Day 275! No work today, which means it’s time to relax. I’m not sure if I would’ve wanted to work today with how intense yesterday was… but since it’s a contracted gig, it won’t be very consistent. So with another free day, I spent it hanging out with everyone from my hostel.

I slept in a bit this morning and woke up around 9:30am. Not super late, but I needed sleep after such a long day.

My calf’s were really sore and so were my biceps, but thankfully my back was A-Ok. I had the day off to rest up and it was shaping up to be a beautiful day out, so there were murmurs of a beach trip.

But before any of that, it was time for my regular breakfast of oats and toast.

While I ate my breakfast, I got a text from one of my college friends, Connor! It’d been a while since we had last chatted, so we FaceTimed for a bit. It was great catching up!

I then went outside to enjoy the beautiful weather and hang out with some hostel friends. While we were sitting in the sun, one of my friends, Margaret, asked me if I would play the guitar. Everyone seemed like they were into the idea so she ran inside to grab it and then I played for the next hour.

I even threw in the song I wrote at one point and when I told my friends that I wrote it, they all were impressed! It was a really nice feeling, especially since I haven’t played it for many people yet.

Lunchtime rolled around and I whipped up a hummus, tomato, and cheese quesadilla.

It was super tasty and a nice mid day snack.

1:30pm rolled around and it was finally time to mobilize for our adventure to the beach. Throughout the day, we asked more and more people if they wanted to come with us… and it turned into a big event! We had around 20 people heading to the beach at once.

I originally thought we were going to head to St. Kilda beach again. I was excited because I was just informed by my cousin galya that you can see penguins at this beach and I didn’t realize that yesterday. But we were actually heading to Port Melbourne beach!

This beach is home to a plethora of sand volleyball nets and we were heading there to play some volleyball! So after a decent tram ride and a bit of a walk, we made it to the courts.

We spent the whole afternoon at the beach! We played some fun and uncompetitive, sand volleyball, sat around chatting, and eventually watched a gorgeous sunset!

It was really fun having such a large group all together on the beach. At one point, I overheard someone walking by say “wow that’s a vibe!” And it really was! It was a very wholesome and fun afternoon.

Immy, our friend Jade, and I headed back after the sun dipped below the horizon. I was getting pretty tired and wanted to eat and go to bed, and I think the other two wanted dinner and to get on with their night as well, so we headed back to the hostel before the others.

On the tram, we experienced a very eccentric man… he came on and heard Jade’s French accent and then started blabbing nonsense about that and other people on the tram… he then proceeded to hang upside down from one of the bars on the ceiling of the tram… and then immediately got off at the next stop. It was quite odd.

We got back to the hostel safe and sound. I whipped up some beef and had it with onions, rice, and a bit of tomato sauce. And I, of course, also devoured more of my giant tub of hummus.

I sat and chatted with more hostel friends and then decided it was time for bed since I had to work in the morning.

It was such a lovely day, and another emphasis on why I love the hostel life. There’s always so many great people to meet and hang out with and it’s a very inclusive environment.

Tomorrow I’ll be needing to get to St. Kilda by 8am for my second labor shift! I’m hoping it’s no where near as bad as yesterdays… but we’ll see!

– Elie