sadly my big week out is over. quite sadly actually. now that it is february it feels like it is the beginning of the end of my time in melbourne. this past week its been fantastic meeting up with quite a few people i havent seen for months, those in town for a short time and those who are just busy. the people, the shows, the sunny days in beer gardens and the relaxed atmosphere.. thats summer.

a few friends from sydney flew in and trained in on saturday/ sunday last weekend. i met up with steph and ryan for coffee in the morning, it was probably their 20th coffee that morning and we hung out until emma and stu came and met us. with all the rearranging or where we were all going to go that afternoon steph left ryan in our care for a few hours so she could do get her stuff done. we dropped off emma and stu's stuff at my house sat for a bit then started to walking the direction of fed square to pick up gaby. on the way downstairs i get a message from jason asking what time we are heading to the show. my reply was something like: beer garden, right now, pick you up on the way. by pick you up im sure i insinuated involvement of a car and not walking but oh well. we got jason on the way to fed square and then found gaby.. group growing every stop.. got on a tram after decided that the 16 definitely went that far down st kilda road so it was a safe route to take. arriving at the belgian bier cafe we were about 45 minutes later than the intended meet up time, so megan had been waiting for a little while. steph arrived a while later and so did aaron, who hadnt been sure if he would make it or not. i didnt realize that only steph and i had met him before, so he was putting faces to crazy. then the drinking shenanigans began. megan has a good pic of ryan reaching for beer among about 20 empties sitting there, captioned: MOAR. that was the afternoon. at one point gaby and i went to get chips. seeing that there was three sauces we decided on one tomato, one mayonaise, and one hot sauce. we are smart cause it was a good choice and we devoured the chips. gaby's other half dropped by for a while before they headed off to their evening activity. aaron had to go too and watch fireworks in the g-rat on sunday night. melbourne had their fireworks on saturday night.

i was starting to feel not so good with the amount of beer consumed and wanted a break for a while. i decided to go home because i needed to change my shoes anyways, and met everyone else at that prince. it was going to be emma, stu, steph, jason and i that went to the show. megan waited with ryan in the bar downstairs playing pool or something for 3 hours. i cant imagine the patience she has with tired ryan who hadnt slept the night before. anyhow, i get into the prince and there are 50 or 60 people in the room, the people i know at front and center. apparently when they got there jason gravitated towards cam and tish who had been waiting for a while. that ended up being a waste of time on their part since some bogan asshole pushed them out the way when UNKLE came on. the new drink of choice began: vodka and red bull. im so loving red bull even though i know how bad it is to drink and mixing it with alcohol is even worse.. damn knowledge of the adrenergic system. funny thing is i never drank a single red bull until a couple of months ago.. when i bought a round i was shocked they were $13 each. hello, rip off.

i already posted about this show and it was fantastic. i didnt mention how the people who obviously got in free (read: photographers) were fucking annoying as, some stupid girl decides she is going to push me out the way then stick her camera in front of my face. until she moved i made it next to impossible for her to take a clear shot. asshole. perhaps when one doesnt have to pay $65 to get in the door they can show more respect for the people that do. all you need if one good photo to get paid from whoever you are taking pics for.

after the show we waited way too long to get a cab home. we split up and finding two taxis proved to be a challenge. fitzroy street was swarmed at that time of night and more people were leaving bars than i would have expected at 12:30. we finally did get a taxi and got dropped off at the mcdonalds at swanson and lonsdale. realizing that none of us had eaten dinne, we very much in need for food at that time, mcdonalds was going to have to do. the UNKLE show day shall now forever be known as the day i went to mcdonalds in australia.

big day out was monday. we left much later than anticiapted to get there. i forgot to eat dinner that day too. i guess i was too concerned about seeing bands. tuesday was the nightwatchmen, i posted about this already too. i was less than impressed when my friends basically walked outside saw a cab and jumped in. they didnt even ask how i was getting home. thanks! wednesday was going to be arcade fire, then it was going to be rage, then it was nothing because i sold my ticket to arcade fire then decided that rage were way too boring at BDO and i wasnt wasting another $110 to see them play something i can hear on a cd.

thursday i did get to LCD soundsystem. gaby decided not to go so i got her ticket. that worked out well since i couldnt find anything online. not a single ticket was even on ebay. steph came over after work and we had drinks at my place. i managed to be a complete minimalist that night and not take a purse. i used to be able to go out all the time with i.d., keys, money and my phone. and that is what i did on thursday, yay me. id drunk enough that i had to use the toilets three times before LCD came on. that worked out ok too, on the route back to the floor after the last trip i followed some other girl who was going back to her spot and we were only 4-5 people back from the stage. that show was really good too. good crowd, lots of dancing and happy people not pushing each other out of raging anger. it would have been good for the set to be longer, i always feel like that when it is an enjoyable show.

friday was more meet, part 2. the idea was pizza and beer, or beer and pizza. steph found out that marrakech has $0.99 coronas from 5-7 and the aim was to get there. jason and i got there at 6:30 and there was massive line outside to get in. we texted some more and further rearranged what to do. in the mean time megan and chris showed with one of their friends. chris and friend would prove to be entertainment for the rest of the night. steph left the bar because it was ridiculously packed inside and cheap beer was almost over. the decision was made to go to st jerome's. score. it was not packed at all and we walked right in. coopers long necks were in order. gaby met us there, which was good since the plan to meet for pizza at 7:30 was not going to happen until much later. during beer drinking we had some good reminising about shows and tour moments. fun and silly.

pizza eating was to be at pizza-a-metro, my pick, and i was surprised no one else had been there. the seven of us had 1.7 meters of pizza, none left over. so good. the varieties we ordered were salvatore, vego, special and aussie. (this was written for the purpose of the former regulars ;-) ) and house red wine and beer. i think everyone agreed that it was pretty excellent food.

megan, chris and friend headed off to a show in chapel street after pizza and the rest of us took a walk down lygon street. end point: il dolce freddo. gelato goodness. i told the server to give jason a sample of durian since he had never had it before, 3 hours later he was telling me he could still taste it after eating chocolate ice cream. i had some pandan and coconut gelato, highly recommended.

we hung out for a bit eating on the street, then hung out for a bit at my place before gaby and steph headed home. jason stayed at mine and left this morning at 5am to catch his flight to perth. i went back to sleep after he left and have been having the laziest day yet this year. sadly the excitment is over and i have to concentrate more of work without the benefit of having good nights to look forward to. not sure if i will be around next australia day holiday week to hang out in melbourne some more.. time will tell.

oh and for tomorrow, happy yield day! 10 years, wow.