G’day folks!

Hope you’re well, had a lovely Christmas and are currently enjoying the (hopefully) nice and chilled week up until New Year’s Eve.

Just thought I’d do a quick (compared to some of Squage’s “War And Peace” efforts) blog to fill you in on how Christmas in Melbourne was.

Christmas Eve
This mainly consisted of wandering around department stores during the day (just to see somewhere that actually had Christmas decorations up if nothing else), then going out drinking in the evening. We met up with Matt from earlier in the New Zealand trip, along with his girlfriend and her mate (both called Katie, which helped my lame memory), so including Chris and myself we were 6 strong, which was quite cool.

Matt, Katie and other Katie are all from Essex, which was cool – if a little odd, in that it almost felt like being back in Essex occasionally, what with chatting about such things as the Essex Chronicle, the Blackwater and pubs in Woodham and Maldon…

Most of the pubs were filled with British folk (most of the Aussies at their local pubs rather than expensive, pomme-filled city places I suspect), which was odd and it seemed that none of the pubs wanted to admit it was Christmas, playing generic dance/chart tunes all night.

We saw Christmas Day in with “Put Your Hands Up For Detroit”. How festive.

It wasn’t a crap night, it just didn’t feel like Christmas.

Christmas Day
After waking up too early (i.e. pre-12pm), Chris and I met up with Matt et al and headed to St Kilda for our Christmas meal at a local greasy spoon luxurious restaurant.

In the restaurant we met up with some of Matt’s travelling mates/mates from home, which was cool so there was a good crowd of us.

Christmas Lunch itself was, well, interesting. The serving staff were somewhat confused and the meal rather, er, odd. I guess they don’t normally need glasses with wine – or open wine bottles – or champagne of one colour – or christmas pudding portions bigger than one mouthful – or white wine that doesn’t taste like cream soda – or… I could go on.

To be honest, I’m not moaning as from the very beginning, on seeing that we were going to be having our Christmas Lunch in what was essentially a seaside cafe, we started laughing. Much of the meal was spent with tears in my eyes through finding it all a bit too amusing – and I wasn’t the only one.

So a great time had on the whole, even if it was a bit ridiculous. Ian (Matt’s Irish mate) even took to “welding” the crap cracker toys together to make weird looking sculptures that’d not look out of place in the Tate Modern. As I say: a bit ridiculous.

We didn’t make it to the beach, sadly. This was mainly due to it being a) cold, b) cloudy and c) frequently rainy. Apparently it’s been the coldest Christmas in Melbourne for a loooong time.

You can take the Englishman away from the weather…

In the evening we scuttered around some (non-festive) bars, then eventually onto a hostel lounge in the city centre, which had a huge telly and plenty of cosy chairs.

I spent the last part of the evening watching Only Fools and Horses, drinking Bud from a bottle and eating crisps and nuts.

Now that’s what Christmas is all about :-)

Oh and on Boxing Day?
Chris and I met up with Neil from work and his travelling mates Roy and Louis – and spent the afternoon and evening pubbing it up. Another good, if slightly tipsy, day.

Anyways, we’re about to go to the cinema to watch that Arag-Dara-irog-eargo-… That Dragon Film, so I’ll speak to you later. Check out the photos of Christmas if you’re bored!

Have an awesome New Year if I don’t speak to you before then!

Pat

P.S. Due to a plethora of spam comments, which continue to bombard the blog (even though if WordPress’s security is functioning correctly, they shouldn’t be able to), if you post a comment it won’t appear until I’ve approved it. Sorry peeps…

P.P.S. Due to net issues thanks to the nasty earthquake t’other day I couldn’t get through to squage.com to post this yesterday. So I’ve seen Eragon now. It’s a bit rubbish, I’m afraid. Great special effects, not bad acting but the script just felt rushed… no time to get to know characters, lots of rather quick learning, lots of convenient twists… boo. I’m at the Melbourne Museum at the mo and Chris and I are about to watch Night At The Museum (appropriate, non?) at the IMAX. Can’t wait :-)