I’m back! In the eight months since my last post, I finished my degree (with a 2:1), went to Brighton Pride and travelled to the other side of the world. This travelling is the perfect excuse to get my blog up and running again to fill you in on all my adventures!
The Flights
Monday 7th August was my last day of 2017 on British soil, which I spent watching the first episode of The Man in the Orange Shirt and Olly Alexander: Growing Up Gay. A very emotional morning which already had me drained. That was followed by a three hour drive from Norwich to Heathrow; most of the time was spent duetting with Mum to Westlife, Spice Girls and The Wanted.
Bad thing number one. Checking in the first flight went wrong; I managed to check in but the system shut down before Isobel could. Once on the plane, I watched Kong: Skull Island (it’s hard to look at Tom Hiddleston without thinking about Hiddleswift and feeling all kinds of eurgh) and Changeling (Angelina Jolie is going to be my first wife). So it was a decent flight with a good nap in between the films.
But bad thing number two happened on the shuttle bus. SOME KID BASICALLY THREW UP ON ME. Top tip: always carry wipes in case of incidents like this.
The second flight was another film filled flight with Logan and Personal Shopper. I hadn’t got around to see these films when they were released due to university work so I was delighted to see them both on there. Kristen Stewart is actually going to be my first wife too.
Wednesday 9th August
We arrived that morning, and slept for the rest of the day. Jet lag just jumps on you with no warning.
Thursday 10th August
We sorted out bank accounts and library cards to prepare for job hunting. This was followed by a beautiful lunch at Smith & Deli. It’s a small vegan deli with a massive range of vegan foods. The grilled sandwich I had was The Friend Zone ($10), cheese, tomato and ham. And oh my god was it the best thing I’ve ever had in my life. Every vegan cheese I had before was nothing like this little beauty. I would attach a picture but I was too busy eating it to get a portrait. It’s taking a while to adjust to prices here, like a bottle of lemonade costing $3 compared to England’s £1.60.
The parks are beautiful, very well structured with hidden treasures in nearly every one. In the Fitzroy Gardens, there’s a miniature village, awarded to Victoria for providing Britain with food during World War II.
We also found many statues with unique histories to each one; my favourite one was a statue of a man in a lion’s outfit from The Wizard of Oz, to represent the courage of being yourself in the LGBT community. It was honoured to the first gay Mayor of Fitzroy.
Friday 11th August
We joined in a hostel activity which was Pints, Pool and Ping Pong. I literally went for the ping pong, which I was pretty decent at. Social anxiety takes a break when ping pong is involved.
Saturday 12th August
National Gallery of Victoria had an exhibition for Hokusai and as I missed it in London, I was ecstatic to find it here. It cost $16 and contained basically his whole collection. I fell in love with every single piece of art. It was truly beautiful. It is devastating to think that he wasn’t recognised during his lifetime, his art were just remarkable. The rest of the gallery is remained to be seen as I arrived quite late and the queue into the exhibition was about half an hour long.
Sunday 13th August
The Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria. Breathtaking. Magnificent. Better than any garden I have ever seen. So many plants, 50,000 and 8,500 different species, to be precise. There was a huge lake in the middle, which links to the other lakes and the man-made “volcano”, which keeps all the plants watered throughout the year. There were mini replica rainforstests and bamboo forests. There was a herb garden, which looked more like an overgrown with weeds garden. There was a spectacular view of the towers in Melbourne City Centre. Punting was available but at $25 each, which would not be worth it in my opinion, when you can use your own two feet to walk around there yourself. The animals I saw were limited to the water birds, such as coots, moorhens and storks.
Disappointingly, McDonalds here does not have a vegetarian option which means I’ll be living on just fries instead.
Monday 14th August
Alternatively known as Exhibition Day.
First was the Australian Centre of the Moving Image, with two exhibitons: Wallace & Gromit and Friends: The Magic of Aardman ($24) and Screen Worlds (free). The Wallace & Gromit exhibition was fantastic, being able to see the process of the making of the films, adverts, and TV shows, was mind blowing. The amount of work the company has done in the last thirty years is incredible, and makes me feel that my life is gonna amount to nothing (compared to this at least). Me and Isobel made our own stop-motion animation of her lion being beaten by my Cornish pasty shaped dinosaur.
The Screen Worlds displayed the history of Australian film and film in general. There was a section about Aboriginal films and documentaries which I intend to look into. I also saw Cate Blanchett’s Oscar for her Best Supporting role in The Aviator, probably the closest I’ll get to an Oscar. But most importantly, I made a flip book of myself dancing, which will definitely become an heirloom one day.
The next exhibition was the Koorie Heriate Trust (free), which displayed Aboriginal artefacts and art. It wasn’t a large scale exhibition with only a few items in glass cabinets and drawers. There was also recent artwork made by Deanne Gilson (Murnong: Yam Daisies) and Marlene Gilson (What If). The ‘What If’ collection was thought provoking as it showed a world where the Aboriginals invaded England before the English had a chance to, and the ‘Murnong: Yam Daisies’ were beautiful and bright, and if I had any money I would be snapping one of those straight up.
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