Night on the Town

You may or may not know by now that Kane and I don't often venture to a place you would call "out on the town". We are homebodies; boring to the core, forever searching the internet for more interesting places to go and more ridiculous things to laugh at. We work, we eat, we clean, we internet. For the most part, that's the majority of our existence. But we do live in bursts of excitement. For example, we work and save and save and then go on good, solid trips to fun places. And that's how we do it right now: boring boring boring - BAM! - repeat.

But, there are certain unforeseen cosmic circumstances that inevitably arise and force us from our comfort zones and out into the world. Last night was one of those times. Two of our friends, Janna and Dom, were in town for a wedding: they had flown in from Sydney which is about an hour from their home. We met and bonded with this Aussie couple in Thailand on the famed bus ride back from Pai (actually, you may recall the bus ride there being slightly more memorable, or at least I do). We only saw them a couple times in Thailand, but they seemed really cool and we've maintained a healthy Facebook contact with them ever since. Janna's cousin's wedding just outside Melbourne gave them a good excuse to come down to Victoria and see Melbourne for a day, so we invited them to stay with us for the night.

It wasn't a terribly extravagant plan for a Friday night: chat for a while, have some dinner out, drop by the casino, and come home for the night. Certainly nothing that Kane and I couldn't handle. But it proved to be an interesting night nonetheless due to a few unexpected big city surprises.

First of all, I would like to mention the trams. I love the trams in Melbourne. They basically have allowed us to live here without owning a car, which has been excellent. We tram to work each day and can tram most anywhere else of interest, though, as mentioned, you will most often find us huddled in our apartment. We typically experience the trams by day: dignified, relatively clean, full of business people and little old ladies. Nothing to fear. But come night, the trams become packed with the drunk, homeless, drag queens, gothies, rowdy boys, etc, etc. And it's not wholly unexpected; this is a big city after all. I am nevertheless still surprise and bewildered by night time tram rides. At least we were traveling with a group of four people which is nearly impenetrable to any outside forces - sinister, begging, or otherwise.

We took the tram up to try a new Ethiopian place, which turned out to be not as good as our original place in Footscray, but was still nice. It was Jan and Dom's first time trying Ethiopian, so that was fun too. As we pulled up to our stop near the restaurant, we heard the sounds of a scuffle outside and turned to see two men who appeared to be fighting. I initially assumed they were teenagers just playing around, but when one of the men turned, I could see he was older. Shortly after that, it became obvious that they were both quite drunk. They were actually fighting. Dom suggested that maybe we stay on for one more stop to get away from them, but I overrode this decision when one of the men jumped onto the tram. We exited quickly from another door as the man began ranting and screaming in the aisle of the tram among a couple dozen bewildered onlookers.

Dom had graciously shoved his way in front of Janna to get off the tram first - which we proceeded to laugh at him for. The second fighting man was still on our street corner grumbling and making random comments. We were about ten feet away when he yelled "Next time I'll be sober and I'll f'ing kill you!" at the tram-bound man, which provided further entertainment for us and likely many others nearby. Good. Freaking. Times. I love public transport. We proceeded to the Ethiopian place a block away without being accosted by any undesirables, save a mannequin store that had some...anatomically interesting mannequins on display. They served for much amusement also (we're so mature).

After dinner Janna wanted to see the famed Crown Casino so we headed over to Southbank to lose some $$. I think we may have accidentally ended up waiting at the crack-whore/prostitute/Amy Winehouse-look-alike tram stop because it was quite an odd crowd at this particular location. The tram ride down to the casino even proved to be eventful after it was graced by a group of young French men, all of whom decided that it was completely necessary to sing French songs at the tops of their voices while jumping around the tram. It was interesting. Janna and I agreed that we would rather they were singing than bashing people. And with that, we made it to the casino.

I am typically one for the penny slots as I prefer to lose $1 over the course of ten minutes rather than $20. Dom was feeling adventurous and bet on some digital roulette (which I find far less fun that a real roulette table) and actually won $4. Go Dom! With his winnings we did a couple slots and then headed over to a $2.50 minimum real roulette table (this is the cheapest you can find). Dom only had $3 in change but they guy wouldn't give chips to under $5, so I contributed $2 so that we could get two chips. Dom put his on number 35 and I put mine in the corner of the 5, 6, 8, 9 squares, I think. And the number that came up was 8!! I was sooo excited. I won $20, with which Dom and I bet one more time each on roulette, lost, then cashed out $15. It was awesome.

The cab ride home was nearly uneventful, save an encounter with a...less than competent driver in front of us...and then we chatted a bit before going to bed. We had a really great time with Jan and Dom; I'm so glad they came by! Yeay, now we can actually say that we have some Aussie friends. Who would have guessed?