The First Weekend on the Town

This weekend was fun, fabulous, and went way too fast!  As I said, I met a lot of people on my beach welcome trip, including my next door neighbors!  There are 9 students living next door, and they are part of the same housing as I am, which is Burwood Student Living.  They are pretty nice houses, and the convenient thing is that they all house students from Deakin, and most are students who are studying abroad.  The houses are pretty nice (some nicer than others), but it is pretty expensive!  As I will probably continue to say over and over and over again, Australia is EXPENSIVE!! But this housing was a last minute decision, so I had no other choice.  However, if anyone reading this is planning to study abroad in Melbourne, I might advise you to look for cheaper housing than BSL.

There are lots of positives about living here though, one of which, is you meet a lot of people.  I met the girls next door, Sarah, Lucy, and Hannah, who are all from the UK.  It was Sarah's birthday on Saturday, so obviously we had to celebrate big time!  It was our first night going out in Melbourne as a big group, as most of the people from the beach welcome trip came along to join the celebration.

We began a pre-party at my neighbors (the girls house) around 8pm.  To be honest, I don't think any of us expected so many people from the beach welcome trip to show up...but they did, which was great! The house was pretty packed, but everyone was having fun, and enjoying a few cocktails.  After a while, we all decided to head to Melbourne on the tram...and, might I say, the public transportation here is amazing!! So, around 20 of us headed to the city all together.  Thank goodness for the tram conductor, we told him what stop we needed to get off at, and he put up with our loud shananagans all the way there!  We went to a bar first, and then a club called the Transit Cocktail Lounge in Federation Square.  Here's a site that can give you more information on the club! http://www.fedsquare.com/index.cfm?pageID=435 We spent most of the night there, dancing and having a good time.  Federation Square is a really cool place.  It is kind of the heart of the city.  It's really awesome because there are new modern buildings and museums, surrounded by old, beautiful, historic buildings.  This also happens to be the major tram station, Flinders St. Station.  It is MASSIVE and gorgeous.  The photo above is Flinders St. Station.  There you can sign up for tours, eat at small restaurants, and learn how to explore the magnificent city of Melbourne!

As a last note, miraculously we all stayed together as a group! It was really fun, Sarah had a great birthday, and everyone was well behaved!  All in all, it was a great success, and a lovely weekend! Here are some pictures of us enjoying the celebration!

Cheers Mate :)