Day 262! Time for another night out in Melbourne. This time though, we’re heading to explore Fitzroy, which isn’t a spot Sam has gone out in. I was excited to see where the night took us and it took us to meeting some really nice, new people.

I woke up around 9am and got ready for my day! I didn’t have many plans and I was just going to hang around the house all day. My thought was to start diving into my new book, but of course other things got in the way.

But before we got too far into the day, it was time for breakfast.

Sam whipped us up some fried eggs and toast. We then jammed out a bit on the guitar before he headed off for class.

It was just me alone in the house with BJ and the painters today. After Sam left I took BJ out on a walk and let him saunter around the dog park for a bit. It was a pretty chilly day so I personally didn’t want to stay outside for too long, but we ended up hanging out for about 20 or so minutes.

I hung out at the dining room table with BJ sleeping on a pillow next to me. I did some research on places to stay and potential jobs. I’ve really enjoyed staying with Sam and his family, but I don’t want to overstay my welcome. They’ve been nothing but kind and generous and I’ll be forever thankful for that! But I do need my space and to be closer to where travelers are and work is…

So I decided to book a week at the same hostel as Immy and get back into the swing and mindset of being a traveler. I think being in the city will be good for me and it’ll be really good to keep meeting new people from all over the world. I don’t need the relaxed suburb life right now, I want to experience Melbourne!

A pool guy came by today as well to refill and clean the pool… but he asked me to keep an eye on it and turn it off once it got to a specific point, so he wouldn’t have to come back later. I was a bit confused what his job was then… but I said yeah. And then one of the painters asked me if I was busy and if I could tinker with his phone to see why no one could hear him while he was on the phone.

I said yes again, but wasn’t really sure what I could personally do. I believe his microphone was just broken, so hopefully he’ll be able to get that fixed.

I then FINALLY started reading more of my new book, just as Sam got back home. I didn’t get very far.

We hopped into his car and made our way into the middle of the suburb and found a spot for lunch. I was craving a chicken sandwich, which they call a chicken burger, and Sam took us to a really yummy spot where I bought us lunch.

We came back home and didn’t have much to do, so we watched some anime until we decided to head into the city!

We got on the train and as we sat down, Sam recognized someone but wasn’t really sure why. So they sat with us for the entire ride and we all chatted! They never figured out why they knew each other but meeting someone new was a really nice way to start the night! And for some reason she wasn’t the last new person we met.

We made our way to China town, where Sam introduced me to a very cheap dumpling restaurant. The restaurant was pretty compact so we were sitting close to the people next to us, which caused conversations on both sides!

The guy on our right was a driver for private car tours. His clients were out for the night and he was eating dinner waiting to drive them to their next location. And the ladies on our left were both college students and one of them might actually have a lead on a job for me!

There was a lot of nice people out and serendipity in the air. And it didn’t stop there!

We met up with Immy outside of her hostel and made our way into Fitzroy.

We started our night at a small pub called Perseverance, where we watched the end of the Australian Football match and chatted a bit. After finishing our drinks we made our way down the road to a bar rooftop bar called Naked for Satan.

While we were sitting here and chitchatting while looking over the city, two Dutch people from Immy’s hostel came walking in. One immediately had an Uber home, but the other was still wanting to stay out, so she joined us for the rest of the night!

We then met up with Sam’s friend Christian and we had one more stop for the night. We weren’t sure where to go, but outside of this bar were a few people from Ireland who were heading to a bar called Baxters. So… we tagged along with them!

It ended up being a great decision because there was a live musician playing! He was a solo artist playing guitar, synth, trumpet, and singing all with a loop peddle. It was super fun and he was very talented. He played all the classics, country roads, ABBA, etc.

It was a great way to end the night! We still had a bit of a haul though.

We walked Immy and her friend back to the hostel and then Christian, Sam, and I walked the rest of the way to Flinders Station. We got lucky that there was a train because after midnight they come every hour.

We made our way back home and I promptly fell asleep!

It ended up being a really nice day full of wonderful new people! Who knows if any of them will turn into future friends, but it makes me very optimistic about the rest of my time in Melbourne and in Australia as a whole! I’m also super excited to move into the hostel and get the ball rolling on the next few months in this cool city.

– Elie