Since I left Oceania in mid-January of this year I’ve been thinking about my return. I thought I’d have to wait for January to come around again but when my boss asked me not to take any long vacations this year until after early-June I thought I have to go somewhere to celebrate the end of crunch time. At first I thought of Portugal or a return to Germany or even partying for a weekend in London. Then I gave it some more thought and said to myself, “if you could go anywhere in the world to celebrate over a long weekend where do you see yourself going?” As soon as I was done asking myself that question the answer immediately popped into my head - Melbourne to hang out with Bren again.
So I booked a ticket with my reward miles (at a cost of $156) and set off on Wednesday after work on my long journey across the world. By the time I arrived it was Friday morning, and after being delayed on the plane, delayed getting off the plane, and fighting my way through customs, I finally found myself eating breakfast at the cutest cafe with Bren in East Melbourne. He had taken a half day so that he could greet me and give me a key to get in to his flat so after we ate he was off to work and I was off to figuring out what to do next.
I set off on this trip with the intention of relaxing. The last time I was here was just under 6 months ago in early January. It was summer then and now it’s winter here but the weather didn’t change all that much. I took a shower then spent some time reading but then I was afraid of falling asleep so I followed Bren’s advice and went for a wander through his neighborhood.
On our way back from breakfast I thought the area looked familiar after seeing some cool looking graffiti. It wasn’t until I was half a mile into my walk that I realized that this was the same part of town Bren brought me to on New Year’s Eve last year. I went for a nice long walk in the brisk air, taking lots of pictures of the street art along the way.
After exhausting East Melbourne I headed back to Bren’s flat to figure out where to eat dinner. While perusing Foursquare earlier that afternoon I saw that there was a burger joint in the area with an excellent review. I decided to head there. By now it was 6pm and dark out. I had forgotten how it got dark early in winter but that did not deter me from my walk to dinner.
Easey’s is a burger joint that has three retired trams on the roof that you can eat your meal from. It seemed like a cool concept until I got there and asked to order to eat in the restaurant and was asked if I had a reservation. A reservation for a burger joint! I had never heard of such a thing. Even now I still don’t understand why they had a wait when the reserved tables sat empty for the duration of my meal. I guess that really doesn’t matter. The waitress told me I could sit at the counter area near the front window. I grabbed a stool and waited by the draftiest window ever for my meal.
The meal, unlike the seating, was great. The Mac and cheese covered tater tots were recommended to me by the staff since I couldn’t decide between fries and mac-n-cheese. I thought they were joking about it but nope, they were totally on the menu. In my experience if the staff recommends something that means it’s good and the Mac and cheese tots held that theory up pretty well. The burger on the other hand was pretty standard fare, nothing to write home about. I also ordered a cider, which I would later regret.
I sat eating dinner and reading my book while watching all the people in the restaurant and overhearing their stories.
Once I had had my fill and the restaurant was starting to fill I made my way back to the flat. I picked up a six pack of cider just in cases the flatmates were thirsty. I also had one of the ciders when I got back and sort of regret it because it only exacerbated the exhaustion I had of flying for 20+ hrs.
Still it was nice getting to sit and chat with someone new - my favorite past time when traveling! One of Bren’s flatmates was here blowing up an air mattress for me to use tonight and then walked me through her room in the flat - which is the whole third floor with its own bathroom - since she offered to let me stay there for the weekend while she’s in Sydney on a mega yacht that her friend works on. We also talked about work and The Handmaid’s Tale which she is crazy about and I’m reading the book. She also made this amazing smelling granola and I immediately saw why Bren describes her as the best flatmate ever. She also had nothing but nice things to say about living with Bren, especially since the last guy she and the other flatmate lived with was apparently the worst.
I had some anxiety about this trip because I wasn’t sure if I would be able to have as much fun as I had the last time I was here but so far it seems like my worries were for nothing!
I stayed up a bit longer after writing to wait for Bren to come home from work. I expected him to be ready to call it a night (I certainly was) so I was pretty surprised when he came up the stairs holding a tiny box and asked if I’d play a board game he kickstarted but hadn’t had the chance to play. So we ended up staying up until nearly 1am playing this game and drinking. It took a while to figure out but by the end of it we swore to come back and give it another go - it took us the entire length of the game to figure out how to play. By the time we were packing up all the little pieces I realized that this trip really was pretty much everything I wanted in my post-crunch vacation. I cannot wait to see what shenanigans Day 2 brings.
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