For a while now I’ve used Saturday as my designated day of rest, where I allow myself to drift back to sleep instead of hopping out of bed at 7am to get the day started. After Bren left for work at 8am I thought to myself, it’s a Saturday so I should just keep to my regular routine. Also the bed I was in was ridiculously comfortable. By the time I woke up for real it was 1pm, a bit later then what I intended but definitely well needed. This trip is all about relaxation after all.
With plans to meet up for dinner at 6pm I didn’t have much additional time to figure out what I was going to do for the day. I didn’t want to wander the neighborhood again (been there, done that) so I opened Google Maps to see what was around that I hadn’t done yet. I noticed a suggested pin for the Melbourne Museum. It was within walking distance so I headed there.
The Melbourne Museum is amazing. I wasn’t really sure what to expect but was still blown away by some of the exhibits like the living forest which was an actual habitat of living animals and plants that you could walk through. I also learned about the history of Melbourne and saw some dinosaurs. There was also a stuffed horse that is apparently very famous in Australia but the exhibit surrounding the horse was more about its post death fame then telling the story that made it famous to begin with.
At 5 the museum closed and I walked out into the blustery cold twilight. I opted to take the long way home and saw so many new and interesting shops that I hadn’t seen before. One of them was a quick print shop for tshirts which I thought was an ingenious idea. Inside the beautifully decorated store front I could see the T-shirt printer and some examples. Eventually I made my way back to the now very old hat Smith Street. I stopped in to buy some more cider since Bren and I polished it off the night before. When I got back to the house/flat (I’m not entirely sure which it is. It’s not quite a house but there are three floors to it and stairs inside) it was quite. It looked like the only housemate left may be gone and I didn’t see Bren’s shoes sitting by the door. I quietly entered the flat and opened the door to Bren’s room where all my stuff is. His room is basically a cave - pitch black dark. I go to walk in and hear a familiar booming voice from the darkness - “Hullo there lady.”
For the few of you who don’t know me I do not like scary things. Anything scary. I’m a scardy cat through and through. Bren knows this and yet decided to greet me from the darkness anyway. I let out a small scream/yelp and he started laughing at me before getting a phone call and explaining to his friend that he had just scared the crap out of me from the depths of his dark room. Still on edge I dropped some of my stuff and went upstairs to the living room so Bren could finish his 30-minute nap. I took that time to start writing this post.
Sure enough 30 minutes later I hear his booming voice from downstairs declare that his nap was over. He kept talking out loud as he came upstairs and I asked him if it was because he didn’t want to scare me again and he laughed and said yes. I was more then ready to eat dinner after an afternoon of walking around so we headed right out and around the corner to a burger shop he had tried to take me to the last time I was here but it was closed.
The burger place was cute, as I’ve found all the restaurants in this hippie Brooklyn type area to be. A lot of the menu was very American, also pretty typical, and so I got a pulled pork sandwich, Bren got a Korean pork belly sandwich, and then we got tater tots and rice cakes which was recommended by the waiter. Neither of us was all that sure what they meant by rice cakes so when the small plate came out with fried dubboki on it I was thrilled because that’s one of my favorite dishes ever. Bren has no idea what it was and asked the waiter “is this the rice cakes” and I said “yea it’s dubboki” and the waiter pointed to me and said, “listen to her, she knows what’s going on, she’s from New York!”
We sat and ate for ages, the food was delicious of course, and had a few beers. The waiter came over and gave us a free old fashioned and I said this is what makes the difference between a good place and an amazing place - a free drink! Eventually Bren paid our tab and we headed down the street to a cocktail bar that he had been meaning to check out. We walked in and sat down at the bar where we were greeted by a tattooed young woman who was busy mixing complicated drinks. All the cocktails were at least 5 ingredients which made choosing one at first difficult. The theme seemed to be Snow White as well which made it even more interesting. I started off with the house made cherry gin and tonic which included liquid nitrogen. Bren got a cocktail as well and we started in on them. Each time we experimented with a new one and each drink seemed to be better then the last.
At one point we watched the tattooed bartender pull out a small porcelain bathtub and pour a mixture into it - I was amazed by the pageantry of it all and couldn’t help but say to her “oh my god that is sooooo cute! We have to get one!” She laughed and Bren said, “you haven’t even finished the drink in front of you yet lass!” The bartender agreed to make us one as soon as we were ready. It was hard amongst all of our conversation to keep drinking but I eventually finished and she presented to us our own bathtub gin - complete in a little bathtub with suds and a little rubber Duckie. We shared the drink and it was probably the best one of the night, as well as the cutest. By the time we finished it and looked around the restaurant had emptied out. I paid the tab for this one, since Bren picked up dinner, and we stumbled our way down the street to get back home. It was probably the most fun I’ve had on a random Saturday in a long time.
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