Sunday, 10 November 2013

Spring Carnival Week - Sunday 10th November 2013

This week was spring carnival week and on Tuesday it was the biggest race meet of the Australian calendar, the Melbourne Cup, which meant a public holiday just for Victoria – yes a day off work!!! It was weird having a public holiday on the Tuesday though and really threw me, and I’m sure many others, off the working week. Monday was very quiet in work because of this holiday and I had a fairly easy day, especially with lunch time beers with Cian and Brad – the weather was pretty good after all! In the evening it was date night number 2 with Darcy although it was my treat this time. It was recommended we go to Chin Chins, what we were told was an amazing Thai restaurant. We got there early to put our names down because as we were warned there was a two hour wait for a table (this place must be bloody good) which gave us time to do the other part of the date which Darcy didn’t know about, Chill On Ice Bar. As expected, Darc was a bit like a little excited kid for this, especially once we were all kitted up in our gloves and big coats. Although fairly small, it was pretty cool in there and so so cold! We both had a cocktail out of an ice glass which tasted really good and had some of the professional pictures taken (annoyingly they banned you from using your own camera – boring I know!).
We had an allocated time of around 30 minutes in the ice bar but around this time we both started to freeze a little and decided it was time to warm back up again in the nice Melbourne evening. We headed back to Chin Chin’s and went downstairs in Go Go Bar for a drink and within 15 minutes our table was ready. The food was absolutely amazing and 1 million percent worth the nearly 2 hour wait and bill that come at the end of it (not the cheapest of places), and you could say they had 2 very satisfied customers who will definitely be returning. Overall it was a really lovely evening, which was followed by a good day on the Tuesday – Melbourne Cup day. The weather was once again beautiful and starting to look like summer’s approaching, so we decided to head down to St Kilda to have brunch on the beach front before chilling on the beach. After a good time of tanning (or burning in Darc’s fair skinned case) we got ice cream and headed to the Elephant and Wheelbarrow pub to put on a quick bet and watch the Melbourne Cup race – race of all races. Much to Darcy’s disgust I won which I was very glad about, because even though it wasn’t enough to make me a millionaire it meant I broke even and gained 7 bucks – winner! In the evening I met up with Barry for dinner, a family friend from the UK, and it was a lovely evening and really nice to see a friendly face from home.

The rest of the working week was fairly quiet, especially with the day off in the middle of the week. James had now finished his testing so that was no longer keeping me busy and generally in terms of testing it had died down (uni was now finished and as most of the students are participants for the research, they seemed to have a bit of a hold on testing). I did manage to get involved in a couple of other studies however, analysing blood using a radiometer – a machine I hadn’t used before and seemed to analyse and report back on all the possible components and values of blood, and observing the study of one of the girls upstairs who was looking at brain activity when doing dual tasks of walking and turning left and right in response to a signal. She also said there was a possibility to be a participant too which would be good! The week finished as every other, with a Friday seminar followed by a drink in the bar, although I only stayed for one drink this week as I was heading to Darcy’s to hang out with Tilka and Jack for the evening.

In the week I entered Melbourne’s 14km city2sea run so I decided on Saturday morning to get up and do a nice 10km run. Considering this was the longest distance I had run in a while, I actually ran pretty well and quickly and it was an enjoyable run. In the afternoon I decided to do a bit of a window shopping down Collins street and then at Southwarf DFO (factory outlet). I spotted some absolutely gorgeous and killer heels but after an expensive Monday for date night, I knew I shouldn’t be buying anything so left empty handed and still thinking about the shoes! Darc picked me up on his way home from work and cooked me dinner in the evening. It was a very shit evening though if I’m honest, receiving bad news from back home which made miss home a lot and feel quite homesick. It was a good thing Darc came over though because he was an absolute star and even tried cheering me up buying my favourite lindt chocolates (little did he know) and a bottle of wine! It was safe to say I had little sleep last night and was very tired, missing home and still feeling like shit this morning. So ….. I went back to DFO and brought the shoes (they did have 30% off and were really nice and I only have one pair of heels I actually wear) and a lot of other stuff too (so much for not spending any money) and then spent the afternoon and evening curled on the sofa watching Bridget Jones.

No comments:

Post a Comment