Anzac day and beyond

In lieu of Anzac day, Monday the 26th of April was a public holiday. Michelle and I cycled to Brighton beach, about 10kms in the breezy sunshine, if we stopped too long we got cold which encouraged us to go faster! The beach here was a lot nicer than St Kilda’s beach, proper sand here. They have cute little painted beach huts, which is the tourist reason for coming here, but the beach itself is quite pleasant, worth remembering – despite the treck to get there…think you can get there by train/tram/walking too…Then in the evening Michelle and I went to Birdman eating on Gertrude street, had pretty nice tapas (e.g. scallops with apple sauce and pancetta, and chicken breast with Jerusalem artichoke puree and halloumi and carrot salad) and admired the weird décor of Barbie dolls with wings hanging on strings.

Started my belly dancing classes this week along with Di, was good fun, also went back to Di’s for dinner and met her husband and three adorable kids. A sweet evening. This week saw Igor Stravinsky and Coco Channel in the cinema, kinda nice film in terms of being very stylish, but a bit really about them just having sex everywhere whilst his wife and kids lived with them. Before going to the cinema I went to a nearby place called Ember lounge (www.emberlounge.com.au/index/home) to get some din. They said should be easy to get pizza in 40 mins, then they forgot about me. When I brought it up, in a bit of a moany British way, the chef managed to convince me he could cook my gluten free pizza in 3 minutes…which he did and it was a good pizza too…then they refunded me…and cheered me up by being very jolly about it all…will be going back! Had my first swimming stroke correction lesson – I’m an all right swimmer but I thought it might be fun to learn to perfect my stroke technique. The teacher suggested loads in half an hour…I’ve kinda gotta change my whole swimming style! Also had yoga class on my own the same day…my bottom was killing by the end of the day from all the swimming and yoga stretching! On my Friday off I spent the whole day planning my trip next weekend to Kangaroo Island near Adelaide where I will be going off to visit my Statistician for my Oxford job. In the evening I went to meet Michelle and some other work-related colleagues at Loop (www.looponline.com.au/bar.html) in the city. Was quite a dark venue, but very popular too and quite cool with cocktails. Met one work colleague I’d written to for several months but never met which was fun. Ended up also in Comme Kitchen (www.comme.com.au), big bright white high ceilinged venue, it did food as well. Had various Australian terminology explained to us including the term ‘Bogan’…went to a venue called New Gold mountain (www.newgoldmountain.org), quite green, then further on to the upstairs venue in the same building which was very red.

At the end of the evening Veronica, who I’d met properly first of all at Auckland, invited me back to hers in the outer part of the city, so taxid it back and her and I stayed up talking until very late in the morning. Then Saturday morning she had to be up at 9am and off to Doncaster shopping centre…I decided to come and have a look at the shopping centre too, very fancy place with a good food mall and comfy luxurious looking sofas throughout the place. Got a taxi home as navigating via buses seemed too complicated. That evening went with Michelle and Kate (who’d been witnessing several hundred/thousand people in the city dressed up as Zombies!) to an Ice Hockey game of Melbourne versus Sydney…was kinda fun

…then we went for food in a £12 buffet Chinese, it didn’t feel like the most hygienic of places, it was a bit odd…don’t remember the name, but would quite happily avoid! We also went to 24 moons which is quite a cool venue, down a dark alley somewhere in the city: www.24moons.com.au - then we tried to find two venues from the Lonely Planet guide, one of which no longer existed and the other which had been knocked down (‘Shit Town’ the latter was called!), walked in and walked out just to take a look at ‘Sister Bella’ and that seemed quite cool.

On Sunday Kate and I took a Met train out to Belgrave. Whilst waiting for Kate I witnessed these cool piano steps here I’m guessing due to the Jazz festival being on, they played as you walked up and down the steps! The train ride between the city and Belgrave was not too exciting. BUT then! We saw Puffing Billy steam train! An old style train which cost a monstrous $35 for an adult, but there didn’t appear to be much else to do so we gave it a go.

It was quite lovely chugging along at 15Ks an hour and back again staring up at the Eucalyptus trees or down in to the valley. Sometimes if you’re lucky apparently you may see snow about…none sighted. We saw moor hens with blue tummys though and a Kookaburra! When we got back to the city we met Michelle at Movida for tapas and moider, I liked the food, but it was a bit on the pricey side, but the venue was next to all the cool graffiti, loads and loads of it, and the artists got so carried away they even painted the bins! We then wandered up and down the river and introduced Michelle to the delights of Trampoline ice cream. We also came across another fancy music thing near Federation Square in honour of the Jazz festival, lots of lit up balls dancing to the music - quite mesmerising.  Dancing balls for Melbourne Jazz festival. Dancing balls: www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnsjAhu-oAA

After that we went to meet Gabby at the Carlton Hotel (the one with the stuffed Ostrich and Giraffe) for beer where she was drinking with two of her friends. A bit of a late Sunday night for me, very nice weekend though, really enjoyed it.

Monday and Tuesday have been OK. Monday I learnt to do the Round House Kick at Kick Boxing, very cool although obviously I'm no pro yet! It's really proper exhausting that class and he made us do press ups on our knuckles too. For the first time in ages on Monday I cooked for myself, rather proud, despite it being a basic pasta sauce! Did the same on Tuesday...if I'm not careful I'll get myself a reputation for aaaaaaaaalways cooking at home. Tuesday had belly dancing which also was pretty labour intensive, got to play with a scarf and a cane as part of the various shifts she showed us! Not much excitement I shouldn't think for the rest of the week but next weekend Kangaroo Island and sand boarding!???