today i woke up around 9 or 930 i believe. everyone in my room was sleeping, so i felt sort of bad rooting around in my bag to get stuff, but i wasn't going to sleep in too long and waste my day! yesterday i had decided that i wanted to try and find a gym that did three day passes, goodlife style, so i could work out! gaaah been missing it a lot! so i went downstairs and had some cereal and did some investigating.
i found one, on recommendation of a guy i met from the uk called jett fitness, and i checked out the website and they do three day passes yesss! i also could get there on the free Blue CAT bus (which is actually orange what the heck). i know, i know, a bus called CAT and the logo is a cat. this place is made for me!
so i grab all my gym and shower stuff and make my way to the bus stop. sweet, i get off at my stop and promptly forget where i have to walk, so i just make it up as i go. lo and behold i find that i'm on the right road! now i just have to figure out how to cross a roundabout... cool. looked left then right, AHH almost get hit by a car. oops you have to look right then left here, i forgot lol
ok, made it to the gym, pull the door open. doesn't open. a girl comes up beside me and beeps open the door with her access card. so basically, this gym is like snap fitness at home where there are only staff around for a few hours per day, and i had missed them my half an hour! ugggghhhh so mad. so i begin the 2.9km walk home. at this point, there are black clouds around the city, but i'll be darned if i went all this way and didn't get any excercise, so i take off my fleece jacket, put on my windbreaker and cover up my little backpack with the huge raincover that i randomly brought. and i start joggin'.
sooner than later, i have to stop because not only do i suck at jogging as you all know, but i'm also carrying a 15 or 20lb bag on my back. this sucks! the wind is blowing seriously so hard, and the ocean (i'm right beside south beach) is looking really stormy. it's quite awesome actually! so i make my way over to the path beside the beach and continue my jog.
earlier in the day, the english guy who i had met and i were discussing the various things in australia that could kill you. apparently, his roommate had found a silvery sort of transparent spider in his bed, yes, his bed, the week earlier. SWEET. so now i had creepy crawlies on my mind, and im running on this path beside all of these wicked cool trees and vegetation, but i'm just picturing scary snakes and stuff jumping out at me... so that was freaky! i continue on until i get to the harbourfront.
i really felt like i was in halifax. all the ships were there, the same smell, and boy was it windy! i was pretty hungry by that time, and honestly, a bowl of cereal was not going to cut it. i really wanted fish and chips. so, being the worst vegetarian everrrrrrr, i caved. i mean, how many times are you going to be in australia eating fish that was caught like 1 hour ago? YOLO. i sent my thanks to mother nature and the beautiful fish i was about to eat for giving me energy and life, and then i dug in. sorry guys, i had to. and omg it was good. like maybe even better than the fish and chips i've had in nova scotia (sorry homeland). i was so full, but i made sure i ate every single fry because that shizz cost me 18 dollars. and i didn't end up having dinner, thats how full i was!
best garbage can EVER
i wrapped myself back up in all of my layers and was about to trudge home, and i spotted the western australian museum shipwreck galleries. y'all know i cant resist a museum!!! so of course, i head inside.
this place was seriously SWEET. they had so many artifacts, including a working engine from a ship that had been underwater for over 100 years, called the Xantho. they were working on restoring it, and have been working at it for 20 years, but they were able to restore it, and it even runs! they also had so much cool stuff from ships from the dutch west india trading company who had shipwrecked in western australia in the 1600s! like bits of porcelain, pipes, whole plates, jugs, coins, even some textiles. also, there was a section of the hull of this ship called the Batavia, which was sailing to Indonesia with supplies in the 1600s and was wrecked off the coast of WA. i didn't quite get the whole entire story, but somehow, a lot of the people who survived the wreck ended up being murdered, i'm pretty sure by the captain or something! it was crazy. they had a full skeleton that they found, of one of the very first europeans to land in WA. man, the size of this thing was amazing! it was in it's own separate room, and they had a video playing of the process of salvaging all of the things they found. i must have watched it for 45 minutes and it was still going, but i had to move on because there was so much more to see! in another exhibit, they had some of the native animals that were stuffed to demonstrate what the dutch people would have seen when they landed, including a cutie lil quokka!
that one's for you dad!
part of the recovered hull of the Batavia
some artifacts from a ship from the 1600s
pile of coins and burnt wood
ship's bell. HAHA (billy, nat, chris)
QUOKKA!
all in all, i basically stayed at that museum for at least 3 hours it must have been. i was so happy, i love that kind of stuff! the whole time i was there, i heard the wind and rain howling outside and i wasn't too keen on heading out into that. but i had to get back! so i put on my extra sweater, and tied my hood tight around my head, i obviously looked super cool. it actually wasn't that cold and only rained for a few minutes. the walk back was very quick! by the time i got home, i was so tired i just wanted to sleep, but i didnt because i dont want to mess up my sleeping schedule. i had a shower, because i was pretty sweaty from jogging and wearing all those layers. then i read a lot of my game of thrones book. i attempted to repack my bag, don't know how i'm going to do it without mum! haha tonight is my last night at the hostel, and tomorrow i begin my couchsurfing adventure! check out time is 10am, but i'm not leaving for my host's house until about 6 or 615. luckily they have a room where i can leave my bags locked up until it's time to go. the markets start tomorrow, but i think i'm going to save that and go on saturday. tomorrow i will probably just walk around on the other side of town that i haven't visited yet, maybe go check out the prison tour, who knows? :) also, today i walked past a salvation army, so that made me super stoked for when i have money and can buy clothes! all i need is a value village too and i'd be set haha
so that was my day. i'm pretty boring by hostel standards, but i'm just doin what i do, and i am having a great time! so that was today! and as i time travel forward into friday, while it's still thursday for you guys, just know that i'm thinking about all of you and miss you guys so much! everyone come visit!!! maybe wait until summertime though, it's cold now haha <3
lots of LOVE
soph
