One Manic Night in Melbourne

Arrived at 3 o'clock to "The Hatch".
Steve-o's house with a pirate flag swaying in the wind in front of the house.
Steve lives with two of his friends, Mitch and Nick, but they said that they have pretty much random house guests all over the time (now James seems to be living here too?). Also Nick's friend Matt (who can't make himself like beer wtf!) has been staying here since he's visiting Nick.

Matt, Mitch, Steve and Nick

The boys offer us a beer (Nick and Matt have been apparently drinking from 10) - "Guess I can have one".
Well.... it didn't really end in one beer.

First the guys were playing cricket INSIDE.... oh lord :D

Nick is CRAZY. He's got his friends to sign his leg and tattooed them on his leg.. insane
Oh, and he asked for us to sign his leg, so I guess we'll be doing that!

Then we started playing our card drinking game ("Crickey!" before drinking, "Meow" after every sentence... yeah gets you pretty wasted) and it was when Laura figured to ask whether they have a beer bong (yes) that she dared Melanie to do one. Melanie never having done one got half of the beer on her face.. :D Laura then showed how it's done and I followed doing my first beer bong ("was that it?").

Nick and me

All of a sudden everyone started smashing beer bottles in the brick wall... alrighty, the neighbors must love these guys!

So yeah beer bonging and then beer ponging.
Me and Mitch went into the store to buy cups and ping pong balls. But since they didn't sell those kinds of balls I figured we could buy some small christmas balls (that were exactly the size of a ping pong ball) and use them instead! And so we did.

Laura got a cut on her foot but Nick fixed it

The game was me n mitch vs. melanie and nick.
Melanie came up with pretty interesting ways of trying to get her opponents to loose their concentration while trying to throw the ball in the cup..

Everyone ended up being smashed and Melanie apparently did her usual emotional drunk scene and Laura was so tired she went to sleep (read: passed out).

Good night!

Sydney

Isaac's, Kyle's, Nikita's and Dave's house

train station

Opera House

Sydney Harbor Bridge

Market place

Isaac!

Apparently Australia's best beer

Illalla syötiin Isaacin ja Lauran kanssa pizzaa, katottiin sex and the citya ja juotiin jägerbombseja. Kello 12 mentiin ulos ja ekaa kertaa elämässäni kävin ruotsinkielisen keskustelun yhen puoliks venäläisen, puoliks ruotsalaisen kanssa! Mentiin yhteen homobaariin, jonka jälkeen mentiin King's Crossiin, joka kuhis yöelämästä. Ei jaksettu kyl olla pitkään, ja lähettiin jo 3lta kotiin. Oli aika mielenkiintosta yrittää nukkua 5 jgebombin jälkeen (jägerbomb = a shot of jäger + energy drink)

Arts Factory @ Byron Bay

sry for the bad photo. you don't really get a good picture of this hostel unless you are actually here!

Weird to stay at a hostel you once saw on Finnish tv...!
Arts Factory is probably the most legendary hostels in Australia.
So far I love it. It has so much character in it and it just blends in with hippie Byron Bay with its tree-hugging-atmosphere. Srsly, If you wanna see hippies, come to Byron.

Since Arts Factory is eating half of my day budget, it means we won't be eating out anytime soon.
When we went to Woolies I got my shopping basket stocked up with noodles, various kinds of flavored tuna, pasta sauce and 6 x canned spaghetti (which turned out to be absolutely horrific. I had to throw it in the bin. I don't care if i'm on a tight budget or not, but there's no way I'll eat that shit).
I won't be able to drink the good stuff either (beer & rum n coke, mind you, alcohol is EXPENSIVE here.) so I bought a casket of that infamous and feared Sovereign goon.

lobby ja alareunas joku FLASHPACKER.

Barry & his ridiculous schoolies T..

The evening was so chilax. I was drinking goon with Barry, John and Kevin (=guys from Fraser Island).  The Arts Factory crew had organized this cool event where the people who work at this hostel perform with instruments and stuff. It was amazing just to sit with tons of people in dusk listening to good music. Really enjoyed it.

Note the sitting iguana!

We also went to some clubs and I was hanging out with Jasmine, my bestie back home. Laura and Melanie had a quiet one although they did come out to the club for their free drink. I'm not quite sure how this happened, but I ended up getting a free midnight 3 AM snack (onmonmomn NOODLE BOX) from this Aussie guy, yay! I also had a good conversation with this shuttle driver guy who turned out to be Finnish!

Oh yea, we also put and ad on the notice board about us looking for the 4th person to join our roadtrip.
Sorry if the note sounds a bit prostitute-ish but I was a bit gooned up when I got my creativeness flowing...

click to make it bigger!

Free Accommodation FTW

Surfers Paradise. Hate hate hate the sky scrapers

I woke up at 8:30 to the ringing of my phone. I'm completely drowsy from only 5,5 hours of drunken sleep and trying to make out who I'm talking to. Ben? Who was this from last night?

"Ben from couch surfing. You guys can stay at my house."

SCORE! We had messaged a guy the day before cause we wanted to save some money by getting free accommodation. After sleeping at Tom's we also discovered what we'd missed while sleeping at hostels. It's a totally different experience staying with locals and letting them show you around than meeting the same faces (of foreign backpackers that is) all along the way when traveling down the coast from hostel to hostel. You also do a lot more than just hang around and drink goon with the other backpackers.

We went to the beach near by Tom's house and just when Ben smses me his address I stop. Hedges Avenue looks a bit familiar. Wait what. I AM on Hedges Avenue. Hedges Avenue is the street NEXT TO THE BEACH two streets up from Tom's. sweeeeeeeet.

Anyways

Reece

Now we are at Reece's appartment. The other people that live in this condo had a small party and everyone includin Reece went out except us. I don't mind. It's nicer in this nest anyways. Just eating jellybeans and all of us three writing our journals.

Random House Party

These was one of those days. Did really nothing. We went to Peter Pans for the Internet cause I had shit to do. We ended up sitting there for 1,5 hours and not paying, cause Reece (the guy were hanging out with on Saturday before Tom came. He booked our van.) was working. haha 8)

We went to see Natalia (from Mission Beach) before she went on the bus!

Oh and we asked him whether we could crash at this place tomorrow, cause Tom's roomies are moving in. So yay, staying at Reece's on Tuesday!
Surfers was PACKED with schoolies as usual...

One 17-year-old came up to us on the street in broad daylight and asked whether we would like to go back with him and his friend to their hotel room.. ummm hell no :D:D

While we were walking somewhere in Burleigh Heads trying to find our way back to Tom's in the moonlight, we saw two guys throw a ball across the street.
"I wanna go to a house party. I still have it on my list of things to do in Australia."
"Yeah, we should totally crash a house party."
As we walk pass the house where the guys had thrown the ball from, we noticed that it actually was a house party. People were sitting on the terrace of the beach house and yelling "wooooooo schoooliesssssss!" at us.
"No... BACKPACKERS!"

The guy with the ball comes up to us and tells us that we should join their party.
So we randomnly entered to this sweet crib full of skateboarders and surfers. Immediately we were offered a welcome drink and conversing with these new friends of ours.
Go to a house party in Australia [x]

Kit & us

We also went with them to this small cafe/bar, The Caves, and listened to some live music. The place was part of an art-indie-scene and had a really nice atmosphere in it. Lots of good looking guys.. haha :D The Caves reminded me a bit of one of my favourite bars in Helsinki, Como Te Llamas or just Laama in short.

We ended up getting drunk for $7 cause the guys were buying us drinks. We went back to their sweet little beach house after the cafe closed at 11 and had a couple of drinks before going back home.

Oh, one of the guys, Kit, said that we could stay for free at a place in Surfers that he's renting out. The apartment is empty now, cause he doesn't want any schoolies in it. We'll see.. :)

RENTING A VAN

WE JUST RENTED A FRIGGIN VAN WITH LAURA AND MELANIE!!!
Looking for the 4th person... preferably a guy haha :D
7th till the 20th of December
Departing from Melbourne, doing the great Ocean Road and seeing Uluru and after that returning the van back to Melbourne.  We're also probably gonna see some of the cool little surf towns the locals have recommended for us to see.

So we are at Peterpan's (travel agency) right now and Reece, the travel agent, is the coolest ever.
I could really imagine working here if the job consists of showing your facebook photos of your burning mangina, telling stories about Fraser Island which involve you, a german girl and a dingo, not forgetting about creating your youtube playlist of cool indie rock. Srsly this guy is so laidback and so is his job!

Oh, he just told us, that the 20th of December is Sunday, so we won't be able to drop off the van then, so he gave us a FREE day for the van... wtf :D alright!

So, Reece got us a really good deal. He called his childhood friend, who also is a travel agent, and got us a Jucy campervan for $24/a day per person !
He estimated that the fuel costs for our whole trip will be around $1000, so for 4 people that makes $625 ($18/day) + insurance. So now we only have to hope we don't crash the car...

Yep yep, that's that. We are just eating noodles in this travel shop and joking with Reece while waiting for Tom. He's moving house but he should be here anytime soon :)

On the Road to Gold Coast

Puhuin eilen Tomin kaa puhelimessa ja se lupas majottaa meijät lauantaina ja sunnuntaina, vaikka saavutaankin Gold Goastiin mahdollisimman huonoon aikaan. Kokopäivätyön ja loppu vapaa-ajan vievän opiskelun lisäksi Tom muuttaa huomenna uuteen kämppään...

Oon niin stocked! Asutaan tänään hostellissa, mutta mennään illalla Tomin kaa parille. I must say, vähä jänskää, en oo nähny Tomii vuoteen ja kolmeen kuukauteen :D aaa

Aijoo ja  vähän siistii, Tom muuttaa Burleigh Headsiin (in Gold Coast), Nobby's Beachiin... Kaiken lisäks sen talo on beach house 50 metriä rannasta... Yes please.

PS. Ollaan nyt Surfers Paradises !

Long Lost Relatives

Pojat otti Island shuttlen harbouriin, koska ne halus jatkaa matkaa Ayriin sukeltaakseen, mutta sovittiin, että nähtäs Airlie Beachissä. Me tytöt taas mentiin ainooseen kahvilaan, joka lyödettiin, ja syötiin aamiaista.

Melanie on siis recently saanu tietää, että sillä on kaukainen sukulainen täällä Magnetic Islandsilla, joten patikoitiin rinkat selässä sen talolle. Henrietta on sulonen mummo, joka on muuttanu 60-luvulla Hollannista Australiaan. Se kasvattaa melkein kaikki vihannekset itse omassa puutarhassaan ja sillä on myös chokseja, kanoja.

On ollut ihanaa vaan levyttää koko päivä. Olin ihan kuoleman väsyny, koomanen, ja mun selkä on ihan paskana siitä, että ollaan nukuttu ilman mattresseja ohuilla makuupusseilla. Plus oon kipee.

Tuntuu outoa olla jonkun kodissa. Tai siis outoa on se, kuinka vaivattomasti pystyy tuntea olemaan kotonaan, vaikkei edes tunneta Henriettaa. Tavallaan kiva tehdä välillä jotain erilaista; loppujen lopuksi kaikkii hostellit ovat samanlaisia ja kaikissa hostelleissa vallitsee sama meininki. Täällä ollaan vaan makoiltu kolmistaan Henriettan vierashuoneen parisängyssä ja ladattu akkuja.

Tehtiin me myös jotain: Mentiin ruokkimaan Rock Wallabyja ! Srsly so cute. <3 En oo koskaan tajunnu sitä, ku jengi on ”omgomg haluun nähä kengurun/koalan”.. Mut wallabyt oli just jees. Nähtiin myös pari nukkuvaa koalaa, ja olihan ne kieltämättä sulosia. Mut mikään ei voittanu sitä, ku olin pesemässä illalla hampaita ja kuulen jonkun syömisäänen ulkoa ja myös äänen, joka kuulostaa kuin joku olisi choukkaamassa. I KNEW IT. A possum !!!! Ne on niiiiiin siistei, haluun adoptoida sellasen! Teki mieli silittää sitä, mut se olis salee purru.. Mut anyway, what i really wanna see is a shark. Kunhan se ei syö/purase mua eikä ketään muutakaan. Mut olis ihan helvetin makeet nähä evä ja tuntee se adrenalin rush. Kunhan kaikki pääsis sit vedest ylös turvallisesti :D Välil kyl jännittää uida tääl, enkä yleensä meekkään kauheen syvälle.

Tänään (22.10) jäin vaan tänne talolle, kun Laura ja Melanie meni wildlife showhun. Siel ois siis ollu koaloja ja possumeita. Jos maksat $14 (10€) niin pääset pitämään Koalaa sylissä ja ottamaan sen kanssa kuvan. $19 pätee posumeihin. Koko raha menee kuuleman eläinten hoitoon. Mua ei sinäänsä kiinosta tollanen ja varsinkin kun ollaan jo nähty kummatkin lajit luonnossa. Kaiken lisäksi tunnen, että on parempi jäädä kotiin lepäämään, koska en halua olla kipee Airlie Beachissä (jossa on muuten kaikki ! Ainaki Cairnsissa tutustumani Stella Suomesta ja Coloradon pojat).

Villasukille on siis äiti ollut käyttöä. :D Laura on nauranu vaikka kuinka monta kertaa, kun otin villikset mukaan, koska äiti sano, että lentokoneessa tulee varmasti kylmä (ei tullu).
Tänään oon siis vain ajatellu lepäillä, lukea mun kirjaa ja siivota mun rinkan + järjestää sen uusiksi. Oon jopa pessy mun, Lauran ja Melanien pyykit! En yhtään tiiä mitä teen ton Fullmoon Partyn kanssa (jonka vuoks alun perin päätettiin tulla tänne). Se ois tänään ja siel ois ASTON SHUFFLE esiintymässä (Aussie DJ), mut toisaalta ois erittäin hyvä idis lepää eikä toi sääkään oo mikään niin hyvä. Eilen oltiin kaikki sillä kannalla, ettei mennä, koska sato ja tuuli aamuyöstä iltaan saakka. We’ll see.

Aijoo, säästin eilen vähän päälle $50 :) (which was my mission for the day)

That’s the beauty of knowing people around the world: they’re always willing to give you accommodation and a meal (: