A crazy, hazy, but never lazy jaunt through Melb

I tried not to let it get to this point, where I don't remember where I left off...but I'm lost.

So, it's been crazy obviously. Otherwise I would've been blogging about the boring details of my life, life the marmite and egg sandwhich I had for brekky the other day. And those dogs, remember them?, I have a giant bite on my bottom which is still healing. Ouch. I'm having a hard time bringing myself to going back to Harley's house.

I met up with a guy from couchsurfing that was happy to show me around, but his couch was full, and he is AWESOME. He actually reminds me of one of my favoite people in Montreal, my ex-boyfriend Luke. I find that happens a lot while I'm traveling, where I meet people that remind me of other friends. I'm looking for the familiar, and I find it. Jesse, cs guy, took me to a Hare Krishna place that serves cheap meals for lunch, then we wandered about and saw this sweet graffeti alley, Hosier Lane, where it's legal to paint. In fact there was a german guy painting when we walked through. Then we wandered to the botanical gardens, which I dare say do not follow the signs because when you have to go toilet, because you will fail and fail again. Sat in the park and played some ukulele, apparently Jesse's mum also plays uke so we'll have to have a jam.

Went to Victoria Market, which had on some live music and food and drink. Did some Tahitian dancing, as one of the last bands called up all the travelers to come up to the front and dance with the pros. You know me, I can't miss an opportunity for unusal experiences, plus I'm trying to push myself more and more into a performance setting to get used to the feeling. Went to a sweet bar with chilled out tunes, decided I want to learn how to skateboard, and headed home to pass out. Phew! So much sun.

The Tennis:
The other couchsurfer who was staying with Danni, was a lovely guy from Ohio name Dan and he was into the tennis, oh boy. The Australian Open is currently going on, which is a massive event where tennis pros from all over the world come to compete. I decided I couldn't miss it, despite my lack of knowledge about tennis. Free bands, hot sun, green balls, and the ball kids running around in their funny yellow outfits. Really, you should google one of the tennis matches just to see those kids running after all those tennis balls. It's really quite hilarious to an uneducated tennis individual, aka me. :) I placed some bets, first time, with the extreme guidance of Dan, put on more sunscreen than I use in a year, and was ready for some tennis. I learned about the scoring and the stats and the players from Dan. We watched Isner, which is an american fellow, smash his raquet on the turf, which apparently loses you a point, and I lost $10, but it was all in good fun. Sunstroked and overstimulated by massive crowds I headed home and took a nap. More tennis on the telly that evening cause we hadn't finished watching all the games we had bet on, I think I've had enough to last me for a while. But now I have a slight craving to actually get my hands on a raquet.

The next morning I woke up and created these beautiful adverts for an apartment seach.

Jesse was wonderful and we visited our spot for lunch, the Hare Krishnas, and then headed to Carlton to read adverts and post mine in a few places. We even lined up a flat viewing in Colberg, met a very interesting man who lived at the flat as well as his chook, cat and lovely neighbor who chaffeured us to his door when we got lost. We took the random path back to the main road, somehow ended up with a random business man buying us lunch, with many protests from us and Jesse was reminded of a crazy time he had when he went to Nepal, which he told me over our free kababs. All I can say is it involved burly men, jewels and large sums of money. If I told you any more, I'd definitely have to kill you. We were going to go to a free Australian Hiphop show, but the day had taken the energy out of us, so we watched Clerks. My first time, good movie.

This morning, the craziest thing happened to me. I'll have to travel back in time to explain.

When I was on the plane heading home for Christmas, from Seattle to Honolulu, I was sitting next to this lady from Kamloops, BC. We got to talking and I told her I was soon to move to Australia and she said her friend's daughter happened to be living there, she took my email and told me she'd sent it off to her and perhaps Katherine and I could meet up and have some Canadian bonding time. I completely forgot about it after that.
This morning I was getting on the train, when this lovely girl came and asked me in a distinctly north american accent if the train was going to the city, we got to talking and figure out that she was KATHERINE. We couldn't believe it. She had just been meaning to email me and hadn't gotten around to it. Same place, same time, in a Big big city. Pretty crazy. We might be spending Australia Day together at a BBQ, in replacement of our much loved Canada Day, perhaps we could get people into it and have both :)

Off to a new couch this evening, a friend of my current host, who has been nothing but lovely to me. I really lucked out with Danni, she been so helpful, showed me heaps of maps, let me borrow her bike, and given me tons of recommendations for food, jobs, and living areas. What a blessing! Now that I have to go she's even set me up at a friends of her's house for a bit. Then tonight I'm out to dinner with my scottish friend Isaac, whom I met in Sydney and went to the zoo with, if any of you remember him.

Love to all my readers :)