Day 16: Back to Melbourne and more Catchups

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Woke up this morning and got breakfast with Debbie. This would be the only time I drove with someone else in my rental car. So I drove very carefully and it was handy having someone else in the car to watch your driving. We ate breakfast at a diner in Portland and we both had Eggs Hollandaise which I always enjoy. Still was not used to the price of the meal which was $50 or so. I was happy to buy Debbie breakfast for letting me crash at her place. After a photo at the Portland sign and after a final hug I reluctantly said goodbye to Debbie and was on my way back to Melbourne.

Driving back to Melbourne I took the road through the interior so it only took 4 hours to get to Melbourne. I dropped my car off at the drop off point and they drove me to the airport to catch a bus back to the city. I thought it was weird that I was taking the shuttle into the city without arriving on a plane. The skybus service cost $30 for return the next day as well. I got to the hostel and had just enough time to change clothes and call a taxi to my next catchup.

Michelle was my next catchup and just for some background. I was friends with Michelle back in grade school at Major Ballachey School in Brantford, Ontario Canada. It had been almost 18 years since I had last seen her because we went to different high schools. I knew she was in Australia but I thought it was too long a time for me to message her but she messaged me when she saw I was in Australia (We Are Facebook Friends). I am glad she did as it was really great to see her again.

We arranged to meet a place called Naked for Satan which is a bar/café in the Fitzroy region of Melbourne. Fitzroy is a trendy part of Melbourne, just think of Williamsburg in New York City. I had to take the taxi because I didn't have enough time to take the transit system and didn't know how to use it anyway. I got there before Michelle and sat a table watching the people come in and wondered if I would recognize her. Back in Grade school I remembered Michelle as the prettiest girl in our class and was quite curious what she looked like now. A few minutes after I got there Michelle walked in and I was a bit taken because she looked so much like her 13 year old self that I remembered. After a hug hello we went upstairs to the rooftop portion of the café. Michelle had never been to this café but she had heard of the view and I could see why. You have a great view of the Fitzroy area from up there. We settled in to tea and coffee and I thought it was a weird situation as it felt like we were picking up from where we left off all those years ago and halfway around the world. Michelle had married an Aussie a few years ago and had moved to Australia and was working her way to citizenship. She works as a cook in the hospitality industry. When we were both 13 years old I thought 30 years would be so old. I don't think either of us could imagine the next time we would see each other would be in this scenario. As I say, where the wind takes you no one can know. We chatted for a few hours and we could chatted for hours more as we were catching each other up on what had happened in the preceding 18 years. I wished I had a photo of our Grade 8 Class to see what we looked like back than but I settled on getting a picture of what we looked like now. We left the café and hugged goodbye with promises to catchup again someday but hopefully not wait 18 years 😊. I was planning to take a taxi to my next catchup in the south of Melbourne but Michelle gave me some advise on how to use the transit system. I bought a transit card at 7/11 and took a tram to the train station and than took the circle line train to Windsor station. For the record the Melbourne Transit system is affordable and efficient. Shannon would be picking me up from Windsor station.

Shannon was another great lady from my tour. I remember her because I thought she was such a cute lady and so much fun to hang out with. If you want someone who helps everyone have a good time than she is your lady 😉. Shannon works as a hairdresser in a salon and lives in a house with a number of other people.

I had a bit of time before she was going to pick me up at the station so I went to a pharmacy to find some powerful cough drops. When you travel for an extended period of time and are on planes and buses a lot you develop what is known as a Contiki/Topdeck cough. You catch it because you are in close proximity with other sick people. I have travel insurance but I usually try to avoid doctors/hospitals unless it is really bad. So the pharmacist gave me a very powerful cough drops that really did the job but I had to keep taking them to suppress the cough. It was not cheap, running to about $20 for one weeks worth of cough drops. If you have a medical kit while traveling you may want consider adding good cough drops.

After I got my cough drops and suppressed the cough Shannon arrived in her car with 2 of her friends, Lisa and Jordan. It was nice having someone drive me around Melbourne without paying a huge taxi bill. We would be having dinner with a number of Shannon's friends at a Chinese restaurant called Shanghai Dumplings on Chapel street. To be honest I did not like the food at this restaurant. It was not expensive but I have eaten at a lot of Chinese restaurants and I will have to rank this place low on the list. In any case the company was excellent and not just Shannon but all her friends as well. It was great conversation and they were all very nice. During the evening I went outside with Shannon for a smoke (I don't smoke, just to hangout). We passed a gumball machine and I put in a dollar to get Shannon a gumball but it ate our money and the restaurant worker told us it was broken. We demanded either the gumball or the dollar back but we were told that it was not owned by the restaurant. We were both outraged by this and proceeded to pick up the gumball machine and take it out the door. Unfortunately the restaurant workers saw this and we had to put it back down. I promised Shannon I would get her that gumball at some point.

After dinner I wanted to hangout with Shannon a bit more so we took her car back to her house. She lives in a South Melbourne suburb. I knew she lived in a house with other young people and I will say it is a really nice house and everyone who lived in the house had a lot of space. I will say she lived in a better place than my crappy bachelor apartment back home. It was good to talk to Shannon one on one and we spent the next little while chatting, watching Coneheads, and comparing each others feet. I also really liked Shannon's two cats as well because I always wanted a cat for myself. Too soon it was time for me to go because I had another early flight tomorrow. It was too far for Shannon to drive me back to my hostel which was way over on the other side of the city but she was good enough to drop me off at the train station. I wished had more time for Shannon but I only had the one evening. After a hug goodbye and I invited her to visit me in Canada someday.

Train had a lot of stops to get to Southern Cross station and I got there around midnight and I had to avoid the shortcut through the park because it didn't seem safe. I took the long way around and on my way I saw some kind of animal eating out of the garbage. In Canada the equivalent animal would have been a raccoon but I had no idea what this was. I got back to the hostel past midnight and well to sleep quickly. Tomorrow it would be Adelaide.

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Photos

Portland
Start of the day in Portland

Naked by Satan
Naked by Satan Café in Fitzroy Melbourne

wizard-spiral-gumball-machine
This is the gumball machine we tried to steal