Mulling through Melbourne

It was just a short bus ride from Phillip Island to Melbourne full of scenic views that looked like the hills from the opening scene of the Sound of Music. Mark disagrees with this statement but we seem to have many different opinions when it comes to what things look like. From the bus station we walked 20 minutes to get to hotel discovery more commonly known as “the party hostel”. This place was recommended to us by a German we met in Sydney who told us that it was one of the best hostels he had ever stayed at because of the party atmosphere. We weren’t really sure what to expect but quickly figured out why he loved this place so much. When you check in you get an itinerary that lays out all of the activities that go on that week. Luckily the first night we arrived there was a FREE wine & cheese party followed by the game minute to win it. For those of you who know me you know that I love wine and I really love cheese, but most of all I love to compete and that night I got a taste of all three! It all started around 8:30pm. Mark and I walked down to the bar with some Canadians we met, grabbed an empty wine glass and took a seat. Within 1 minute a very energetic girl came around with a bottle of wine and topped everyone up which was just the start of endless rounds of red and white wine top ups.

 The wine and cheese lasted for about 30 minutes so we had a little while to wait before the minute to win it game started. I was determined to participate and thankfully the other Canadians we met (Will and Danielle) were as well! Essentially it was an epic competition of making fools of ourselves round after round by building card houses, trying to blow cups over with balloons, passing a balloon from person to person using your knees, and ending with the most dominating rounds of flip cup I’ve ever played! To put it lightly, the Canadians dominated that night and were rewarded with a $50 bar tab. That night couldn’t have gone any better!

 

The next day we woke up to go exploring but clearly didn’t research Melbourne enough and ended up wondering around for the majority of the day. We did however get to see the AFL parade that went through the main streets. They had all the players in the back of little car/truck things (that by the way are everywhere and are the ugliest cars in the world) and marching bands, mascots, and a huge line of bagpipers.

 

After the parade we went to a film museum to explore around there for a couple of hours then headed back to the hostel to find Will and Danielle so we could go to the Eureka Skydeck. The Skydeck is the tallest building in Melbourne and you can see the entire city and beyond from up there. They have little screens on the floor that tell you interesting facts about buildings and events that had happened there and an area where you could walk outside and feel like you’re being blown away by the high winds which was actually quite refreshing. The Friday was a pretty low and slow day because we were saving our energy for the next day when the AFL final was on.

 

 

The AFL final was on Sept 28^th and it was played between Fremantle Dockers and the Hawthorn Hawks. As I stated before I was cheering for Fremantle because I had met someone from Perth and Mark was cheering for Hawthorn for no real reason. The morning of the match we walked around trying to find a pub that we could eat and drink at with no luck. As expected people had lined up and gotten to the pubs hours before the game started so there was no chance of us getting a seat inside anywhere. We decided to go to Federation Square where the game was being played on a big screen outside. We found our seats and got ready to watch the game and I must say, I’ve heard about how they play this game and that it’s pretty rough but I never expected to see what I did…For those of you who don’t know what Aussie Rules football is it’s essentially a mix between rugby, football, soccer and basketball. The players jump, dive, leap, sprint, kick, throw, pull, punch, strangle and of course face gouge! There seem to be no rules to this game other than kick the ball between the posts and get some points before you’re pummeled into the ground. If I were to describe what I saw on that giant screen I would say that it looked like 30 men running around trying to hold onto a tiny rugby ball that is covered in Vaseline while sprinting around the field kicking and punching the ball to their team mates who can barely catch the ball because of the 10 other men scratching, pulling and kicking them ensuring that they don’t catch the ball.  Unfortunately Fremantle lost in this savage sporting event, but I was alright with it after Mark finished gloating.

That night I had my first taste of what Australians call “goon” which is a big ol’ bag of wine. There is a goon bag challenge where you drink an entire bag and then blow up the bag once you’re done and use it as a pillow to sleep on. I didn’t try that because it’s 4L of wine and I would probably die, but people have attempted and completed this challenge and I am very impressed by those people. We hung out with our Canadian friends for the night drinking the goon wine and then heading down to the bar for some darts and beer pong (beer pong was rigged because the other team kept on making up rules on the go…not cool).

 The next morning we had to wake up quite early and head back to the train station where we boarded the train to head to…CANBERRA!!!