Melbourne

so i actually went to melbourne back in november, but better late than never! i'm really slack with getting film developed but one of these rolls (there are photos from two) was developed by hand! a friend gave me a lesson and has also encouraged me to try making the change to black and white. i've got a couple of black & white rolls ready to develop now and if i like how they turn out i might stick with it instead of colour and start home developing (b&w is a lot easier to develop on your own), which would hopefully mean it won't take me weeks or months to develop my film like it currently does.

Not Your Typical Hen's Night

a few weeks ago one of my best friends in the whole world got married! i do have photos of the wedding for future posts but for now here are some photos from the hen's night which was a few weeks before that. the bridal party was only the three of us - hannah (the bride), her sister prue and me, but their mum joined us for the afternoon as well. being the maid of honour i booked us a beautiful high tea at the victoria room which is not to be confused with the high tea at the queen victoria building's tea room, although that's really easy to do as they have basically the same name. i've had high tea at both tea rooms and they're both lovely, though at the victoria room you get to choose your own flavour from their dedicated scone menu. i went with cranberry, lemon and pistachio and it was delicious!

rather than go the tacky strippers-and-penis-shaped-straws route, hannah wanted a much quieter evening, so after high tea and a bit of shopping we went back to hannah's parent's place where we built a fort out of beanbags and doonas (or duvets/quilts for non-australians) and stayed up until 4am watching our favourite disney movies involving princesses who get married on VHS. aladdin was first up of course (he's both hannah's and my number one disney crush), followed by the little mermaid, beauty & the beast and cinderella. hannah and prue also broke out their onesies and i would have too if i owned one, and they drank lots of prue's homemade sangria.

Nick Cave Week & A Trip to Melbourne

a few weeks ago the universe aligned itself in such a way that i was gifted with the most incredible week of my entire life. being the adoring nick cave super-fan that i am, i bought a ticket to all three consecutive bad seeds shows at the sydney opera house as well as tickets for the melbourne show that weekend. i can't describe every wonderful thing that happened at those shows because this post would be ridiculously long and mostly irrelevant to the people who read my blog. i don't want to write a soppy ode to him, but i have to somehow articulate how heartachingly beautiful their music is and how deeply it has affected my life.

aside from seeing the bad seeds play four shows in one week which was a dream come true in itself, i also made a friend who was able to get me into the afterparty for the third show. even reading that sentence now sounds ridiculous. without trying to brag, i work in the music industry and meet bands and artists all the time, most of whom don't have any particular emotional significance for me. this could have been any band in the world and this opportunity could have come to any person in the world, but it was me and it was nick cave. the one person who inspires me more than anyone else.

for the record, i played it cool and milled around with the friend i made while he introduced me to people. eventually we ended up talking with nick and a few others for more than an hour. most people had left the party by this time so when we decided to leave i asked for a quick photo and he was happy to oblige. we then all left the venue together and i walked down the hall next to him while he made fun of warren ellis and complimented me on my bad seeds tote bag that i bought at the show. it was the most surreal experience of my life, not just to meet him (which i have done before) but to get to chat to him in a relaxed environment without the fan/artist barrier was so, so much more than i could ever have dreamed might happen.

i will also mention that all shows were seated but during the encore of the first show the crowd stood up in front of the stage and he walked over to the side i was on, bent down over me and stared me in the eye and we sang a few lines of the song to each other. it was after the third show that i went to the after party, and then at the fourth show in melbourne the crowd stood in front of the stage for the whole second half of their set and he reached out to me and held my hand and we sang to each other again. i also got setlists from three of the nights. i know i sound like i'm bragging but i'm just trying to express my own happiness at this perfect week that i was given and that is all.

as well as seeing the bad seeds in melbourne it was also a great excuse to visit one of my best friends giselle & her boyfriend peter who both live there now. it was peter's birthday while i was there and his parents were also visiting from perth so we went out for brunch, ate puppy cake and then had dinner at misty's diner before the three of us went to the show. i had a 5 cheese toasted sandwich with fried cheese sticks inside (INSANE) and we shared the waffle fries. needless to say i highly recommend the place! on sunday giselle and i went to a vintage warehouse sale where everything was $10 and it was so great i plan to schedule future melbourne trips around these sales!