Numero Dos...

That was an abrupt ending to the last post. When you finally want to write, and have a whole lot to say, the woman cuts you off. She must be related to the lady who cuts you off when you're attempting to leave someone an urgent and detailed message only to come to find that half of what you said wasn't recorded. Rude.

So now that you know what to expect out of a typical day, let's take you through the various cities I have lived in this far: first stop, Melbourne. Well, Geelong actually. We spent some time at club grub, the Izatt estate with yours truly, Carly. Babe. Within ten minutes of being picked up, the show was already on. We were driving in reverse down he highway because we missed out turn off. Looks like Carly was indeed, a bad driver in both America and Australia. It's great to see that your friends don't change much in two years!

The Geelong experience was just that, an experience. People there were either bogan (see above definition) or named Logan. Just kidding, lame joke. But really, they were bogans or an Izatt. Not sure which is better :) during this time, there was a lot of drinking, GI pains, headaches, obnoxious banter and deep belly laughs. It clearly needed to end. So indeed, it did...

The city was called kew, pronounced 'Q.' Like any experience traveler, we had no idea what the town was about, or even where it was on a map, upon arriving. Thank god for google and a couple of curious friends that informed me where I was headed.

Mariana and I lived in the most catholic, private, proper definition of suburbia that I have ever seen- that's including movies and real life! Children and prepubescent teenagers (at least the kids could pull it off, the teenage boys especially, were a tragic sight), walking down the street in their Harry potter lookin drab. I have never seen so many different witch hats (just the style, not to be confused with the whole Salem witch situation), uniforms, colors of uniforms, unfortunate dress socks and shoes...I'm sure you're seeing this picture painted pretty clearly without closing your eyes. The morning trams were filled with hairy legged, awkward lookin kids in all kinds of dorky uniforms. Good thing they're learning the importance of 'safety in numbers' at such a ripe age!

Mariana had a bed. You know the sort, with legs, a sham (a bed is not a bed without a sham-realization age 25), some pillows, and key point: off the floor. I, on the other hand, had a mattress. You know, the kind that is supposed to be supported by the box springs, of the bed frame, decorated by a sham, complete with sheets and a ruffly, fancy duvet (here pronounced DOONAH- so basically a completely different word..). Did I live this way for two and a half months. You bed your shams I did. With an exercise bike as my clothes drying rack and my suitcase as an extension of my kitchen, it was a comfortable little arrangement, suitable for the nome that which I saw myself becoming. The day that I came home to a grocery trolley in our room marked the beginning of a whole, new journey. At that moment in time, we became bogans. Definitions: white, trash. At least we were homelessly contained in our bedroom, and solely used the trolley as home decor. It went just swell with he colors in the room.

In Melbourne our blood alcohol levels permanently spiked. When I showed up at the chemist one day asking for 'charcoal tablets' and the pharmacist inquired what I was to be using them for and I so innocently replied ' for a hangover cure,' I realized I had a problem. Not only did the bottle specifically read ' for bloating and gas,' but her eye balls said all the rest. Thank god I was still partying in my head so the deemed awkward moment didn't have such a big impact on me.

Naked for satin by night (don't worry, just a rad bar) and vein shooting of caffeine by day seemed to be a norm. Don't get the wrong idea here. I was still babysitting a child and working at a cafe. Oh dear. Digging myself deeper. The city of Melbourne itself was exciting! Turn down any alley way and copious cafes, hidden bars, unidentified flying objects and the like, were never short of supply. It was alive and buzzing as if no one did anything more than frequent cafes, gingerly sipping their ristrettos and long macchiatos into the day. The rain that seemed to follow us like a looming shadow, made you feel as if you were in Ireland, at least 97.45% of our stay there.

The four days that the sun finally decided to shine it's face around, came with a fleet of man eating flies that were sure to allow you to experience a day in the life of a cow( or a horse, whichever one was more miserable). I would love to say I'm joking when I tell you of their landing patterns: eye, nose, lips, lips, ear, back, face, face, face. I've never wanted to vomit and run screaming so bad in my life. After our first fly experience, we decided on a longitudinal study (lasted twelve minutes) to see if the flies were solely attracted to us, if showering changed their strong desire for us, or if this was normal with other passerbys. We quickly came to see that the flies did indeed attack others but in no way did they go after others in such a ferocious manner. It was as if target was having a 90% of of everything sale, all, over, our, faces. Sick. I know.

With the trusty help of google ( I love my information!), dinner that night became a dirty science lab of figuring out what made these flies want to eat us whole. Oh don't you fret, it wasn't just one thing, it was everything from our skin, to the blood droplets, and sweat that we so tastefully wear without knowing it (don't judge, you have it too). Flies. Melbourne. Hay fever.

Did I tell you about the time I never had allergies, ever, in my life? How about the time I moved to Melbourne and became a head case of itchy eye havin, runny nose sniffin, hot mess? Oh, it may have just escaped my memory. Not. It was miserable. That happens too. General warning: you will form allergies going to Melbourne in summer. Then, flies will eat your face off. Have a nice vacation.

I was a sucker in Melbourne too. For two days in a row, I was tricked into attending those zillion teered, sales, work your pants off and you'll get a Mercedes, health speeches. And for two days in a row I came home and asked, "how in the world do they get me every time?" You'll be happy to know that I've broken the vicious cycle as have only been to legitimate personal training interviews thus forth. I'm growing up so fast. Go team.

Melbourne. You itchy, rainy, bloke you. Is it becoming clear that Melbourne didn't want us to be a part of it anymore? I reckon. Time and time again, we thought to ourselves " maybe these are all signs, we should try and move on perhaps," but then as loyal as a three-legged dog, we pressed on, and attempted to make it work. The final sign was when our cooky manager just forgot to tell us that he had no more work for us in the cafe (we had been there two weeks) and that we could come and collect our loot at our convenience. I've never been fired like that in my life( only once for bouncing a ball: see Menards job history, Morghan Lonergan).

We looked one another straight in the corneas and laughed our faces off. Good thing they were already half off thanks to the flies. Now all we had to do was break up with our pseudo child. That was easy. Fake dead. Oh wait, thats a dog trick, not a human trick. After hours of crafting our great escape (told them exactly where we were going), we finally purchased the train tickets that had been waiting for us all along. I brought the trolley to an op shop (I didn't feel that it should go back to he grocery store. It wasn't fair. What if someone was in our same shoes and needed a cruisy lift home for their groceries!?) I did not look back and almost found myself running out the door after the nice donations lady took it in as her own. She didn't see, in the big white letters, "property of woolworths. This trolley is not to leave store property. Fines will insue." Don't judge me.

We packed our things, and again, it came to my attention as to why my luggage came from good will. First, I think it's a dead grandpas, and secondly, it's hand luggage that has no wheels, handles and can fit about 30 kilos of crap in it. Defeated, again. Just bringing the luggage down the stairs threw me into an ungodly sweat stream- this was only the beginning. Luckily, I was able to see my first cockatoo of the trip, because it took me so long to load my life onto the tram. As we wove in and out of the city, inching nearer and nearer to the train station, I had already played out nightmare that was lugging my cases across the road to the station about 87 times. All of which ended in me being pancakes in the road under a vehicle. The tram screeched to a halt. My heart skipped a handful of beats. I was able to chuck it off the tram with my fight or flight response hauls strength. Thereafter, nothing. The hustle and bustle of the early morning Melbourne was surprisingly unhelpful as a whole, but just when I was about to hang it up, a jolly, plump lady, noshing on a dognut asked if I needed a hand. This was music to my ears. Yes was word vomited out my lips, and so the jolly ole woman, whilst still eating her dognut, sumo gripped my grandpa bag and set off into the road like a warrior straight out of the movie 300. I was even intimidated and she was in front of me, helping, me! I felt like a kid in the candy shop as I trailed in her shadow under the early morning sun. Whoever this dognut loving super woman was, I was surely grateful to be her damsel in distress on this day!

We safely arrived to the train station. Copious people asked me what my luggage was. I burned holes into their foreheads with my eye balls. A fellow train rider warned us about the "busy people of Sydney, and... The Muslims." Aussies....

As my allergies took advantage of my soul for a whole ten hours of train ridden entertainment, I was happy to know that on the other side of this ride was a field of cupcakes and rainbows, sans flies and allergies. And not to forget, the ridding of a passenger who thought that the more she would death stare into my eye balls (I had to challenge to chicken and stare back) the quicker my allergies would vanish and I would stop sneezing and sniffling. Fooled ya, woman. She had to learn the hard way why you mustn't trust Wikipedia and web md....