Pub Classic

I woke up in my lovely big bed this morning with the sunshine pouring through the cracks in the curtains and the trams and cars buzzing by outside. The first thing I did was check my email, just to see if Goldsmiths had sent me another email (they had, but only inviting me to another open day), and my Facebook notifications. It was around 9am which was really good for me! I was still tired, but couldn't sleep, so I just watched the morning news programmes. More detailed stories about the lady in Northampton and a scandalous story about a politician over here who when speaking about a solider who'd died in Afghanistan, said "tough shit" about the death. It seems the world is just fraught with scandal and governments making fools of themselves.

When I say I had a lazy day today, I had a REALLY lazy day. I stayed in bed 'til lunchtime watching the news and scouring the internet for information on Goldsmiths. I had a quick shower and phoned my mom before heading out for, you guessed it, a Subway (please, I don't ever want a Subway ever again once I put foot on British soil). I think I've totalled nine Subway sandwiches since I got here. I brought that back up to the comfort of my room. But I'd noticed what I lovely day it was outside. Blue skies, glorious Australian sunshine with a light breeze. I think it was 28 degrees out today. I'd earlier booked a tour of the Great Ocean Road for Valentines Day, which wasn't cheap, and I'm becoming ever more conscious of money. I didn't want to pay the 6.80 for the tram, especially when I didn't really have anywhere to go.

I checked on Google maps to see what was in the area and found that there's a big park right around the corner from the hotel, so this was my destination. Ipod and Kindle in tow, I set off. The park was big and beautiful and peaceful and green. There were lots of people walking and a few couples chatting in the grass. I became very aware that in grass lurks spiders, and so I walked around a little before I had the courage to actually sit down. I found a nice tree that was getting a lot of sun, and very cautiously bed down with my things. Like anything, five minutes of adjustment and I was fine. I laid on my bag and listened to some cheery Summer music, letting my pale in comparison to the native skin slowly sizzle under the hot sunshine. I hung out here for a couple of hours alternating between sunning myself like a cat, and getting deeply involved with the book I'm reading; The Choice, by Nicholas Sparks. I'd neglected to take any water out with me and so this meant that I had to head back to the hotel.

I was a little lost as to what to do in the evening. Again, I didn't want to pay for tram fare and again, still, I didn't have anywhere to go. I googled for a 'rock' pub in the CBD that I might be able to find my way to and got all dressed up. I decided to get a discounted tram ticket which lasted for two hours, and headed into the city, with a lot of misplaced anxiety on 'tram ettiquet', i.e. how to hail them, where to stand (the trams around here run in the middle of the street with a tiny, tiny walkway area for you to stand in that's in between the two trams going in the opposite direction from one another). I ummed and ahhed about said anxiety, but figured if I didn't go now then I'd be stuck in my room scared to use the trams for the rest of my day here.
I suppose again, it's like any city, but all the weirdos seemed to be out on my tram ride into the city. A man started sat next to me and started ranting on about how everybody kept to themselves and how rude it was, so when he directed his verbal diarrhoea at me, I told them that they probably had a good reason for not talking to him. My blunt comment seemed to go over his head, and he pointed to my tattoo and asked me if I realised that the symbol on my arm was an ohm. I got off at the next stop...

I found the place, off Flinders Lane down a back alley called "AC DC road". The street was covered with band posters and graffiti and there were lots of people outside being lairy holding pints and smoking cigarettes. I went in and headed to the bar. Again, I panicked when I was asked what I wanted, and so just replied vodka and lemonade. I saw a couple of girls on a long rounded sofa and asked if I could sit on the edge. There was a documentary about a band playing very loudly, and little chance of conversation, so I sat and nursed my drink very slowly. An old lady came around with some sort of hors d'oeuvre that she kept trying to feed me, but I didn't want to get anything on my dress so I declined. The other thing I noticed was that there was a carafe of iced table water on the bar with glasses that you could just help yourself to, and I think that this is a common thing in a lot of bars and restaurants.



I left after a few songs. My tram ticket had nearly expired anyway, plus my two drinks had come to $18 and I wasn't having any more of that. At least I know of somewhere I can go in the future. I managed to get my way back the hotel and into my pjs before tucking in to a carefully stashed sandwich in my mini fridge. To my horror, Embarrassing Bodies and all of it's rubbish affiliations with common working class fame hungry Britons was on the television, so I thought at 11:15pm, it was time to call it a day, listening quietly to the man who was sobbing over the size of his breasts until I fell asleep.