Hello Melbourne

The past 10 days I had total freedom. 

For the first 5 days I had everything I could have wished for; a great hostel, I met the most awesome people, had all the alone time I wanted, made some lifetime memories, I had every part of freedom I so craved for so very long. I was alone a lot but I loved it, I could do as I very pleased. If I wanted to just go to the gardens just to sleep and reed all day I could and I did.

I had a Christmas to remember too, it was my first Christmas away from home and it was definitely worth the experience. I do think that for future Christmases I will make sure that I'm home with my family. I liked doing it all different this year because I needed the change so badly. But I had the experience and now I know how much family means on Christmas.

It was life as I wanted it, carefree and with total freedom. 

-shrine of remberance

On Christmas morning Dries arrived. After my Christmas Eve it wasn't easy getting out of bed early but I had to so I did. (I had to check out any way because Dries and I would go to a different hostel anyway, biggest mistake ever wow.)

Anyway it is good to have someone familiar around me now, the only thing is that well with a partner you lose part of your freedom, it's inevitable. And so solitude any more. You don't choose your company anymore as much as you do when your alone. 

I really like having Dries here, don't get me wrong I was just getting used to the freedom of my brand new backpacking life. 

So we went to a different hostel, which was shit. We payed dibble for more than half the service I got at my previous hostel. (I'm talking about having to pay for really bad wifi & cups. Cardboard walls and doors in combination with noisy neighbours who found it necessary to have very loud conversations over the entire hallway at 4 in the morning and the continuous noise from outside. 

In short a shitty ass hostel.

Thank god for the son (his wife and two kids) of good friends of Dries'es grandparents. They live in Eltham, a town only about 40 minutes from Melbourne by train. We called them and ended up staying there for five days. It was like paradise! A good bed, great food and company we even did two day trips to the beach and Kinglake national park. It was totally awesome.

This brings us to the last day of this year. We had a flight at 6 in the morning to Hobart. We packed everything the evening before got up at 4 drove half an hour to the airport to arrive nicely on time for everything at 5. 

Ready for the next adventure, starting in Hobart, Tasmania. 

Lots of love

Happy new year to all

xoxo Lizzie 

Magical solitude

BACK IN MELBOURNE!!

I don't mind being alone a lot. I really enjoy company and meeting new people but I enjoy solitude just as much I suppose. Doing what ever I want to do whenever I  want, jup, I definitely like that.

Like today I walked through nearly the whole of the botanic gardens which was just magical. 

 It's a bit like paradise, enormous with little bamboo filled sidewalks,

 

All kinds of weird little (and big) plants 

Each more colourful than the next or wich a more difficult name than the next

(This made me think of a spell out of Harry Potter, Salvia hexia. Can't really recall what it's used for but I think it's something protective. Haha yes had a little HarryPotter geek moment there. Without my sisters around me I'll just have them by my self haha! )

Right, anyhow haha! Back to those beautiful gardens 

I walked throughout nearly the whole gardens when I decided I deserved a little treat so I went to the tea room at the big lake and treated myself with this;

A absolutely delightful big raspberry and white chocolate muffin! 

( I decided that I would give myself a 5$ or less treat. One everyday as a little snack. I bought breakfast and dinner of the hole week for about 20$ so I think it's a good compromise to myself. You see, I quite like to give myself a treat, I always feel like I deserve it and on top of that it makes me happy to do so. So one 5$ treat a day should keep the doctors away ;)

The most amazing thing about these gardens is that it's only like a 10 min walk from the cbd and so the big busy people filled city. While here you can't here a thing of the city it's so peaceful and quiet. And yet the cbd is still there.

It just pops out of nowhere it seems right at the back of this littoral paradise.

I walked through the gardens barefooted mostly, just because I felt like it. (And because the long walking days on my Teva's had given me blisters on the weirdest places on my feet)

 

When I got a bit tired I sat myself down near the lake layed down and enjoyed my life for a moment. I layed there for a few hours reading, sleeping, eating the rest of my muffin and enjoying life. It was beautiful. 

I walked back to the city centre with a detour which gave me some other points of view of the cbd.

I found China town today! 

I was walking through the cbd and all of a sudden this stood befor my nose. This city keeps surprising me and I love it.

Dinner consisted pasta (linguini, which always makes me think of Ratatouille the movie) arabiatta saus (basically a spiced up tomato sauce) and tuna. 

My dear what that last ingredient a battle to get into my bowl. 

So I bought a tin of tuna, of course not thinking about how I was going to open thing luckily the hostel had a tin opener (which took me several attempts and the help of a cool Dutch guy to work out how the thing works) anyway that didn't work in the slightest. So I pulled out my pocket know and started to jab holes in it with a pointy (I think sowing) thing. Which ended me up with 3 holes in a tin of tuna.

After a while Sebastiaan, the guy from Holland I met the other day, decided tout me out of my agony and helpt me with the tin. We ended up cutting and sawing the thing open with a sharp knife and a bread knife. In the end we managed to open up a little corner out of which I could fish out my tuna (haha see what I did there? I fished out a fish hahah! Thank god I able to have such good laughs with myself every once in a while)

 

I ended up having dinner with 4 Dutch people which was quite amusing!

It's Christmas Eve tomorrow, where the hell did that come from all of a sudden?! 

Christmas feeling is below 3/10

-Flinders Station