Saturday, November 22, 2008

Spanish Festival 15th Nov

Lisa Jeff Ray and Dave figuring out what pub to go to

Every year Melbourne has a street festival in what passes for their Spanish quarter. As it was only 20 mins walk away from the hostel a group of us went up to take a look.

The festival was really a large food and drink market with stalls on both sides of the street. At the very end of the street a large stage had been set up for bands and dancers to perform on.

We went up to it in mid afternoon just as things were starting to get going. After some walking around and a an expensive chicken kebab (very Spanish!) we decided it was time for alcohol (about time too I thought!) We ducked into one of the Spanish bars along the street to have some sangria. Very nice it was too although I would not like to drink too much of it - too sweet. The bar we went to had a large hall area and stage with more dancers. A man and woman were doing some sort of salsa while a lot of people at the front of the floor were trying to copy them. I have to say the woman was very talented in a lot of ways but as I only had my small camera I was not able to take a picture of her talents.

After pulling ourselves away from the hall we went back outside, strolled around a bit more and then went to another bar - this time only for beer.

I could have kept going like that all day - into a bar for some beer, out to the stalls for some food but I don't think my budget could have taken it so it was just as well that most of the other backpackers I was with had already arranged to go see a play that night,

That meant that I could go back to the hostel to join the other backpackers on the poor mans balcony bar.

Poor mans pub

3 of the long term Irish guys were heading to Tasmania the following day to work so tonight was supposed to be a big going away party. Unfortunately it did not turn out that way. For one thing it was impossible to get anybodys ass in gear from their comfortable balcony position. For another thing one off them did not want to come out at all as he wanted to 'rest'. Seeing as he had just scored with one of girl backpackers I think rest was the last thing he wanted to do on his final night.

Eventually we managed to get a group of people together and headed out up to Brunswick street and beyond to where the Spanish festival was on. By the time we got there the festival was over for the night but there were some nightclubs open to try out. We ended up in a place called the 'Laundry' which had possibly the worst DJ I had ever heard. This guy was mixing 12" records from all sorts of different genres and producing awful noise in the process. We all endured it simply because we could not think of anywhere else to go

Finally we left the place and some of us went on up the street to a tab bar to wait out the rest of the night. At 4.30am the Irish rugby team were playing the New Zealand rugby team in a "friendly" test match. In the end only 4 of us managed to see the game - the rest having gone home or been refused entry for various reasons.

I wish I had have been refused entry myself as the game turned out to be a complete embarrassment with a final score of 22-3 to the All blacks. Why did I bother!

At just before 7am I crawled into my bed.

Mikey and Fergus enduring the game

1 comment:

PAUL MALLEY said...

23-11-08 - MAN CITY WIN!!!!!!

Man City 3-0 Arsenal
Ireland 45+2
Robinho 56
Sturridge (pen) 90+2