mcg and on the road again

i spent the last few hours i was in melbourne wisely. i went to my very first aussie rules footy game. it was richmond versus the west coast at melbourne cricket ground. the stadium is amazing. there were 27,000 people there but it looked kind of empty cos it holds 90,000 people. yowj. i well got into the game. a group of us went: imke, tara the canadian, shinny the korean and chris the aussie who is tara's mate from sydney. i set next to chris who explained all the rules to me. i got quite knowledgable and was able to shout out 'ball' and 'ump' and 'chewy on yer boot' with the rest of them and know what i was on about. i supported richmond cos they're at the bottom of the league and west coast are at the top. well, you've to go for the underdog, haven't you? and there were a couple of moments in the game when richmond did quite well. but they ended up losing 76-99. oh idea. that's five losses out of five for them. we went for a consolitory drink after the game and listened some 'best of crowded house' album that was on in the bar.

and then i was back on the road. phil, bless him, gave me a lift to the bus station, after i'd left it ridiculously late getting back from the bar and i'd still not packed or eaten, etc. i feel proper hardcore now i've done an overnighter. it wasn't as bad as i thought it was going to be. i looked fondly at my old home as we drove out of melbourne and then they put a film on ('i, robot' - it passed the time) and then i dozed for the rest of the trip. there was a surreal moment when we stopped at some roadhouse and i bought a milo and i was sat in this really brightly lit cafe type petrol station, thinking i was in some edward hopper painting. i burnt the roof of my mouth on the milo. it wasn't that nice, cos it was made with water and not milk. but it put me on. i don't think i actually slept but i did kind of doze cos the journey didn't seem to take too long. we arrived in adelaide at 5am on a sunday morning. not much happening. i wandered the streets to find the hostel rather than wait til 6am when the guy said he'd pick me up. it was quite nice. it was dark and had just rained so smelled all fresh and i had the place to myself. a passing cyclist smiled at me at a traffic light as we both sympathised at being up at such an ungodly hour.

the hostel restored my faith in hostels. the guy arrived at 5.45am to open up and immediately offered me free tea and toast. which is exactly what i needed. i was staaaarving. staying up all night makes you soooo hungry. and then i was allowed to check in go to bed. i had nightmare thoughts of not being able to check in until midday and having to stay up. but no. i slept for a few hours and then spent the day wandering about adelaide. it's a quiet city. i can imagine that it wakes up during festivals. it's quite a nice compact size for festivals. everyone in melbourne said there was nothing to do here but i had a nice time just wandering. i went to the museum and learned about aboriginal culture and what 'Dreaming' actually means. will be good for when i get to uluru next week. so, yeah, have had a nice chilled out relaxing time in adelaide, though a couple of days here is def enough. went to see 'paris, je taime' last night which was thought provoking. they, at least, have good arthouse cinemas here. and i was quite jovial last night and had a good old chat to some dutch girls staying in the room. and they weren't nobheads.

so all is well again. heading to coober pedy tonight on another overnighter. argh....