AFL

Picture this. A bunch of (admittedly generally fairly good-looking) Aussie boys in rather short shorts running around a big oval field doing whatever they feel like with a strangly shaped yellow ball. That is Aussie rules footie for you. There are however, no rules (the name is quite deceptive...very misleading) it seems.

Yet, despite not being able to understand the game, off we went after work last monday night to the big Etihad Stadium in the city to join forty-one thousand fans to watch two big Melbourne teams, St Kilda and Carlton play the most loved game of AFL. And, it was awesome!

Heaps of fun guessing what was going on (we eventually worked out that getting the ball in the middle two poles gets you 6 points and getting it in the outside poles gets you 1..ooh I think...I may have forgotten already...

Anyway, the team we chose- St Kilda lost :( which we pretended to be very upset about, haha. I'll definately try get to another game! the vibe was awesome and a bit scary (some people get way too intense and emotionally involved with this game).

I still love rugby more though, don't panic. Can't wait to rock out in my Springboks top during the world cup :)

The Greatest Gig of All Time

You know that feeling where you know that if the world ended, you wouldn't actually mind 'cos you would die happy?
I had that feeling on Sunday the 8th of May.

This is the day I made my way out to the awesome Melbourne suburb of St Kilda and found myself at the Prince Bandroom. This awesome music venue (in an old hotel- the Prince of Wales, similar feel to the Assembly in Cape Town) is where I enjoyed an Aussie cider and a dance to the up-and-coming Melbourne "party band" Eagle and the Worm (http://www.eagleandtheworm.com/) and a good chat with a really awesome Aussie girl who also happened to be at the gig on her own (I spotted her in the queue on the way in and decided to make friends :) always more fun sharing life-changing moments with someone else, even if you don't know them at all!).

After a long wait in excited anticipation, the Cat Empire opened the set of their final 10 year anniversary gig in their home city with one of my favourite songs- Two Shoes. I can't even describe how brilliant they are live! Each and every one of them are so ridiculously talented and together they just create the most awesome vibe. It is impossible not to move to their music and there was nothing that could wipe the massive grin off my face. Harry was buzzing the whole time- he said "it may be sunday for you guys, but we're partying like its friday!!"
I danced so hard the entire time, my feet actually hurt afterwards! was insane! They did a massive encore, including 'hello hello'- to which the crowd went wild! Felix (the one singer) is so very sexy and told us how that song was "born" at that venue...pretty cool. The two-hour long set ended with The Chariot which was amaaaazing. And with that, ended one of the greatest nights of my life.

Thanks mum and dad for the ticket- wish all the Neville's could've been there to enjoy it with me!!

My boys.

These are two of my favourite people. I live with them, and although they are boys so they smell, aren't terribly good at cooking (although I shouldn't talk...) and don't mind living in a state of filth- they are so much fun and I would not be as happy as I am here without them.

                                                         Presenting.....Andy and Chris.
Andy and I have been good friends for a couple of years now, but its been awesome living in the same country as him :) He thinks he's all gangsta and it makes me laugh. We watch lots of movies (he makes us watch ski movies all the time). Andy thinks he's the boss of every drinking game, but we let him and it always makes for an extreme and epic night! He's lots of fun to be around, even though he sometimes beats me up (I think he forgets that I'm a girl). It's random how we met, stayed in contact and now live in the same house, but its pretty awesome and I know we'll be good friends forever :)

Meet Chris.My other half here in Melbourne. We've only known eachother for three months but it feels like yeeeaaahs (thats how I say 'years' apparently.I get teased all the time cos my accent is so totally awesome and they're all jealous). Everyone at work thought we were 'together' cos, well, we're never apart! We live together, work together and socialise together. Chris keeps me sane and reminds me to chill out and just let things happen. We blance eachother out I rate, without me he would forget to pay rent, take his washing off the line and have no-one to carry his lunch to work for him. Without him I would never know where I am (his iphone's gps is the greatest and most useful thing ever), I would stress way too much and smile a lot less. He calls me 'squishy' and sings this song to me every morning "oh Emma, you came and you bought me a turkey. On my vacation away from worky". Don't try to understand it. Most of what we say makes no sense to anyone else. I'm on a train.

Melbourne Comedy Festival

Melbourne Comedy Festival is one the more famous international comedy festivals. On Dylan's recommendation, I dragged Andy, Sophie and Chris to see the Irish comedy rock band -Dead Cat Bounce. They were absolutely brilliant! We were all in stitches the entire show! I bought a cd at the end and mentioned to them that I was friends with the Brother's Streep (Dyl and Simon) - who had met them at the Edinburgh comedy festival- they were like "oh yeah, those guys are awesome".

They played at the famous Spiegeltent in Melbourne (awesomely cool venue)

Road trippin'

So over the long Easter weekend (we got 5 days off cos of Anzac day plus the Easter days) eight of us piled into to cars and began our road trip along the Great Ocean Road.

This road is pretty famous in Australia- it runs along the coast from Melbourne towards Adelaide and is reeeeaaally windy but very beautiful. We stayed in a little house in Apollo Bay- one of the little beach/surf towns along the coast. We bonded over drinking games and food (obviously). On Easter Sunday, Jenna and I got up before everyone else and hid chocolate eggs all over the garden. Later on Luke supervised the cooking of a delicious pork roast - yum.

We drove a bit further inland off the road to the Otway National Park where we did the famous Otway Fly walk in the tree-tops. It was absolutely stunning walking up in the trees looking down on the ferns and little rivers.

We also did a forest walk where there were these awesome dinosaurs everywhere (apparently this is where these dinosaurs used to roam). I bonded with the velociraptors :)

Another day was spent driving further up the Great Ocean road to see the Twelve Apostles

                                                             Loch Ard Gorge

                                                    and London Bridge

It was an awesome awesome weekend away with some really great people :) great success!

                                            Jenna, Alex, Gavin, Andy, Mel, Luke and Chris

Random Swiss guys and suprise house parties!

So living with three kiwi's is pretty awesome. This has resulted in me meeting heaps of these awesome people :) These kids sure do know how to party though- I often find myself coming home to a house full of people drinking goon (box wine- very classy) and playing some epic (said in kiwi accent please) drinking games! Always fun and pretty much unavoidable.

We had a guest not long ago, Sean for Switzerland. The boys met him at the hostel they stayed at when we first arrived in Melbs. I met him once at that point too- he's pretty awesome and crazy as anything. He was away travelling for a bit but came back to Melbs and stayed with us for a week. He ended up staying in the lounge...which happens to be my room...so I found myself sharing a sofa bed with Sean the Swiss guy, good times :) one way to make new friends!

Healesville Animal Sanctuary

Being in Australia I figured I should really see some of the strange animals the Aussies go on about...so Alex, Jenna and I drove out to the Healesville Animal Sanctuary out in the country and spent the day there wandering around learning about wombats, echidna, Tasmanian devils, kangaroo's, wallabies, koala's and platypus. It was pretty awesome. Florence the wombat was my favourite, although the platypus put on a great show, doing backflips and stuff. The tassy devil was a bit crazy and just ran around this tree for like 20mins...scary creature. I have yet to see these animals in the wild- although I have seen some cool birds flying around.