Okay, so after my last post, I've been bugged to post some of the stuff from the recent trip over to Victoria. I figure that I might as well go day by day with the adventures. If I miss stuff, for those who were there, feel free to fill in the gaps in a comment, or blog it yourself.
Our journey actually begins on Monday night the 4th of December. Checking in to the airport doesn't make for entirely exciting blogging though, so it doesn't get a post of its own. Deal with it. Although, at about 11:58pm on Monday (Perth time) I remembered that it was still Sam's birthday, so I thought I'd be nice and caring and give her a call and wish her a happy birthday. For some reason she didn't seem to appreciate my thoughtfulness :P
And we hit Tuesday. About 20 minutes into Tuesday I was getting ready to board a plane. We had to walk across the tarmac to get to the plane (no aerobridge... this is Virgin Blue in Perth!). I thought I might grab a photo of the plane on my phone and picture message it to a couple people, to let them know I'm leaving. As soon as I took the photo though, some person on ground staff ran over to me and yelled at me for daring to have my phone turned on, because apparently having my phone on ignites aircraft fumes and makes us all explode. Or something. Anyway, he insists I turn my phone off immediately. And then complains when it takes too long. (While my new phone might be able to do a fair bit of stuff, doing it quickly is unfortunately not one of its strong points). Okay, so I can see why they might not want phones on (and I probably should have thought about it). But seeing as the last few times I'd flown Qantas where they let you have your phones on while you're boarding, maybe a sign or announcement to turn your phone off before you leave the building would have been nice?
Next up in our story, we have a boring flight. And I arrive in Melbourne. Get my luggage and outside the airport just in time to catch the bus Paul told me to catch. Which turned up late anyway. So I get on the bus that's supposed to take me to Essendon. "Do you go to Essendon?", I ask the driver? "Yep", says the driver. A little bit down the road, the driver tells me "Yeah I don't go to Essendon any more since they changed the routes. Get off here and another bus will come and take you the rest of the way". So I end up standing in some random part of Melbourne (Airport West from memory?) at 6:30am with a whole lot of luggage, hoping for some bus to turn up sometime. Eventually it did, and I made my way to Essendon.
And then called
Paul who gave me directions to his house. So I turned up there, had a shower which was much needed after that plane flight where I managed to get some bad sleep and generally felt gross, and then went out to breakfast with Paul.
And already I'm only at 8:30am. You've got a whole day of this to get through. And I'm probably boring you incredibly.
Anyway, jumped on a train with Paul into the city. Paul had to work, so he changed in the city to go out his way, and after saying our goodbyes and all that, I found my way to a Frankston train to go and meet the guys I was going to be hanging out with all day. Or at least I thought it was a Frankston train. It couldn't seem to decide. It decided after a while that it was a Sandringham train instead, so after a quick sms message saying something along the lines of "that's not where I want to be going, is it?" and getting a phone call back saying, amongst other things, "would you like me to come and hold your hand while you use our trains?" (well I'm sorry for not living in your city). So I decided to get off and change trains. I then got on a real Frankston train.
And got off a while later down Mordialloc way. Which is where I was supposed to be meeting
Mark and
Angus. No sign of them. I'm left standing on an empty platform wondering what I've let myself in for...
I start typing out another message to Mark to find out what's going on. Then I catch sight of them walking up to the station. And they catch sight of me and start running off. With all my stuff I was wearing around me/carrying i really couldn't be bothered chasing them. So eventually (well not too long) they came back again. Spent a good few minutes chatting and all that, then jumped on a train down to Frankston to find Josh who was supposed to be working that day. After eventually finding his store (getting lost in Frankston is always fun) we were told he wasn't working today. Hmmmm....
So we decided on another plan. Go to Box Hill and possibly go lasering. And invite Sam to come with us.
Sam can tell the rest of this story, cause she remembers it a lot better than me:
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So, because I like jas, and he asked me so nicely, I’m going to write about Tuesday the 5th of December.
My day began to a phone call at 2am, by jas, who was at the airport in Perth, about to catch his flight over to sunny Melbourne. He wished me a final happy birthday to which I told him it wasn’t my birthday anymore. I was tired and half asleep.
So I’m guessing Jas got on a plane, and I went back to sleep. I think he landed in Melbourne airport at some horrid hour of the morning (6ish).
I got ready to go out that day, to Eastland (local shopping centre in Ringwood), to go shopping with my sister. And then, while eating breakfast, I get a phone call from Jas, Clammy and Angus (though Angus didn’t say much) about coming to Box Hill to go lasering. I told them that I had already planned my day, and that I wasn’t going to box hill. I informed them that they should go to Ringwood, which is where I would be.
They told me to meet them at box hill, ignoring what ever I said. They had to go ‘cause the train to Frankston had arrived. (They were planning to go down there and meet up with josh, which didn’t happen ‘cause he was mysteriously elsewhere, but that’s getting ahead of the story.)
My sister and I got on the bus, and headed for the station. Another phone call reached us in Lilydale, where we had just missed our train, and so were looking in a local op shop. Something about me going to Box Hill to go to dark zone, the laser tag place. I told them I couldn’t play in a skirt and thongs, to which the response was that clammy/mark had another pair of cargoes. I just laughed. Then something about Jas fancying my sister ended the conversation. I think mark, who I was on the phone to, was about to get whacked by jas.
My sister and I turned up at Ringwood, eventually, and set about to go shopping. I got my hair cut, and my sister went off to go buy my cousin’s birthday present. and then ensued a half hour or so time when I got several phone calls, phoned Bec several times, and just generally got frustrated and had no idea what was going on. I was trying to convince the guys to come to Ringwood (they had zone 3 tickets anyway!), they kept on telling me to go to Box Hill. I said I would if Bec came, phoned Bec and she was busy. So I told the guys I wasn’t coming to Box Hill. They then said they would come to Ringwood. I told them it was the station after Heathmont, Heatherdale, Heatherdale, Heatherdale. And told them I would meet them at the station.
20 minutes later, I was standing near the station, and got a phone call from the guys, who informed me they were at box hill. I admit, I got rather frustrated right there, and wasn’t impressed with their games. They weren’t at Box Hill, they were 5 minutes from Ringwood, at Heathmont, Heatherdale, Heatherdale, Heatherdale. (little did I know, but apparently the whole conversation was on speaker phone, for the whole train to hear.)
So the guys arrive at Ringwood, and I say hi. We stand talking for a little bit on the platform, and then mark goes and buys a ticket. Jas stands in the doorway. Now, I may be blonde, but im not stupid, so I know they are going to try and force me onto a train to go to Box Hill. I inform them that 1, they should at least come over the road and meet my sister, and 2, that the train leaves from the other platform.
They come and meet my sister, and then a 10 or so minute conversation about whether I was going to go with them or not happens. (even though, in my mind, I knew I was going to go with them anyway). Somehow I ended up with Jas’s phone, me walking towards eastland, and the boys all walking towards the station. I went and followed them; said goodbye to my sister who just rolled her eyes at me, and caught up with the guys (gave back Jas’s phone too)
On the train to Box Hill, I got informed that the entire morning’s phone conversations were on speaker phone, and so the entire train carriages heard me getting annoyed and rather silly.
Anyway, we arrived at Box Hill, and after mark and jas bought their V-Line tickets (out to sale, or thereabouts) we decided to go have some lunch. I looked and looked around for some sushi, and you would think that, in a majorly populated Asian place like box hill, there would be some sushi, but no, none, so I had what the guys were having. Subway.
The rest of the day isn’t that memorable, though there seemed to be a lot of hitting Angus happening. I don’t think he appreciated it, but somehow I thought he was used to it. We just ended up sitting around at a table in the food court talking until the guys had to go catch a train to the city, so they could catch their train out to Gippsland.
I said goodbye to the guys on the platform. A few more comments about Heathmont/Heatherdale/Box Hill/Ringwood happened, and I just laughed. That’s all you can do really.
But wait, there’s more.
The next day, as the guys were in lakes entrance, I received a lovely text message sent from a Telstra pay phone, which stated “come meet up in Box Hill at midnight if you ever want to see your Mint M&Ms again. Come alone”. I laughed. Only the guys could have sent that.
And its become a running joke since.
There you go jas, detailed enough?-----------------------------------
That was quite amusing. Reading back about this and the above thing about the phone call, I think we might have been a bit mean to you though, Sam. Sorry if we really annoyed you.
So anyway, Angus goes back home, Mark and I get on a train out to Traralgon. One uneventful trip later, we see Malcolm, and head on our way to Lakes Entrance, via the scenic route. Past his place in Gormandale, and some other sights. Most of which I missed, being fast asleep in the front seat. There was much paying out of jas for this. Explain to me again what I missed, guys...
Eventually made it to Sale. Grabbed some dinner (Subway for the second time for the day). Went around to Caitie's place to say hi. She wasn't there. Ended up driving around Sale for ages while waiting for them to come back. Eventually they do. We're standing outside for a fair while chatting (and I'm learning all about these strange insects called cicadas that live in trees and make a heck of a lot of noise). Eventually go inside and eat our dinner, and catch up with Caitie and Maree.
I think it was heading towards 10:00pm b the time we went to
John's place. Dropped off some stuff to him that I'd been promising for ages (sorry!). Chatted for a bit there too.
By the time we got to Bairnsdale, it was getting pretty late. Not late enough to stop us having fun going down this uber-cool yellow slide that Malcolm showed us in some park. Long enclosed slide with all these bumps all the way down the hill. So what if I'm 22 years old :P
And it looked great when you flashed a camera in it, because of the windows in the side, light floods out everywhere.
So after plenty of time messing around with that, we continued to Lakes. It was this when a
now-infamous OOCQ was uttered. No I'm still not giving you context, you can keep wondering. ;)
Got to Lakes Entrance at about 12:30am I think. I actually don't remember much of that night once we'd got there, I was that tired. But yeah, eventually got sleep in a bed that was too small for me, but I didn't care that much.
Was a good day! Great catching up with a few people again (and of course, there were a couple who I'd have ample opportunity to do that with more over the next few days).
And if you've made your way through reading all that, I'm incredibly impressed. That was actually fairly hard work writing all that. I think if I'm going to do further days I'm going to need input from some of the others who were around (I'm looking at you, Malcolm and Mark). But hey, I hope you enjoyed the read (and if you didn't, too bad, it was still good for me to remember some of the smaller stuff that happened that I'd forgotten about).
