Soon after I had arrived in Canada I came up with the idea to come back to Melbourne. This idea would involve me surprising my younger sister for her 21st birthday. I hatched this plan with my parents and we organised that I would surprise her by waiting at the restaurant for her birthday dinner.
While I was back in Melbourne I was going to act like a tourist. I would try and visit all of the different places that I could. Well this was along with catching up with my friends in the meantime and also
In the time after arriving back in Melbourne, I was staying at one of my best friends houses. It meant that I wouldn’t see my family for the first five days that I was back. Each of those days were packed with things to do. Before coming back I made sure to post stuff to make sure everyone thought that I was still in Canada. I also had to make sure to turn off my snapchat maps so nobody could see where I was.
I spent the five days in between me arriving and my sisters surprise, at one of my best friend Alana’s house. It was far enough away that there was no chance that I would run into my sister.
The first day that I was back we just relaxed at home because I was exhausted. I wasn’t able to get very much sleep in the way over. Since I had a stopover in the middle it made it difficult to sleep a decent amount of time. On the second leg of the journey I was stuck between two people and the chairs felt extremely cramped. So there was no sleep to be had on that flight.
But the next we decided we had to head into the city because on the Friday it was going to be the grand final public holiday. We went into the city and wandered around different areas. I wanted to get some filming done of flinders street, federation square and also of the art gallery. We also filmed a few of the other areas near there. I also had to set up another one of my bank accounts so that I could connect my money from Canada to Australia. It meant it would make it a whole lot easier to send money home. Later that night we went down to my dance studio, it was so amazing to be able to see all of my friends again. It was a packed night and I really enjoyed myself there.
On Saturday, Alana and I got picked up in the morning by my best mate Harry and his fiancé. We all went down to Mornington to get some morning tea/breakfast. From there we then made our way to the Sunbury Strawberry Farm. I wanted to see if we would be able to pick strawberries at this time. But they weren’t in season, we were just over a month too early. So we decided to just try some of the drinks that they had to offer. I had to say that all of them I tried were really quite nice.
From the strawberry farm we made our way to another winery. However the car broke down because we ran out of fuel. Luckily for us it was only a few hundred metres away from the winery we were actually heading to. While we had to wait for the RACV van we thought we’d try out some wines. There ended up being no one there to actually serve us. We called the numbers that they had provided but will still got no response. We waited there for probably a bit over half an hour and in that time we figured out what we were going to do next. Once the car was filled up with a little fuel we had to get to the closest petrol station to fill up the car fully.
Our next stop was to be the Ashcombe maze. I hadn’t been there in years. The last time that I would have been was when me and my family used to camp down at Balnarring over the Easter holidays. We hadn’t done that for quite a few years.
After the Ashcombe maze we went to a winery just down the road called Montalto. Here we decided to taste a selection of wines for $10 per person. Most of them were pretty good but they weren’t my kinds of wine. For lunch we headed to another winery called T’Gallant and they had the most amazing pizzas. They could easily feed all four of us.
To finish of the day we went to another winery called Mock to have some dessert and try some apple ciders. While we were here we caught some of the AFL grand final that they had on the tv. It was such a one sided game which made it rather disappointing. For dinner we picked up some KFC and headed to a view point near Arthur’s seat. We sat in the car and ate our food and watched the sunset. Later Harry dropped us back home we were quite full of both food and alcohol. Overall, I would say that it was a very adventurous day.
When it was time for me to actually surprise my sister for her birthday I had actually gotten quite nervous. I just wanted everything to turn out how we had planned. We got to the restaurant early to make sure that we were there first. I had also made sure that my parents would message me when they arrived just so that I could film her reaction when she arrived. We had to wait about 15 minutes before they actually got there. But when they did my sister cried because she was not expecting to see me. I was a little bit happy about that fact. I was very glad that she was surprised and happy to see me there.
Most of the days that followed were filled with me going to dancing and meeting up with old friends. I had to make sure that I caught up with everyone that I could and fill them in on everything that had been happening since I was away. I also got to relax at home and play on my Xbox which I had very much missed doing. While I was home I managed to complete assassins creed odyssey, the main family story of it.
The weekend after I had arrived was my sister’s birthday party. It was held at the same place that I had my 21st but it was just in a different room. It was good to see all of my family and family friends along with a few of my friends there. A few people were surprised to see me back there because the information of me coming back to Australia hadn’t been passed a,one to everyone. So it felt good to surprise a few more people.
In the last week of me being in Melbourne, Alana had booked in a surprise for me. It was safe to say that I had absolutely no clue what it was going to be. We drove all the way to the other side of the city and I still did not know what we were going to do. It was not until we were literally right around the corner from the zoo that it finally clicked. We were going to the zoo! I instantly got really excited.
But that wasn’t even the whole surprise. We got to have one of those close encounters with the red pandas. They are my favourite animal and we got to feed one of them. They were so bloody cute. It felt so strange to be that close to one of them and actually feeding them. We got a behind the scenes tour of where a lot of the food goes for the big animals.
Once we had finished with the red panda we grabbed out our map and plotted out the routes that we were going to take. So we would be able to see the keeper talks about certain animals and also be able to see all of the animals that we wanted to. We got around the whole zoo in a few hours and we were able to see all of the animals out and about. Safe to say I got plenty of photos on my nice camera and also quite a few videos of all the different animals. All in all it was an amazing day and I enjoyed every last bit of it.
The Thursday was the last time that I was going to be at dancing until I came back next year. So Harry and I decided that we needed to grab one last meal together. Because we hadn’t really had too much of a chance to catch up just me and him. He had gotten me a present and it was a small whiskey keg that I could put whatever I wanted into it. This was where he asked me to be the best man at his wedding and of course I said yes. I’ve been best friends with the guy for at least 16 years so how could I say no. Now I have plenty of time before next November to come up with a perfect best man’s speech.
On the Friday night before I left we realised that it would be the last time that I would be able to go to the Peninsula Hot Springs for quite some time. So Alana and I decided to head down there for a very relaxing evening. Got to bath in all of the varying temperature pools. We even got to check out the new areas because they weren’t able to be accessed the last time that I was there. There was an ice fridge thing that I decided to go in and it is supposedly good for your muscles but all I felt was myself freezing to my core. I had to go jump in one of the hot pools just to warm up again.
We went up to the told of the hill and got to watch a bit of the sunset but sadly the top pool was filled with people so we didn’t actually get to properly sit down there and watch it. However, the other pools were just as good. It is highly recommended that you go there and enjoy yourself. It is a little on the pricier side of things but it is worth each dollar that you spend.
For the last weekend of me being there me and Alana decided to head into the city and go out clubbing with a few of her friends. I headed in there first and had to check into the room by myself because Alana had work first up but she met me in there later on. Harry was at a car show at the Royal Exhibition centre so I decided to go along and check out all of the cars. There were so many different kinds of old fashioned cars there. They were also bidding for unique numbers plates and I realised people have so much money that they can waste.
It was a pretty good way to end the trip, I really enjoyed myself that night and we ended up being out till about 5 in the morning. I was quite tired the next day actually and I was going to be having a last lunch with the family. Which was very nice as well because I wouldn’t be seeing them for another 13 months once I left again.
The best part about being home was being able to see all of my fiends and family and be able to spend time with each and every one of them. I also had not realised how much I actually missed a good home cooked meal from my parents.
