Melbourne again!

We made it to Melbourne with growling stomachs throughout our flight and flybus ride.  We somehow managed to not eat lunch, so we ravenously tour into a feast at the bus station as soon as we got there while we searched for a cheap hostel.  I was miserable due to sunburn on my upper legs and in the outline of my bathing suit.  It hurt to move.  I put on lots of sunscreen, but apparently not often enough.  We found a hostel with beds for $24 per night.  Cheap!  Our room had 10 bunk beds up against the walls.  There were a great group and people staying in our room.  I felt like I was back in college with a nice long walk up the hallway to the communal bathroom and tons of people walking around in towels… home, or at least home for a few days! I did feel bad because most of our roommates were having a lot of trouble finding work and were rapidly running out of money. L

We met up with a few of our awesome friends from a two day ride, Dave and Kat.  They took us to their friends’ apartment and we got to meet Dave’s housemate, a Swiss guy, and a few French girls who were all great.  We went out dancing at a karoke bar.  I did not sing, but I smoked my first cigar.  Strangely I didn’t mind it at all.  It was great as long as I didn’t inhale.  I am not sure if I would ever want to try it again, but it wasn’t a bad adventure. It was great to get to know that group of people.  The girls were great and forced me to dance and I had some great conversations with everyone.  It was another awesome night.  One great thing about this night was the number of accents in our group.  We of course had Texas and Pennsylvania (boring), but Dave and Kat are from the UK and have awesome accents, the French girls had very strong accents, as did the Swiss guy, and Dave’s housemate could switch accents whenever he wanted.  Awesome!  For the first time in my life I was with a diverse group. 

The next morning we decided to stay in the city for another night.  We did a bit of shopping and exploring through the day.  Steph found a quite amazing dress and shoes for going out.  I found a much more conservative dress and shoes for wearing at any time of the day or night.  Lovely outfit (and cheap!).  Also, I dragged Steph into a book store.  I can’t pass one without getting tempted.  Yum, books!  After a fun day of exploring and an awesome dinner of Oriental food, we took the train out to meet up with our friends again.  As you can probably tell, it was awesome to spend some time with someone other than Steph.  I love the girl to death, but we spend way too much time together.

It was a rather rainy day with some hard rain before our train left.  When we got close to the stop they were going to meet us at, the train ground to a halt.  The train was halted due to an unsafe amount of water on the tracks.  Typical to my luck, we were stuck at a train station in the middle of an area that we were completely unfamiliar with.  Luckily our friends are amazing and picked us up at the train station we were stuck at. We were worried that we would need snorkels to get back to their place, but the flooding wasn’t too bad. We had a fun evening with them yet again.  Yay for good friends, good drinks, and entertaining fiascos involving public transportation and weather.

Saturday we had our last day in the city before taking the bus home.  We went out to an awesome breakfast and checked out of our hostel. At breakfast Steph and I shared a meal and didn’t even bother getting a spare plate, we just shared one.  Life is absurd. We had a lazy rainy day watching movies with the guys then it was back to Mansfield for us. 

Getting home felt great.  I had received a few letters from mom that contained family pictures in them!  I was unbelievably excited!  I also had a letter from Grammie which made me very happy!  Steph and I had a package from our bosses in Yellowstone.  They sent brochures for us to hand out to anyone who is interested… but they also sent little stuffed ponies and a variety of cookies.  What awesome bosses! 

Vacation was lovely, but I am happy to be back home at the lodge in the hills.  I like to visit cities, but I am a country girl through and through.