I should be sleeping, but who does that anymore??
Yesterday Lara and I went out into the city in the afternoon in search of a book for my social work paper. I have a list of somewhere around 8 books that I could possibly write about, so I figured I could just run into Borders and pick up one without a problem. I seem to have forgotten Murphy's Law. I think we went in and out of three big bookstores before finally finding one last copy of The Bean Patch in some random bookstore. At least we found one though, even though I didn't particularly want to write about that book. It's an 83-year-old woman's memoir of how she was abused as a child. She was taken to the morgue and pronounced dead at age 4, but the mortician realized as he was sticking her severely beaten body into a bag that she was still alive. At least it wasn't the cult book...that one sounded scary. (It was about a girl who grew up in a house with a lot of other children who were raised by this woman who was the head of a cult....she was very strange, to say the least.) Anyway, once we finally found the book, we searched for which street the little restaurant we went to last time was on, and found it after a little while. We had a yummy dinner and then set about doing "retail therapy" for Lara, since she had...a big night....on Thursday. We both ended up buying the same top in different colors, and I bought another top, a cute sweater, and a light sweatshirt thingy. They were from factory outlets, so they were a good bargain. Then we decided that the perfect end to a shopping day would be to visit Max Brenner. Max Brenner is the most amazing chocolate bar ever. Why don't we have chocolate bars in the States?? I got a dark hot chocolate, Lara got a regular hot chocolate, and we both split a Belgian waffle with vanilla ice cream, strawberries, and (of course) melted chocolate. YUM. Talk about 10,000,000 calories! It was totally worth it too.
Today Mel, Boosh, Steve, and I went to Victoria Market. It's the largest and oldest market in the Southern Hemisphere (at least, that's what Australia claims). It was really big, and had everything-- fish, veggies, clothes, shoes, Ugg boots, boomerangs, pets....you name it, I'm sure they had it. I even saw a Juicy set of sweatpants and the matching jackets for only $55....I was really tempted to get them, and I might go back and buy them later because that's really cheap and they're real Juicy! They only had white, brown, and green though, I think. Anyway, Mel and I had fun walking from one stand to the next looking at everything and oohing and ahhing. Steve and Boosh just kind of walked slowly behind us shaking their heads at us. Boosh got a "Spanish donut"....which is a churro. Christina Chu called me randomly from Guatemala to tell me that her old-fart bus tour is boring, and in Spanish. She didn't appreciate the fact that she couldn't even understand what she was looking at, although she did say she was seeing "some cool stuff." Around 12:30 the boys starting whining that they needed lunch, so we went over to La Porchetta and ate yummy pasta. I had tortellini with pesto sauce, which was pretty good. Then we walked down to a music store for a bit, and then on our way to the tram stop Mel and I saw this sign "THE BEAD SHOP....CLOSING SALE" so of course we had to run in and check it out. They had really cute jewelery, so I bought a necklace and earrings for my turquoise dress that I'm wearing next weekend for the Booze Cruise, and another pair of earrings because they were 2 for $5. After we bought everything good in the store the boys decided that they deserved chocolate for putting up with our shopping...so we visited Max Brenner. I stuck with a normal hot chocolate this time, which made me really sleepy, so as soon as we got home I took a nap til dinner.
Tomorrow is the Grand Final of boys' footy. I'm joining Mel and the other cheerleaders this week. I will most definitely have pictures of us cheerleading. Hopefully we'll win!!!
Cairns, here we come!
Mel and I booked our tickets and hostel for Cairns today. We're staying in a double room at the Cairns Girls Hostel, which is a house run by a couple, and it's (obviously) only for girls. My Lonely Planet Australia guidebook claims it's Cairns' best hostel. I'm so glad we're going!!! We also looked into a one-day trip to the outer Great Barrier Reef--it's a catamaran (powerboat though, not sailboat) and it includes lunch, a glass-bottom boat experience, and snorkeling. Diving is $55 extra for 2 dives, and it includes all gear. The other days we'll just go to the beach (or mudflats, according to Steve.....but what does he know), window-shop, and maybe do an excursion to the rainforest or something random like that. I think we'll just play most of it by ear...I'm sure we'll have fun regardless of what we're doing. I'm so excited for Spring Break!!!! I'll finally get a tan!! Or cancer....but no worries, I've got my trusty Arbonne bottle ready and waiting patiently on my shelf. Only a month to go!!!
Adventures in Borrowed-violin World
So everyone knows how I've been telling Liz (the owner of the borrowed violin) for about 2 weeks now that her strings were going to pop during the show so she needs to buy new ones? Yeah. Well, they did. Actually, they popped Friday night about half an hour before the show started, which created a large panic to find something for me to play on. Another girl was kind enough to trust me with her ancient, expensive violin. It had a wonderful sound, and was good to play on, except that it takes a while of playing on a violin to get used to it, so that didn't really happen until Act 2. But I was definitely happy to play on that one. Then on Saturday morning (okay, afternoon. We all know I don't get up until after noon anyway) I had to go downtown and buy a whole new set of strings for this violin that's not mine. At least I'll be getting reimbursed for them. I was pretty impressed: the strings were originally $95 for the whole set, and I only paid $23.75. They're German strings, and had a very good, loud, clear tone. Something in that violin is rattling though. I think it comes from not cleaning it. I don't know. Anyway, I put the strings on, tuned it, played a bit, tuned some more, and left them to stretch for a few hours. Before the show, I tuned and played for a long time, expecting them to wear in at any moment. And I was still tuning between every song because they took a long time to stretch. But my favorite song to play, More I Cannot Wish You, sounded GREAT. By the end, the violin had worn in the strings. Overall, the show was really fun. I'm sad that Williams doesn't do musicals. They were the best part of high school.
The large egg on my head is doing a bit better, although it's less red and more bruised now. On Friday night a bunch of us were hanging out in Steve's room, and I left to go to the bathroom, and when I shut the door I wasn't paying attention, and the doorframe all of a sudden punched me in the forehead. Talk about painful. There was a large cracking noise and an immediate lump. I'm still not sure what made the crack noise-- my head breaking or the doorframe. Thank goodness for makeup that can cover it!!
Last night was the after party, which was pretty fun. Mel's friend Libby came to the show, so she hung out with us at the after party too. Actually, she and I hung out at the after party cuz Mel and Boosh flitted about the room. The music was so loud I had to scream to say anything, so I ended up kind of hoarse at the end of the night.
Oh, I almost forgot! Mel and I bought really cute sundresses on Friday for the River Cruise on September 1st. Mine's the same color as my new bathingsuit-- a kind of deep orangy color, with flowers on it. Mel's is green. They looked really good on, and they're very summery, so we figured they'd be useful when we go to Cairns. We're going to book plane tickets for that today, when Boosh and Mel come back from eating lunch with their parents. We still are looking for a fourth person to go, since Steve isn't coming....I'd rather not be a third wheel if possible. Does anyone wanna come with us?
Robyn got her plane tickets to come visit me!!!! She'll be here the last week I'm here, in November. I hope I don't have exams then....we could go sightseeing around Victoria. Exciting!
