Melbourne has treated me quite well this past week. I’ve been so busy meeting different kinds of people and exploring the various neighborhoods in the city. It’s been difficult to find the time to sit and write here. But I’d like to stick with writing every two days moving forward. Five days is a bit of a gap.
Labor Day was on Monday and there was a festival in one of the main parks by the river. My friend Samantha and Sebastian, who I had met the night before, ventured over there to check it out. After walking about for a bit we decided to hang out by the stage and just listen to the bands that were playing.
One of the Dutch women that I had met a few days before was also there and we linked our groups together. It’s so fun to do that. Everyone was just super friendly because we share common experiences and are working towards a common goal. Very good energy.
The last band we saw was by far the best. They had an unusual mix of instruments but they played some awesome music. They had various hand drums, a saxophone, the usual guitar/bass/drum set combo, and some odd instrument that reminded me of an Indian sitar. But they were incredibly funky.
At one point the lead singer encouraged everyone to come up and dance. That ignited the fuse. Before that, you could tell most people wanted to dance but no one was willing to be the first one that did. Once we got started though, it turned into such a good dance party. People were just dancing freely and having a great time together. I might have seen the longest conga line I have ever seen. Really, really good vibes.
Afterward we just bar hopped in that area until it was time to go back outside and see the fireworks. Then we did some more bar hopping. The night did turn a bit weird at one point though. We were outside smoking a cigarette (sorry Mom) and this man came up to us and we started chatting.
It was fun at first. He was reading our palms and talking absolute nonsense. But as soon as we turned to go into the bar he followed us in. I made it quite obvious that he was not welcome to join us without going so far to tell him to fuck off. Sometimes you don’t know who you’re dealing with.
He just would not stop talking after he sat down. I didn’t think he was on drugs, just really drunk. And at one point he started asking rather personal questions of us. He asked me if I had ever been heartbroken and if so what the story was behind the heartbreak. He asked me how times a week I masturbated. And he kept asking the women to choose who they were most attracted to out of all the men that were present. It got really weird really quickly.
Thankfully he left us alone after about half-an-hour and we collectively breathed a sigh of relief. We weren’t done drinking but it seemed like the city was at that point. We checked out a few more places but nothing much else was happening. I think holidays here are celebrated a bit differently here. It’s less about going out and partying and more about getting away from the city and enjoying the day off.