Day 257! Time for another day in Melbourne! Thankfully today was nice and sunny which made it much warmer… it was still quite cold though. I also joined Sam and his family to a nice Italian restaurant for dinner. It was an all around very nice day!

We all had a bit of a late wake up after staying out late last night… I think I went to bed around 3:30am!

But 10am rolled around and it was time to get our lazy butts up. So we got ready for the day and Immy came over and so did Sam’s friend Chris from the night before. We sat around the only table left in the house and chatted for a bit while we hydrated and the rest had coffee.

Immy, Sam, and I went on a walk afterwards and Chris headed off to do other things with his day. We also brought along BJ, who was very excited to go on a walk.

We made our way around the neighborhood and towards a place called Billillia Gardens. This garden is a beautiful little park that also has an estate on it that is protected by the government. It was a very beautiful place to hang out and the sun was out too so it was much warmer than yesterday!

The garden had some funky statues, beautiful plants, and big house in the center of it.

After sitting outside for quite a while, we made our way back to Sam’s house to drop off BJ and then go find some lunch.

We went to the center of Brighton, Church St. This is allegedly the place people hang out on the weekends in this suburb. We went to a sandwich shop and got some food.

I got a chili chicken wrap, which was really good! I’m enjoying trying all these different restaurants… but I’m really looking forward to having my own house with a kitchen and being able to cook whatever I want! I’ve missed that a lot while traveling.

We went back to Sam’s and I helped him move a very heavy concrete table. A person was buying it and we had to disassemble it and help the man carry it out and load it up.

Immy and I then worked on our application for our potential house. There was a lot of steps and having to prove we’d be able to actually live there, which makes sense. But it was a long application… so HOPEFULLY we only have to do it once.

Dinner time rolled around and Immy went off back into downtown. I however was invited to have dinner with Sam’s family.

We went to an Italian restaurant, called Village Wine Bar, that apparently is very difficult to get a reservation at. But what was special about this dinner was I was getting to meet Sam’s older brother and his girlfriend! They were both very sweet, just as sweet as the rest of Sam’s family. It was really nice chatting and listening to the family chat about things too.

Sam’s brother is a biomedical engineering PHD student. So we actually had a fair amount to chat about, since I was interested in the biomechanical field originally. He was even interested in prosthetics too!

I had a penne pasta for dinner with fresh mozzarella on it… it’s been a while since I’ve had good pasta. I know I had it the other night but this was incredible. We also had very tasty potatoes and spinach. And after dinner we had tiramisu and a raspberry chocolate moose.

Sam’s mom ended up paying and I couldn’t thank her enough. She not only has allowed me to stay in her home, but she has completely treated me like one of her own children. I’m pretty speechless when it comes to her kindness and generosity.

I’m not sure how I’m going to thank her or repay their family (when I can), but I’m going to find a way. At the very minimum I’m going to have her over for dinner at our home, once we have one.

We all sat and chatted for a couple hours and then headed back home.

Sam and I finished the night by jamming out on the guitar more. It’s been a blast having someone else down to play guitar and sing songs! And we’ve been doing a ton of it.

Tomorrow I’ll head downtown to hang out with Immy and potentially chuck my CV at some places and see if anything sticks… it’s time to start trying to work!

– Elie