I spent over one week in Melbourne and I honestly felt the most comfortable in Melbourne then Perth or Adelaide. No offense guys! It has a combination of beach life and city life. The hostel Base was very intimidating at first. WAY different from the previous hostels I’ve been staying at. Insanely filled with partypackers and flashpackers. Many of the ‘travelers’ there stuck for months at a time working (hardly working) their way around Oz and partying every single night. The hostel is massive fitting a hundred people or more. There’s a very active bar inside the hostel with weekly events like quiz nights, open mic, games, etc. It gets everyone together. Then the night picks up with music till about 12-1am. It was basically a hotel made for the youth. Not a bad place or anything but just expensive. Somehow it was $28 a night for me yet if you book it online it’s cheaper. Unfair if you ask me, it should be the same price regardless of where you book it or how long you plan on staying for. It should be equal for everyone. Location of Base was perfect though. Right next to the Tram and is in a beautiful location right next to the beach of St.Kilda. Ok enough about Base.
I must have had the best room possible at Base. It was a 8 bed dorm and every single one of us got along so well. We all became friends and hung out nearly everyday. Since most of us were staying for a week or more, we all got to know each other pretty well.
I booked my flight to Argentina for October 7th leaving out of Sydney. I found Oz to be way too expensive for my budget. It’s only possible to do Oz if you’re working around the country for a year. I want this trip to last as long as possible and Australia is not helping. Plus to be honest I’m getting tired of traveling around and need to settle somewhere for a few months before I keep going. Traveling believe it or not takes a lot of energy of out someone. I never want to stop traveling but I do need a break every now and then to recharge my battery. No worries, I’ll be back and this time to work around the whole country.
September 16th
I decided to rent a bike for the day and ride around Melbourne. It was the perfect way to see the beach and the city. Can’t remember the last time I road a bicycle but I picked it up again quickly. Riding around the beach side was so calming. Endless amount of random café’s and locals just having a picnic outside. Melbourne is very bicycle riding friendly with bike paths everywhere throughout the city. It made for the perfect ride and good workout. At night I killed everything I had worked out and my friends and I purchased a box of cheap wine (Goon!). Goon is the backpackers choice of alcohol as its super cheap and huge quantity. A few card games after, we hit the beach piers to continue our madness. The adventures of us messing around at the pier would likely have gotten us all arrested. Good times!! Well the next morning headache sucked though.
September 17th
Bunch of us went to Melbourne’s Aquarium. Penguins, Sharks, Stingrays, Jellyfishes, and other random water creatures. Fun day actually. Messing around taking nonsense pictures. The people I was with made the Aquarium way better then it actually was lol.
September 18th
There’s an AFL game this weekend (Aussie Football match) that I did not want to miss at all. It was one of the reasons why I was sticking around Melbourne longer. Ed met someone who lives in Melbourne on his trip to New Zealand who had a little scheme going for tickets. He bought child tickets which were priced $20 while adult tickets were $80. He got us the tickets and there were no issues at all. AFL Semi finals game for only $20, sweet deal. Guy was real cool and explained to us most of the rules of the game. It’s as if there were 10 sports combined into one. Pretty confusing but I understood most of it. Since my hostel was located in St.Kilda, I was naturally rooting for St.Kilda team to win. The stadium fits 100,000 people and they had 75,000 seats filled at the time. The crowd went absolutely wild over everything that happened. This is as Australian as it gets. To top it off, I ate a meat pie. St.Kilda won with only a few minutes remaining and the crowd went wild.
This is more insanity keeps on going. We all went back to the hostel but I was way too hyped up from the game to call it a night so I went out clubbing to a very popular dance club called Brown Alley. I knew most of the DJ’s playing and they had some local DJ’s playing as well. I get there about 1am. The music was most defiantly the best sounds I’ve heard in months. I know this might sound crazy but it may have been better then when I was in Singapore for Loco Dice. 5 different rooms playing all different types of electronic music. Everything from Minimal, Tech-House, Progressive House, Techno, and they even had one room playing Hard House. The crowd loved it and everyone went nuts over the music. I hardly drank because I’ve already spent way too much between the stadium and the entrance to the club but I still managed to stay up till 9am before I left the club though I did meet this guy who randomly gave me like 3 shots and a beer. Once I got back to the hostel, everyone was already awake and I decided to just stay awake the entire day otherwise I’ll just be sleeping and killing a day. And yes somehow I did manage to stay up the entire day though I did feel a bit delusional.
September 19th
This is what happens when I take too long to write an entry, I start to forget what I did during that day. I think for most of the day I hung out with Jade and some other friends. Drinking Goon may have been involved in this days activities.
September 20th
High Vibes Music Festival! Ah this was so much fun. A street filled with music and mayhem. Jade and I get on the tram on our way there. We notice someone asking the tram driver how to get to the festival and the driver has simply no idea. I told her we were going there as well and to just follow us. We somehow started talking and were introduced to about 5 other people she was meeting over there. Real random. There was a truck in the middle of the street that had a band on top of it playing awesome jazzy up-tempo music. I’ll get to uploading a video soon on it. The streets were a mess of beer cans, music, crazy people, and everyone having a good time; this is my kind of city! Our new friends knew of this backyard party happening beside the street so we went over there. Felt like we were at a fraternity or sorority party in the backyard of some building. Pretty hilarious and I loved it.
I had already booked my Greyhound bus ticket to Sydney but to tell you the truth, Melbourne really grew on me. The festivals, music, people, scenery, beach, and the city. I love it all. Well 12 hour bus ride to Sydney here is next…
PS.
Eri, You better be around when I get to Japan! By the way, Black Label is the BEST juice drink. I bought one the other day because I remembered you told me about it. I love it!
Jade, Keep in touch – especially when were both back in the states. Have fun in Cairns!
Ed, I’ll remember that you owe me lunch when I get to England. Hah
