"Is this going to kill me?"

...is what I asked my waitress about the double chorizo dog I was ordering at this great bar in Melbourne. She said yes, probably. I love her. But lemme back up.

Saturday, in the interest of time I’ll assure I had a fantastic day with Stella running around town. Our lives are glamourous because we are super hot and I’ll leave it at that.

Sunday, after hemming and hawing and stressing and drinking, I made my plane to Melbourne just in the nick of time. YES, I reeeally wanted to see Melbourne. No, I reeeally didn’t want to do anything else involved like pack, fly, arrange, or think. I was so stressed Stella made me drink a lot. (That’s a lie.) But it did help get me on the plane, despite running half an hour late and almost sleeping past my airport stop on the train.

I got to Melbourne and guess who’s also vacationing here! Geo! Everytime I try to ask him directions, he gives me the finger and dives into another pint of cider. He’ll give me walking directions, but no public transport, so I’ve returned to using geographic pieces of paper, my brain, and a little common sense. I have very little common sense, so I’m often lost and always on the wrong tram.

In Melbourne, they use a very cool tram system to get you around the main parts of the city. I’m not only intensly directionally challenged but also an idiot who will stand on the side of the road no one else is standing on, CERTAIN I’m right and 28 other people are wrong, and SO CERTAIN I don’t even need to ask anyone for help—even though chances are they’ve probably ridden that route more often than I have, because its my very first time. But this is how I learn. In the hardest and most inconvenient, time-consuming way.

Anyway, after an hour in the cold—did I mention it’s cold in Melbourne? Because it is. COLD. It’s cooooold in Melbourne. Melbourne is south of Sydney so I imagined sundresses and bikini tops—but I’m on the wrong hemisphere for my thinking to work, so my sundresses and bikinis are playing hangman inside Stella’s guest closet as I wear borrowed gloves, hats, and jackets. I have tights on under my jeans. Yesterday I wore 4 layers on top. It’s cold. It’s like 4 right now. Because I know enough Celcius now to fake it. The high today was 12. Impressed, yet?

Anyway, after an hour in the cold I made it to my hostel. That’s another reason I almost accidentally on purpose missed my flight- my hostel. I used to be queen of the hostels, but my  last experience in Costa Rica 5 years ago, and the fact that I’m in my thirties, sort of turned me off to ever hostelling again. But I’m officially unemployed, and I can’t justify paying for a place I will only sleep, so the hostel it is. I got creative about the prospect—"I’m writing a story about teenagers! I should hang out with some! Omg, at the hostel!"

I check in and meet my first roommate—Michelle, 50, mother of 2, also a writer when she’s not doing her day job. So much for the teenage experience. Unless, that’s all life is, is one ongoing teenage experience because the soul knows no age… (And then Bianca pounds a Four Loko and stares out the window for 4 days, scared of the truth... clearly, I’m tired. Excuse my lazy filter.) As I’m make-upping to go out on my own, Michelle tells me all about the missing woman who is most certainly murdered who has rocked Melbourne because things like this just don’t happen here. Or didn’t use to.

I’m keyed up walking to dinner – the place was less than half a km away, relax Stella and parents – ready to fight off every monster, rapist, and murderer who has ever existed. I make it to my restaurant, this fantastic place called the Waiting Room in the lobby of The Crown Hotel. I order the homemade double chorizo dog because life is short and I’m now convinced I’ll be murdered sometime soon. I loved The Waiting Room and the chorizo dog, though I did have to mouth-breathe my way to sleep later that night when the memory of my fantastic dinner started making me feel fantastically sick. Small price to pay for living like there’s no tomorrow.

DAY 1 - Today I took advantage of the free breakfast the hostel offers every day. I just made it as they were about to shut down (like all the other teenagers, I slept in) and carbo-loaded. So much for my careful wheat-free diet that I adhere to like velcro unless I’m with Stella in front of a pizza.

On a good day it can take me multiple hours to leave my own house because I am given to following any distraction. If it’s shiny, sparkly, bloody or fun to dance to, tack an extra 10 minutes to my morning. If I’m not in my own space, forgettaboutit, I could be there all day. Today I went from –

...and I just turned down 2 teenage Spainiards' invitation to drink in their dorm room. I’m sorry! I can’t! I have no personality and will never have any good stories because I live in front of a computer screen and I’M OLD. But really, I already brushed my teeth. I suck.

(All day I’ve been drinking wine by myself, ready to entertain the people Hugh Jackman swore would approach me because I’m so pretty and they’re so friendly. It didn’t happen. Why couldn’t the 2 Spanish teenagers from the hostel be 20 years older at a wine bar?? Dammitt, I can’t have nice things!)

Anyway, today I made it from pillow to outside in an hour and a half which is amazing. And then I came back THREE times after walking all the way down the street because I forgot this, that and the other. Sigh. Nice to know I'm still me.

I finally made it to Fitzroy, a part of town my friend Chelsea used to live in and had recommended to me. I was looking for a cool, comfy coffee place where I could do my writjng for the day—I’d researched coffee bars for an hour the night before night. After ambling around the graffiti speckled, gorgeous streets of Fitzroy, I found the most perfect place in the world. Old cool couches, small plates, coffee, tea, beer, and wi-fi, plus a dj spinning incredible music through out the day. The Black Cat. Crazy in love with it, cant imagine not returning to write there every day so I probably will…

After writing, I stopped by another Chelsea Pick—Napier Hotel, an old fashioned pub that she recommended for Kangaroo. Yes, kangaroo. We’d been talking on the Wolverine set about eating kangaroo and how, as Americans, it feels kind of wrong—we’d be eating the country’s mascot. That’s like people eating bald eagles. I think the problem goes deeper than that—it goes Winnie the Pooh deep. Because Kanga was such a soft gentle mother to Roo, as since most of us identified with Roo when we were read Winnie the Pooh because we were also babies – that is how it was for me anyway, eating Kangaroo is like eating your mother. Gross.

But I did it. I didn’t feel altogether awesome about it either. I feel like doing a penance or apologizing to someone for what I did. The meat wasn’t bad though.

After, I headed to the city center to see some of the lesser known laneways – tiny not-quite-streets that exist between larger streets – before sunset. Some of these are known for their street art and that’s what I was after. After going half an hour out of my way on the tram because I wasn’t paying attention, I made it to only a handful of laneways and allys before it got too dark to see anything. But wowza, the stuff I did see was incredible! —I took a ton of pics.

After I headed down to Melbourne's beach suburb of  St. Kilga- it’s home to many of the recommendations I got for a nice glass of wine from Hugh (Jackman? You might have heard of him. I’m being obnoxious.) Because I’m a jerk, I got off the tram too early – whyyyy do I follow the herd? It’s so boring!-  and got a little lost.

More wine, more food, more writing to keep from feeling quite so ALONE OUT BY MYSELF. Don’t cry for me, I’m a good writer, and I entertained myself just fine.

I came back to the hostel to a dark room of sleeping roommates. I wrote this blog in the library until my computer battery ran out – yes charger, no adapter, grrr – and went to bed. Tried, actually.

As I put my butt on my bunk – lower bunk, natch—in the pitch black, my comforter spoke to me, “Youre trying to get in my bed”

“Excuse me?”

The cute Australian girl and I figured out she had, in fact, taken over MY bed even though my shoes were under it, even though my scarf was on top of it, even though all my crap was in the locker assigned to it. I conceded and took the only remaining bed – top bunk over sleeping Michelle with dirty kleenex strewn all over the floor around it. I guess she has a cold. Awesome.

Did I still want my bed back after Cute Aussie Girl had gotten all up in it? No. But I was still incredibly annoyed. Annoyed enough not to feel bad when I made enough noise to wake a coma victim this morning as she slept in. You stay in a hostel, you get what you get. Sorry, cute girl.



Hi chilly Melbourne!



Fitzroy street art



Fitzroy street art



Fitzroy street art



Fitzroy street art