Clubbing | TouchDown Down Under

Eric’s Birthday

Last Friday night Matt, myself and one of our teammates Sean Roche headed into the city to meet up with friends of ours from UConn and Stonington, named Ashely Wheeler and Eric Le Clair. They grew up with my younger sister Megan so I’ve known them for a long time. They happened to be on break from studying in Sydney, but were staying in Melbourne for a few days.

Eric’s 20th birthday was happening at midnight so we decided to make this an epic night out. Knowing this Matt and I booked a hostel right in the city so we didn’t have to worry about getting back to Mount Eliza at 4 o’clock in the morning.

During the planning of Eric’s birthday shenanigans we decided we were going go to this place called the Chill Out Ice lounge in Melbourne. This is a bar completely made of ice that you have to book in advance to make sure you can get in. So we all book ourselves in and for the price of $30 you get entry, a drink and all the proper attire to wear in the -10 degree Celsius bar (works out to about 14 degrees Fahrenheit). However, this wasn’t until 10:30 because we wanted plenty of time to pregame before hand.

After working all day drawing up special team slides and putting together depth charts for the football team, Matt and I left to pick up Sean in Narre Warren on the way towards the city so we could get to a reliable train station to get into the city through.

We took the train into Melbourne Central which is a massive mall right in the center of the CBD and ate dinner at KFC in the food court devouring a family platter between just Sean and myself. After dinner we went to find our hostel on Elizabeth St, which was only about 5 minutes away. While checking in we tried to convince the guy behind the counter that Sean wasn’t actually staying with us in the hostel (even though he had an overnight bag and pillow in tow). In retrospect, we should’ve left him outside for 10 minutes and had him come up after. We ended up just paying the extra 30 bucks for him to stay there and move on with our night changing in our room and heading out for Eric and Ashley’s hostel, which was called the Space Hotel. It actually looked futuristic and was much newer and cleaner than our current hostel, unfortunately they only take 2 plus night reservations.

Ashley and Eric met us downstairs so we could put our two cheap boxes of wine in a backpack to bring upstairs because many hostels technically don’t allow drinking in them. Then we followed them upstairs to their room and started having a few drinks befor the bar from our boxes of wine and their shots of cheap Australian Vodka. After about 45 of drinking we had killed 1 box of wine and a good portion of the bottle of Vodka and headed out for the Ice lounge which was about a 20 min walk from the space Hostel.

Upon arriving at the Ice lounge we check in and started getting geared up for our entrance into the bar. They provided us with two layers of gloves, a jacket with a hood and UGG boots if girls wore open toed shoes. They also gave us a timer to put in the jacket of our “team leader” which was Sean because he was the only Australian in the group and he’s also a Quarterback for our second division team so he was our leader haha. This timer was supposed to go off after 30 minutes in the Ice lounge for you to get out.

So we all go in and were at first surprised at how small it was because it was maybe only 500 square feet. But they don’t let too many people in it at a time so it wasn’t too bad, there was plenty of time where we were the only ones in there. I must say I did beat Sean and Matt in Ice “air” hockey where everything including the paddles, table, and puck were made of ice. Then we decided to grab our drink and while looking through the menu Matt finds the drink called ” The Drunk Idiot” which of course we all had to have. It was more or less the equivalent of a Jagerbomb and came in a glass completely made of ice (noticing a theme?).

They also had a rule of no outside cameras or pictures taken outside of their booths set up inside the lounge. This rule was broken early and often by all 5 of us! We were taking pictures of everything and everyone at first trying to be discreet and after a while flat out in the open and with flashes, whether that confidence was from not being caught or the alcohol is debatable haha. We also probably took about 30 pictures in their booths as well making all sorts of stupid faces, poses and the like. We decided on buying two of them and I think they ended up with Ashley and Eric ultimately.

Our timer never went off so we spent almost an hour in the Ice lounge and decided that was enough goofing around taking pictures, sliding around, and etc. and we were gonna head back to the Space Hostel to drink some more before we head out to our next club. On the walk back we all broke out into rapping some Eminem Lose Yourself which was highly entertaining to us and I’m sure the people around us as well.

When we got back to the Space Hotel we went up to Ashley and Eric’s room and found most of the people in their dorm asleep so we decided to have a drink in the staircase before we headed to the bar called the Carlton where one of our teammates was working as a bouncer at the front door.

We walked to the Carlton which was only about 5 minutes from the Space Hotel. When we got there we said hello to Johnny and he let us go right in. I took Ashley and Eric straight to the top floor (there’s 4) and buy Eric a beer for his birthday because it was the 6th by this point. This level of the bar was awesome because its on the rooftop that had great views of the city all around you. There were palm trees and heaters everywhere if the wind gets a bit chilly early in the morning. We all made toasts to Eric for his birthday, the first of which was made by Sean who met him 5 hours earlier haha. I then decided to call Andrew Comeau to brag that I was on a rooftop bar and this was where things get a bit fuzzy for me ( I made the mistake of being the one holding the box of wine at all times pouring for everyone so anytime I poured one I had one too). I was on the phone very briefly with Andrew and hung up mid conversation because Sean introduced me to a gorgeous girl named Rachel who I talked to for over and hour and somehow managed not to get her number or anything.

After the Carlton we stopped at McDonalds, or Macca’s for those who are Australian inclined, for some late night food and then decided to try to walk back to our hotel but the GPS was not working well (which was really annoying me because I wanted to go to bed; it was 3:30am), and we met back up with Ashley because her and Eric had decided to go to their hotel and go to bed but once she got back she decided she wanted to come back out. However Ashley forgot her keys back into the hotel and had to come back and stay in ours with us.

By the time we got back to the Elizabeth Hostel it was about 4:30 in the morning and we had a double room with 4 people in it. So Matt and Sean took the beds (Sean had a dislocated shoulder because of football practice) and Ashley and I threw a bunch of extra blankets on the floor and fell asleep

All in all I think we had an awesome night in the city! Definitely a crazy one between the ice lounge and the Carlton! Happy Birthday Eric we hope you enjoyed your stay in Melbourne! Thanks again Johnny for letting us into the club and Sean for being our guide!

Also check out Eric’s blog: http://www.aroundtheworld168.blogspot.com.au/

And Ashley’s blog: http://aussieash.wordpress.com/

Thanks again for reading!

Ben

Ben and I decided this past Friday night to go into the city of Melbourne and experience all the hype we’ve heard through word of mouth from everyone around here. We booked a room at this travelers “backpackers” establishment which we never have done before. It was very cheap and affordable and convenient to the downtown area of the city. A simple Google Maps input into our phones and the location came up, but we of course could not find the place. After walking around the block a few times we noticed saw the sign “Flinders Street Backpackers” located halfway down this side alley. Being cautious and aware of our surroundings we entered the backpackers, we walked pass a very loud bar all the way up to the 3rd floor where the lobby was. People were making food, playing pool, and just having a good time at the lobby. Still trying to take everything in we got up to our room, or should I say “Cell.” This room had two beds literally jammed next to each other and that was it. There are cars a lot bigger than this room we stayed in.

We ended up going to this beautiful bar/club one of our teammates works at called The Carlton. The first two floors had real nice lounges and the top two floors had tropical beach themes, along with a rooftop back called The Palmz. Any place really with palm trees seems warm to me.

The next morning we decided to walk around a different part of the city. We walked around the Docklands and the Yarra River, which flows just south of the Central Business District. The whole area around the water was pristine. Cafe’s overlooking the beautiful skyline for the city really set in how nice an area this is. We walked a little further down the road called “Batman Ave.” and ended up at the Melbourne Cricket Grounds (the MCG), a 100,000 seat stadium used for Cricket, Rugby, and Aussie Rules Football. We also walked by the Rod Laver Arena, where they house the Australian Open for Tennis. To our amazement we just walked right through most of the practice courts with no trouble at all.