St. Paddy's and more Melbin

First- Happy Belated St Paddy’s Day! I say Paddy instead of Patrick now because of all of the Irish people I’ve been hanging around.
Second- We did go for Round 3 on Sunday night… Diva had found a ‘What’s Happening’ section in a local mag that said there was good dancing at First Floor on Sunday nights starting at 11pm. We got there at 11pm, first ones in the entire place, and had a few beers thinking things would pick up. They didn’t, but we had a good time anyways, made friends on the street, and got to see the “hip” area of Melbourne- Brunswick Street in Fitzroy.
Monday was St. Paddy’s Day rest day. In the morning I had an awesome 50min run along the river though and then had an excellent cappuccino. Then we all went to the soup place in the alley (that sounds good, haha) and had a giant bowl of soup for lunch each. Then I wandered around town for a bit. I found the biggest supermarket I’ve seen in Australia yet and a self-serve Japanese Bakery type place called “Bread Top.” I also spent about an hour in a book store reading up on Bali! I hadn’t been feeling to hot after the soup and so lay down for a bit while the girls went back up to Fitzroy for dinner. Later, upon their return we decorated t-shirts for Paddy’s Day, all of which included our names with an O in front: O’Cory, O’Guthrie, O’Gill (for Kate, she made the apostrophe a little R), and O’Liz-Core for myself since O’Wycliffe sounds not good. We also all put a maple leaf or Canadian flag and our team name: Bike Gang (from the Byron days when we all rode our bikes everywhere and rang our bells at strangers and had different attack formations). We also included various lewd jokes.
Tuesday was the big day we’d been waiting for; I think I was more excited about St. Paddy’s than my birthday. It was my first St Paddy’s Day that I could properly celebrate in true let’s-drink-too-much-and-all-day Irish style since in years past I always had a big swim meet in mid/late March since the age of 18. So we went to PJ O’Brien’s, which was THE place to be apparently, at 2pm. The place had had a big traditional Irish breakfast that morning at 8am (for 30 bones) and so it is thought some people had been there since then. When we arrived there was no line to get in but it was already quite full. We all got a pint by 2:30 and let the celebrations begin! It was early decided that we should all stick to the rule of 1 pint or drink per hour, and after either 2 or 3 pints I had to take an hour off already. Weak Liz, weak. We met up with a couple of our new Irish friends, namely Paula (who’d we met in Queenstown, NZ. Oh the magic of Queenstown), and some other friends from Byron who were also in Melbourne. Dancing and drinking and general debauchery continued for the next couple hours. A steady stream of Irish folk singers, bagpipes, and traditional Irish dancers performed on the little stage the bar had set up. I found a Guinness hat and wore that for a while until it was stolen by an Irish guy. A cougar joined our group for a little while, that was interesting. A $6 leprechaun type hat was sold for $15 and then returned for free because the girl who paid the $15 chin was hurting from the strap. Around 9pm Diva was feeling sick, as in head cold-congestion sick not barfy, so her and Laurie went home. Kate and I continued on until she left around 10 to join friends at The Joint (our hostel’s bar), and I stayed on to dance my face off with Paula. I think I left a little after 11pm to find Kate and go to bed. Mission accomplished after a half bag of Burger Rings (think burger flavored funyons). In bed by midnight and satisfied with my first true St Paddy’s Day!
Wednesday we rose early and after a somewhat slow start (will not get into gritty details here) we were on the road to the Great Ocean Road for the day! Once on the road, through Geelong and Tourquay, we stopped at Bells Beach because that’s where a major surf competition is going to be held in mid-April. Diva and Laurie are probably going to fly back down for a few days to spectate (next year they’ll be wildcard entries, just you wait!). It was our first taste of Ocean for a while so it looked beautiful (little did we know what awaited us in the following hours of the day). Next stop was the small town of Anglesea for a snack and cold medicine for Diva. Unfortunately, this was also where the keys were locked in the trunk (crisis averted by driver’s window being open enough for Diva’s skinny arms to reach the unlock button) and Diva realized she’d lost her credit card. A quick phone call later she was relieved to discover that it’d been left at the car rental place and that they would deliver it to the hostel since we were returning the car after their office closed. Phew. Next we drove straight out the 12 Apostles (originally named the Sow and Piglets, renamed to perhaps sound more majestic) and boy was it worth it! The whole long day was worth it, the coastline was beautiful and the short time when the road takes you inland was all through eucalyptus forests that smell amazing and reminded me of Tasmania. We returned to Melbourne CBD around 8pm, had dinner, and said our Goodbyes, as Diva and Laurie had an early flight in the morning. Diva’s credit card hadn’t been delivered so the plan was that I would go get it in the morning and then mail it to her in Byron.
I was awoken at 7am by a text message from Diva saying the car rental guy had met her at the airport and given her her credit card! Now that’s service! Haha
After a painful run and what seemed like forever for me to sort my shit out, I was off to the Queen Victoria Markets (on 5 days a week) in the midst of a warm and sunny day, finally! The markets made such an impression on me that I decided I could live here, as in have a real job and life here, not live here and be a backpacker with no money. So I might look for a real job in Melbourne closer to my visa’s end (Don’t worry Mom, I will still be home for Christmas!). The markets were a lot like St Lawrence in Toronto but had more of everything. A whole building for just cheese, bakery stuff, and deli stuff; another building for just meat and seafood; Two separate outdoor covered areas for organic and non-organic produce (the regular produce was wickedly cheap); a huge outdoor covered area full of clothing, shoes, accessories, leather goods, souvenirs, watches, jewelry, beauty products, candy, etc; and finally little cafes all along the outside of all this. Remarkable.
After a good 90mins at the markets I went back to the self-serve Japanese bakery and treated myself to a coconut roll. Yummy. Then hit a café for coffee and internet.
Last night was our last night in Melbourne. Kate was still feeling the effects of St Paddy’s Day, but I wanted to go out and met up with a friend for more night of not enough sleep. Finally hit up Lord of the Fries today for a “French Canadian” aka poutine! It was soooo good! Tonight we take another glorious overnight bus to Adelaide, arriving at 6am tomorrow morning!