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Published: November 2nd 2006
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Our ride home
And what a rather attractive copper he was on second inspection. Didn't appreciate the photo though. Hello there chums,
Well as I mentioned earlier, we arrived safely in Melbourne after the last check in again (damn all the planes - all of them). My face wash had also spectacularly exploded in my bag, and is one of the ones with the little scrubbing balls for exfoliation, so have spent the last week trying to get rid of the balls of doom from various items of clothing, gifts, and other necessities.
So that's all I've been up to... Nah, just joshing. The Melbourne international festival was just ending as we arrived. Not having had enough in the Burgh of Edin, I dragged Alison to go see something. We found the Spiegeltent and saw that a production that I'd wanted to go and see all summer, but had never got round to going to was on.
Swing dance it was then. Now, Ali is not one for the dance, but donning our poshest, most swing dance attire in our bags off we toddled. I was expecting a live jazz band, but no luck, just a CD. The dance group however, compensated. they also had semolina cakes for afternoon tea! We were taught the moves and could
Have you ever felt like this?!
This is the lighthouse from round the twist. I'm the yellow blob at the bottom for scale. piece together a small routine with our partners. It turned out though, that our partners were trained cerco (?) dancers, so when it came to the time for just a jiving around, they took the lead and I tried my very hardest to spin and return on demand. Now, I've never been led before, but phew, I was spun, lent, and caught, like someone who knows how to twirl... and it was great! I'm converted. Ali fell on her arse (tee hee), but I firmly believe it was her chap's fault who'd dropped her. They walked us back to our hostel (which, did I mention doesn't have walls that reach the ceiling, so you can hear everyone in the room next door).
It was then time to party. We shouted over the MDF divide to the Irish girlies next door if they wanted to play some games with us and our roomies, and so they did. It was fun. We'd heard of somewhere to go and set off in that direction, but didn't know where it was. the Irish girls had the key and we got in 2 taxis.
Our driver didn't know where it was either and
I meet some locals
And the 'roos flocked to me, almost like rats to the pied piper ended up taking us an expensive trip further away from the club. Classic. On departure from rubbish taxi we realised we couldn't read the map to figure out how to get there so had to ask every 2nd person where it was. we had to get to this club to meet the Irish girls so we could get the key to get in! Anyhow, eventually we did. The music was rubbish (very doosh doosh doosh, but I got them to play Mylo) but they made up for it with free drinks all night. I'll skip the rest of the details, but will just say we got a lift home in a mobile police prison with 6 officers (didn't tell you that on the phone did I parentals!). It's okay though, we're free to leave the country still.
we had met a guy called Oliver one evening, and the conversation had gotten round to religion etc and he'd invited us to his church that Saturday. Excited by the prospect of a gospel-type event and doing something worthy after the drinking the previous night we accepted. The posh clothes came out again (twice in a weekend!) and off we set.
Ali tucks into her tea
Sad times when a cold can of baked beans on a bench is all you can stretch to for dinner 2 tram rides later we entered. The sight before us left us a little speechless; a string quintet, 2 guitars, drums, 2 pianos and 7 singers, with lighting effects, graced the stage. It was like a rock concert. It was really fun for the 1st hour, with lots of singing with eyes shut and clenching of fists in meaningful manners. we clapped and bobbed. I was allowed to sing as loud as I wanted without Ali telling me to shut up. Excellent! It didn't matter that we didn't know the songs as they were often to classic tunes such as "Ole, ole, ole, ole" (trust me you know the tune - it's the football one).
After the sing song/concert, the preachers came on. 1 compared Jesus to Oprah Winfrey. The next did a poor poor poor comedy routine. It was him who declared that approx 13 members of the 300 strong congregation had been away from Jesus. He wanted them to put their hands up in acknowledgement. He wasn't letting us go until 13 had done so.
I was hungry by this point. I wanted to go. No one was putting their hand up. we had been away
Alison got locked in the toilet
It took a while to get her down from jesus. I put my hand up. Big mistake. He thanked me and said he'd pray for me (so far so good). Ali put her hand up right at the end and also got prayed for. Then we stood for another song but we got told we had to come down to the front. I don't think so. But they were pretty forceful and gathered in numbers to usher us down. So embarrassing. I was actually praying by this point that Ali wouldn't crack up! We got to the front, cheeks a crimson colour, to be told by the preacher that we'd now entered the family of Christ and he was our brother... a "brother from a different mother". Enough said.
We then left, walking up the aisle in front of the 300 ish people (maybe more). Interesting fact though, Ned from Neighbours attends this Church. I didn't manage to catch a glimpse of him through the tears of embarrassment in my eyes though. We then got led to a room underneath the service hall. It was then I began to worry we'd signed up for some kind of cult (I gave them false contact details just in case, which Ali didn't and promptly hated me for a bit, and I also felt really bad about as they were religious do-gooders. Better to be safe than sorry though...). It turned out to be all right. They just wanted to chat Jesus for a bit, and then they wanted us to go out with them after, but we made feeble excuses and legged it.
This does mean we're in hiding from Oliver on Mondays, Fridays and Sundays when they have Bible discussion groups, but thankfully we've kept ourselves busy.
We'd hired a car for Tuesday to see the Great Ocean Road. Oo er. This was actually incident free apart from the indicator being on the right hand side of the wheel instead of the left we're used to. Also they have this crazy move where if you're turning right at crossroads you wait in the left lane to turn. We didn't realise this for a while. The countryside was suprisingly similar to Scotland's. I honestly wouldn't have known the difference except for the names of Burns being wonderful like 'Petticoat Creek'. We stayed clear of 'Jacob's Creek' though...Very sensible! The scenery was spectacular and very geographical so I of course was in my element!
Next day we were also off on an adventure. Phillip Island. This place is famous for little 33 cm tall penguins. They are the smallest of the 17 species and come out in their hundreds at twilight. We went to another animal sanctuary on route, which really had nothing on Lone Pine in Brizzy, but did give us a good lunch. Pretty cool all in all.
Today Angela arrives so we switched rooms. Our new room had a chuffing large hole in the ceiling and it's raining tfor the 1st time here...Typical. I went to sort that out and Ali went to the little ladies room. I return to hear cries of "Rhiannon...RHIANNON!!!". Ali's locked in. Genius. It's a very high door so I chuck over the bucket that was catching the water from our hole so she can scramble up to get out. She can't get down t'other side. Classic. I have to get a wee Chinese man to get her down. His face is a picture. Ali doesn't appreciate the pause in my attempts to help to take a picture. Serves her right...ha ha.
Anyhow, enough of that. It's been another mammoth one. Won't leave it so long next time... Happy bonfire night folks.
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Alison (frae JLE)
non-member comment
Wow!
Hey, God it sounds like you are having the time of your life, great pictures. Life continues on as exciting as ever here at JLE (think we'll just have to cancel Christmas). Well keep having fun and don't let the kangaroos bite! Ali P