in his mid 20s, so you can guess he wasn't too impressed! At this point we said our farewells to Random Guy - what a looser! After watching the Ozzy's getting their ass kicked, we headed back to Base.
There was no chance for a lazy day to recover as Monday was NEIGHBOURS DAY!!!!! The tour was ok - nothing special. A brief trip to Erinsborough High was followed by a drive past the studio and a visit to Ramsey Street. After vast amounts of photo taking, we jumped back on our bus to watch a selection of the defining moments from Neighbours history. I still have the annoying music in my head. No sooner had we returned to our hostel, it was time to prepare for the absolute carnage that would be the Neighbours Night. I can not remember the last time I was in a room with so many drunken people (and so many drunken ladies!) As about 90% of the people there were Brits, it was like being back home! I managed to get my pictures taken with Max, Boyd and Janelle. Everyone was a tad disappointed that Dr Karl or Harold didn't make an appearance but it was still a good night - sorry for the lack of detail, free beer does that to you!
The next day, who did I bump into in my hostel? Former school friends Tom, Scot and Naomi!! How random is that?!? After getting over the shock and agreeing to meet up later it was time to go and do something constructive! What better way to recover from a post Neighbours Night hangover than going to the Melbourne Museum??
After a promising start, with Alistair & David getting far too into the displays of dead marsupials, we all started to feel the strain and the rest of the museum was taken in with far less scrutiny. The plan for the rest of the day had been to sleep and then get up at 5am to watch England v Sweden but my chance meeting with Tom and co had thrown that out the window...well the sleeping part. After demolishing my supply of raisin toast and a bag of Goon, our CHS reunion took full swing! I have some good pics - too many are of Tom's arse though! I managed to get back to my hostel just in time for the footy. By 7am I was feeling pretty poo!
I haven't been up to much over the last couple of days - I am now suffering from the most dreaded of illnesses: man flu! Sorry about the length of this update and I am pretty sure I have missed loads out.
All the best,
TOM x
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