Strictly Ballroom - the musical version

On Saturday afternoon, Mum and I went to the matinee performance of Strictly Ballroom, which finishes in Melbourne this week. And while I found it thoroughly enjoyable, I also...had a lot of thoughts about it.

1. The staging was AMAZING. 
The stage rotates, and the sets are all in pieces that can be moved and assembled as required. All the sets are also double-sided so that scenes can take place, for instance, inside the dance studio or looking through the windows, at Fran's house or out the front of the milk bar, on the dance floor or backstage.

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2. The costumes are glorious. 
A lot of them are basically copies of the costumes from the movie, but they're still great. Plus, there are so many on-stage costume changes that it's basically Eurovision. There are even some on-stage hair changes. Basically, everything about the costumes, hair and make up is great.

3. The choreography is great.
Obviously, they're restricted by the size of the stage, so some of the big dramatic moves from the movie have to be altered (like Scott spinning across the floor). But on the whole, the choreography was totally brilliant and far more individualised than musical choreography tends to be.

4. The music felt...disjointed.
Look, the music was such a huge part of the movie, and obviously they were never going to be able to get the rights to all the songs they used. And obviously, they needed to include original songs to progress the story. But the problem for me is that there wasn't a single choreographer. There wasn't even a single lyricist.

The original songs are split between about four main composers, with input from a range of others. Add in the fact that there are half a dozen songs that aren't original - including Time After Time and Love Is In the Air - and the whole thing just ended up feeling like there was nothing to tie it together.

There's a great quote from an episode of The Office where Darryl shushes Michael as the orchestra starts playing because "If we don’t listen to the overture, we won’t recognise the musical themes when they come back later." And I think that's part of the problem here. There really weren't any recurring musical themes.

5. The demand for new steps was weirdly turned into a Les Mis style protest-y song.
In the movie, the argument in favour of new steps is about 30 seconds of people chanting "new steps, new steps!" while dance newsletters spin on screen with sensationalist headlines, ending with Barry Fife saying "THERE WILL BE NO NEW STEPS". But in the musical, that somehow gets turned into two separate songs: one in which Barry has nightmares about people asking for new steps, and one in which the entire company wave placards and flags and Scott dances around encouraging them to protest. Basically, it was all a little strange.

6. Insufficient anger.
Don't get me wrong, Thomas Lacey was great in the role of Scott Hastings. But what shines through so strongly in the movie is Scott's anger. It's not just that he's bored of the steps, bored of doing what his mother and his dance teacher tell him. He's frustrated. He's angry. He's sick of other people dictating what he can do with his life. It's that anger and passion that makes that finale paso doble so perfect. And Paul Mercurio does that anger so brilliantly in the movie. But on stage - and it's totally understandable, because portraying that much anger consistently over two hours, eight times a week? NOPE - none of that really came through.

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7. Fernando Mira's solo was FLAWLESS.
It was never going to be easy to follow Antonio Vargas' fabulous turn as Fran's father, Rico, in the movie. And really, Rico feels like a much smaller part in the stage production. But the "pffff, that's not paso doble" solo from Fernando Mira was pretty damned incredible. It's not entirely surprising that he and Natalie Gamsu (who played Abuela) got the biggest round of applause during the curtain call.

8. I have mixed feelings about the audience participation elements.
Having the theatre divided into blocks of coloured seats and having the audience cheer for the performers wearing that colour in the "competitions" was a fun idea. And I loved the opening of act 2 in which a couple from the audience were pulled on stage to become part of the performance in Beautiful When You Dance, which was definitely one of the strongest songs.

But trying to recreate the ending of the movie, where the dance floor is flooded with spectators joining in the fun didn't entirely work for me. There ended up being maybe 50 audience members on stage, but many of them just swayed back and forth awkwardly, despite having rushed up on the stage. One little girl looked like she was about to cry. And then giving those audience members a curtain call was just...strange.

9. Mike Snell WAS Ken Railings.
He did an absolutely phenomenal job of playing a character who's sleazy and a total drunk but still incredibly funny and somehow likeable. If I hadn't known better, I would have sworn it was John Hannan, who played Ken in the film, up there.

10. I think I'd give it 7/10?
I know I sound like I'm being overly negative here. It really was a thoroughly enjoyable musical production. But. It's also not one where I left singing any of the songs, unlike when I saw Book of Mormon last year and spent the next three days with You And Me But Mostly Me stuck in my head. It's not one where I came out of the theatre and wanted to go straight to the box office for tickets to see it again, like I wanted to with Les Miserables last year (but didn't because tickets were $125). Instead, I came home and watched the movie. Which, strangely, does a better job of recurring musical themes...

So yeah. It was an enjoyable afternoon. But I can't help but think that it might be better if you had no prior exposure to the story and went in not expecting certain moments, certain pieces of music and certain characters portrayed in a particular way.

K xx

Bloggy friend shenanigans

So Nikki came down from Sydney to stay for a few days, which explains my absence of late. She's about to leave Australia, so it seemed only appropriate that I insist upon her visiting me before she does so.

ANYWAY.

We did a bunch of stuff together, and I figured I'd tell you about it in no particular order:

• Played a LOT of Lego Hobbit on the XBox. Obviously, it involved accidentally killing each other a lot and generally being quite confused about what was happening.
• Went to the zoo. It was absolutely freezing, and the red panda was awake but lurking at the top of the highest tree in his enclosure, the jerk. BUT there weren't many people there, and the rest of the animals were in a far more obliging mood, no zoom lens necessary:

• Went down to Docklands to the Peruvian festival, which was being spruiked all over the newspaper. It turned out to be like five sad stalls at the side of the little theme park-y bit, which was rather disappointing, so we went out for lunch instead. 
• Made a vlog. When I manage to edit it from just under AN HOUR LONG to something people will actually watch, I'll let y'all know about it. 
• Went to see Les Miserables on stage. It was FANTASTIC, even though our seats were suuuuuuuuuuuuuper nosebleed-y and the people in front of us fidgeted for the entire three hours... I even enjoyed Bring Him Home, which is absolutely unheard of.
• Made a friend on the tram due to the following conversation:

Nikki: The ticket inspectors in Sydney are really aggressive. One of them once asked me "Why are you here?"Me: Maybe he was just being existential and wondering about the meaning of life?Random girl: *snorts with laughter* I'm so sorry. I'm not eavesdropping, but you guys are hilarious.Me: Don't sweat it. I once spent an entire bus trip messaging my friends about the fact that the girl opposite me was excited to see an IHOP because "OMG CHRISTIAN GREY!!!"Random girl: YOU HATE THAT BOOK TOO???????? Nikki: You have no idea. [insert 15 minute conversation about everything wrong with Fifty Shades of Grey here]

• Discovered that Kinder Surprise currently have a limited edition range of Marvel toys called Twistheads that require you to effectively remove the top of the toy's head, connect it to another toy, and then twist their bodies. It's as weird as it sounds, and they're all really creepy-looking. See?

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• Ate far too much. 
• Spent a lot of time on public transport. 
• Got to hang out for longer than anticipated because Melbourne decided that immense amounts of fog were necessary yesterday, and that resulted in Nikki's flight being cancelled. YAY!

So. That's what I did when I wasn't here. What's news with you guys?

K xx

Going on safari

Okay, not really because I'm kind of poor. But a week or so ago, the parentals and I took Little Miss A to the closest you can get to going on safari without leaving Melbourne - Werribee Open Range Zoo! And because this is me we're talking about, I took my zoom lens along for the ride.

I would say more, but it's a thousand degrees in Melbourne at the moment and my brain has melted. So instead, I present you with some photos from our day at the zoo, because REASONS:

My personal favourite was the serval show, despite the small screaming child puncturing everyone's eardrums in the background, because it was just so stinking adorable:

Although a close second was seeing the brand new baby hippo from the safari bus, because OMG SO CUTE:

Photobombing ostrich

Have you been to an open range zoo and/or on safari? Which of these animals is your favourite?

K xx

101 in 1001 #69

On Friday, my mum and I headed into the city for her VERY belated birthday present (her birthday's in August) - afternoon tea at The Hotel Windsor. I'd completely forgotten that I'd put "have high tea somewhere nice" on my Day Zero list until I was writing my post last week about seeing Me First and the Gimme Gimmes. YAY HAPPY COINCIDENCE.

Interestingly, since writing my Day Zero list, I have discovered that high tea is the poor people term for such an event, on the basis that it was all fancy compared to their regular lives. And while it may have been fancy compared to my regular life, I'm going to go ahead and call it afternoon tea like rich people did back in the day, because I went to snooty private school and I can. Or something.

ANYWAY.

That's The Hotel Windsor. It was built in 1883 and started its life as The Grand. It's pretty much opposite State Parliament at the swanky end of the CBD.

And here's what they presented us with when we sat down:

Yes, we got one of those EACH. Mum, as you can see, got a slightly different one to me because hers was all gluten free. Five finger sandwiches, five petit fours, and two scones. Plus, a glass of bubbly each. And fourteen different kinds of tea.

Hello, deliciousness. Two eclairs - one caramel, one lamington, a lemon meringue pie, a mille feuille and a teeny tiny piece of sacher torte. And yes, I ate all of them and then regretted it.

But I honestly think my favourite part was the scones. With a healthy dose of raspberry jam and clotted cream added, they. were. TO DIE FOR. I'm not usually a big fan of scones - they make your teeth squeaky for some weird reason - but for these? I instantly changed my assessment of scones. And no, there are no pictures of said scones because I was too busy shoving them in my face. Sorry not sorry.

Hell, even the TEA was enjoyable and I'm not a tea drinker. Okay, so I had peppermint tea, which isn't *really* tea, but whatever...

Anyway, I'm thinking that I may have to try out the afternoon tea spreads at other fancy hotels around Melbourne. You know, for comparative purposes...

Have you been to a proper afternoon tea?

K xx

Sadly lacking in Timbits

On Friday night, I went to a rather unusual event. Well, unusual for Melbourne at any rate. Australia's not really big with the winter sports, on account of a freezing cold day = 12 degrees C, which isn't exactly conducive to ice and snow. You know? So when I saw that there was going to be an exhibition ice hockey match between Canada and the USA, I jumped at the chance to go.

While it may have been a good 20+ years since I lived in Canada, this doesn't mean that I won't cheer for them when given the opportunity. Apparently the rest of Melbourne felt the same way. Because when the US team skated out, there was a smattering of polite applause and then some awkward silence. When the Canadians appeared? The roof practically lifted off the stadium.

Then they had some "promising local talent" come out to sing the two national anthems. She was not only flat, but forgot the words to both of them and kind of made things up that were vaguely right but not really to fill in the gaps until she worked it out. So that was cringe worthy fun... Thankfully, they shooed her off the ice and got down to business pretty quickly.

There were fireworks and staged fights and mostly I ended up being insanely impressed at how quickly the umpires were able to get out of the way of the puck and/or large men in tons of protective gear that were hurtling towards them.

At the end of the first period, Canada were ahead by a good four goals and things were looking good. Then they brought out the most ridiculous piece of equipment in creation. No, it wasn't a Zamboni. Apparently they didn't think it warranted finding one for a whole two nights of professional level ice hockey. Instead, a bunch of guys came out with ice scrapers, and skated around sweeping the ice for about ten minutes. Then they brought out some kind of golf cart looking contraption with a water tank on the back of it. Said water tank was connected by hoses to a bunch of (what appeared to be) towels, and they drove around the rink using the wet towels to smooth the surface of the ice.

It was probably the least effective method they could have found. And, considering it was like 23 degrees in the stadium (at least up where we were sitting!), play had to be delayed until the slightly ridiculous quantities of water they put down had frozen.

The US made a comeback during the second period, and the commentators interviewed an AFL player and asked well thought out questions like "What do you see as a the major differences between AFL and ice hockey?". The entire stadium did a confused dog head tilt at that, because:
1. One takes place on grass, the other on ice.
2. One involves kicking an oval shaped ball, the other hitting a puck with sticks.
3. One requires tiny shorts and a sleeveless jumper, the other 10 kilos of protective padding and a pair of metal blades strapped to your feet.

One might, in fact, say that the only similarities between the two sports is that they're played in winter and are fast moving...

During the second break, they claimed to have a special prize to award and called out a couple of seat numbers. Except it turned out to be less special prize and more "unexpected proposal", which ended up being insanely awkward because she a) nearly fell over on the ice in her heels, and b) didn't respond for a good three minutes. Nothing says romance like proposing in front of 10,000 complete strangers!! O.o

Then a bunch of very tiny children in very long hockey jerseys came out and skated around at top speed. And then they got to meet all the players, which was pretty adorable.

The third period ended up being the most exciting, because it ended up being a really close match, and it was only the last ten minutes or so where they were actually playing at their full capability. I'm not sure whether it was the ice or whether they'd been told to take things slow for the dumb Australians who aren't used to ice hockey, but I rather wish the rest of the game had been played with the same speed and skill.

As it was, Canada emerged victorious through some great work on the part of the goalie, and through a wonky power play by the US which saw them replace their goalie with an attacker, leaving Canada one player down but with an open goal to shoot at.

And then they made it snow in the arena. Because obviously...

On the whole, it was an excellent evening. I got to sing O Canada at the top of my lungs, boo a Collingwood player, and watch some pretty excellent sport. Now if only they'd had Timbits for sale, it would have been perfect... *sigh*

Have you been to see any unfamiliar sports? Did you have even the faintest idea what was going on? Because I sure didn't...

K xx

Turning 30? It's pretty great - Part 2

So. I already told you about my actual birthday. But I didn't tell you about the rest of the extra long weekend of awesomeness because I was a dirty slacker at the end of last week (aka I spent every night playing Lego Batman on my shiny new XBox and totally forgot that I had other stuff to do. Whoops?). So I shall rectify that now!

FRIDAY:
Got up stupidly early and headed into the city to meet Nikki. There was a small degree of excited flailing before we jumped on the train and headed down to Flinders Street. From there, we took a wee jaunt across the river to the Eureka Tower. Once we'd laughed ourselves stupid at how ridiculous the "look through this tube to see the thing we're talking about" viewers were (half of them need to be updated as new buildings are now in the way, and one was for the tram restaurant. Which moves...), we headed over to Crown to marvel at the hideous atrium. Sadly, I didn't time our visit properly so we didn't get to see the fountains in action.

From there, we hopped on the City Circle and up to Melbourne Central for a spot of lunch, before heading across to the State Library to ogle the La Trobe Reading Room and visit the exhibitions. Then we headed up to the Royal Exhibition Building, down to Elizabeth Street and Minotaur, and then home via Royal Arcade. The evening was spent playing Lego Pirates of the Caribbean on XBox because we're cool like that.

SATURDAY:
A slow start, followed by heading off to see Iron Man 3. It was completely phenomenal, and it's possible I ate an entire box of Junior Mints during the course of the film... That night was my proper 30th, which took place at a Mexican restaurant in the city with 22 of my bestest friends. It turned out to be happy hour when we arrived, which was very welcome news. It also led to one of the whopping TWO photos taken that night:

Yup. That happened. Also, mmmmmmm, daiquiri...

Dinner was delicious nachos, followed by fajitas, followed by churros. Om nom nom nom nom. Dinner was an absolute blast, and it meant I got to catch up with a bunch of people I don't get to see very often. Which, WIN. And because I'm totally geriatric now, we were home by just after midnight.

SUNDAY:
The morning started with a jaunt around the Tan, which took longer than it usually would on account of Little Miss A was with us, and she wanted to stop for hot chocolate/biscuits/a wander around the children's garden. After a wee sojourn at home with Lego Pirates of the Caribbean (because we're cool), we headed into the MCG to see Hawthorn play North Melbourne. I'm pretty sure Nikki was HORRIBLY confused, but it was a pretty great game. It was much less of a walkover than I'd expected, for starters! It pretty much came down to the final siren, so that was fun. Plus, there was a very vocal Hawthorn supporter behind us who kept yelling her advice to the players every couple of minutes. Hilarious.

MONDAY:
Nikki's flight back to Sydney wasn't until 8.45pm, so we headed into the city and went to the Hollywood costume exhibition at ACMI. It was AMAZING - definitely worth the money it cost to get in. It included costumes from The Wizard of Oz, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Braveheart, The Dark Knight Rises, Gone with the Wind, Gladiator, The Addams Family Values, Fight Club, Brokeback Mountain, The Queen, and Pirates of the Caribbean. And not costumes from the extras or anything. Costumes from the main characters - costumes that you recognise in a split second.

Personally, I thought the sound spill in the exhibition space could have been better controlled, but it was still complete and utterly incredible. Although Nikki and I did nearly die laughing when we realised that the mannequin they'd put Mel Gibson's Braveheart costume on had lady legs. How could we tell? First of all, they were very shapely. Secondly, they were doing that weird pose that's meant to make your legs look thinner but which mostly makes you look like you need to pee. You know, the one that actresses do on the red carpet all the time. Basically, picture Taylor Swift's legs on Mel Gibson's body. Yeeeeeeeah... We even went back to all the other male mannequins with exposed legs to check if they had lady legs too. And NOPE. Just Mel.

Then we had a wee spot of lunch on Degraves Street and headed for home, where we spent our last few hours of pretending we didn't have a million assignments to do playing Lego Pirates of the Caribbean. Because OBVIOUSLY. We also learnt that it's possible to kill someone through a jail cell door in the game. When you're a dog. (Sorry, Nikki.......)

So there you have it. I think I planned and executed a kickass 30th birthday pretty damned well, don't you?!

K xx

Turning 30? It's pretty great

#92 on my 101 in 1001 list was to plan a kickarse 30th birthday. I think I not only planned but executed said kickarse birthday in fine form. I mean, it pretty much went for five days, so how could it not be totally awesome?!

THURSDAY:
My actual birthday. I had grand plans for sleeping in, but some butthead down the street decided that 7.30am on a public holiday was an excellent time to use an angle grinder. FOR AN HOUR AND A HALF. So I wasn't particularly impressed about that. But it improved dramatically from there. After breakfast and presents (including the shiny new toy I showed off in yesterday's vlog), we headed down to St Kilda for lunch at Donovan's.

If you haven't been to Donovan's, you really have to. But for a special occasion, because it's not even remotely in the category of cheap. It's worth every penny though, because the food is AMAZING. While I neglected to take any photos of me hanging out with my favourite people on the planet, I *did* take quite a few photos of the food. Because OBVIOUSLY.

My entree - tomato, caramelised onion and goat's curd tart with balsamic reduction

My main - chicken and mushroom pie

Some kind of potato construction of awesomeness from Paulie's main course

The cake we brought with us

My dessert - jaffa fondant

The platter they put together for Em's little sister with no notice

The inside of my fondant. AMAZING.

And in the course of lunch, my little brother C gave me my birthday present, which came with a card that said "I hope Mum and Dad don't get too annoyed at me giving you this......" I opened the present to discover an XBox!! *flail* And then Paulie gave me a bunch of games for it. So obviously, once we got home from our over FOUR HOUR lunch, I set up the XBox and spent the night of my birthday playing Lego Batman 2. Because OBVIOUSLY.

Aaaaaaaaaaand now that I've made you all incredibly hungry and exposed just how much of a dork I secretly am, I think I'm going to split this into two parts or this is going to end up thesis length!

K xx

Real life hashtagging and shiny new toys

It's the end of another month, and that means it's time for yet another installment of Kirsti Makes a Fool of Herself in front of a video camera. YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY. Ish.

In other news, I'm pretty sure I should upload ALL my vlogs from uni, because this took 15 minutes as opposed to the TWO AND A HALF HOURS that the last one took.



I promise I'll tell you all about my birthday stuff soon. Sorry about the awkward cuts. My computer kept freezing whenever I tried to add a caption or a title screen and the only way to rectify the situation was to reboot completely......... *sigh* So it's a little crappier than it might otherwise have been. Hopefully by next month, my computer has sorted out its dramas and I can edit in a vaguely decent way again!

K xx

Home again

So I'm back in Melbourne once again, having survived the fourteen and a half hour flight without too many difficulties, thanks in large part to Sweeney who came and rescued me from a fate worse than death - six hours in Los Angeles International Airport with nothing to do.

Instead, I got to go to In n Out Burger, and Santa Monica, and it was made of win because I GOT TO HANG OUT WITH SWEENEY OMG *flail*.

Exciting things I have done since getting home from the airport five hours ago:
- Put the entire contents of my suitcase through the washing machine. CLEAN CLOTHES, YAY.
- Showered.
- Fangirl flailed about the fact that the water doesn't taste like chlorine.
- Brushed my teeth for the first time in 24 hours. It was VERY exciting.
- Discovered that I took over 1700 photos in the course of my four weeks overseas, and that I now have to go through them all and delete all the blurry ones, and decide which of the duplicates to keep.
- Actually unpacked my suitcase. I'm pretty sure this is a first for me! Usually it sits on my floor with about three things in it for a month afterwards.
- Ate food that wasn't brought to me covered in foil and on a tray.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand now it's 4pm and I'm rapidly heading towards Struggle Street. Thanks a lot, jetlag. Looks like it's time to break out my tried and true jetlag beating technique - drink as much caffeine as is required to keep you awake until 9pm, then sleep for 12 hours.

Wish me luck...

K xx

Adios, amigos

I'm currently sitting at the International Terminal of Melbourne Airport waiting for my flight to LA to board, having braved the wilds of duty free, marvelled at the fact that there's a WH Smith here (seriously, what's with this trend of having international chains AT THE AIRPORT and nowhere else?!), and consumed a fairly nasty hot chocolate.

I'm sulking a little, because I have a window seat and I object to the window seat on account of how I feel guilty having to ask people to move so that I can pee. This results in me only standing up twice for the duration of the flight. And when I *do* stand up, I inevitably brain myself on the roof of the plane. On the upside, VIEW. So far, Twitter is not backing me up on my dislike of the window seat. Clearly, I should travel with y'all because then YOU can all fight over the window seat, and I can have the aisle!

I'm also sniggering, because the woman who's doing the announcements for Qantas is from the north of England, and all I can hear is this:

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So...yeah.

Wish me luck getting to LA with my sanity intact, and then surviving my five hour layover. On the plus side, my luggage has been checked all the way through to DC, so at least I don't have to pay $25 to check my suitcase!!

Catch you on the flip side,
K xx

Out with the old...

Happy New Year, kids!! Hope you all had a good one. I spent mine having a delicious dinner, cider and silliness with one of my oldest friends, and watching the fireworks from the city. Okay, so that last part happened from QUITE some distance - the powers that be had announced that this year, you'd be able to see the city fireworks from anywhere you could see the city skyline. So we wandered down the road to a freeway overpass. I was too lazy to haul my SLR out of the cupboard, but I took a couple of pictures on my phone:

It was much more impressive in person...

Also, here's what they looked like up close, apparently:

Photo: Jay Town. Source.

ANYWAY. A new year traditionally means resolutions. But considering the general assumption is that resolutions will get thrown by the wayside by January 7th, I'm going to go ahead and call these 'goals' or 'projects' or 'schmesolutions' instead.

1. Get fit. I know the traditional one is "Lose [insert number here] kilos". But I feel like inserting a number there dooms me to failure. So I shall stick with the non-specific instead, and hope that weight loss is an associated side effect. I need to start exercising more regularly than I currently do, and not indulging in "It's raining, I can't possibly go to the gym" days like I did in 2012. Nikki and I have vague plans to keep each other in check on this one. Anyone else need a support system and want to join in??

2. Finish what I start. Primarily, this is about my Masters. All things going to plan, I should be finished by June. But I'm also going to add in things relating to the blog - I need to get moving on my 101 in 1001 challenge, given that I now have a year and three months in which to finish it. I also need to finish my Photography Challenge, and my Cookbook Challenge, both of which were started in 2011. Oy. This goal will NOT apply to super sucky books that I decide need to be abandoned for the sake of my sanity, or TV shows that get really shit after a certain point. The X-Files, I'm looking at you.

3. Sort out my finances. In part, this means applying for jobs when I get back from the US in February, and not stopping because I hate writing applications and going to interviews and generally trying to convince employers that I'm awesome and not a socially awkward weirdo who can't construct a coherent answer under pressure. But it ALSO means not buying people $100 birthday presents because I feel guilty about only spending $10 (even though that's all I can afford to spend), or justifying the purchase of books or DVDs  to myself because they were ONLY $20. Buy what you NEED, not what you want, you idiot.

4. Write something ELSE. Sure, I write a lot of blog posts (a LOT a lot when you add Snark Squad to the equation). And I write far more incredibly boring essays than I would like. But I see how many of my friends are doing NaNoWriMo or who are sending novels out to publishers, and I'm seriously impressed. I feel like I should give it a go this year, if only to see what I can come up with. Writing prompts are more than welcome!

5. Get in the damned photo. I was tagged in a whopping FIVE photos on Facebook in 2012. One was of a bus shelter with Doctor Who related graffiti on it. Two were of food. One was of me as a little kid. I mean, if I can publish half a dozen vlogs without worrying about how much of an idiot I look, I'm pretty sure I can get in the photo more often.

6. Be a better friend. I've found that I've started doing this thing where I assume because I've mentioned something on my blog or on Twitter, that EVERYONE knows about it. I need to work harder this year at regularly contacting the people who don't spend their entire lives on the internet. And remembering that sometimes, it's a good idea to pick up the phone and call someone.

7. Make the most of my travel opportunities. My upcoming trip to the US (I leave in TWO DAYS!!) is looking like it might be the last bit of travel I do for a while for reasons that mostly relate to number 3 on this list. Rather than doing my usual routine of spending free time sitting in hotel rooms because they have free wifi, I should go outside, see the sights, and do things that I can't do at home.

8. DFTBA. Pretty self explanatory, really!

What are you planning to focus on in 2013?

K xx

Decisions, decisions

Months and months ago, Deidre and I decided that what we desperately needed to do was hold some kind of meet-up for our Melbourne blogger friends. We got all excited about it, and started making a list of the people that we wanted to invite. And then the Dessert Day sugar high wore off, and we promptly forgot all about it and went on with our lives.

Until a few weeks ago when Deidre announced that it was back on the cards, because a) it was her birthday, and b) she wanted to catch up with people before she heads to the US to get married! And so it came to pass that Deidre, Katie, Ruby and I met at the Cider House on Brunswick Street.

I arrived somewhat flustered, because I'd had the option of two buses to get me there.
a) A bus that would get me there 20 minutes early, or
b) A bus that would get me there 5 minutes late.

I opted for the latter on the basis that the Victorian Public Transport journey calculator assumes that you walk at Old Lady Speed, and I can totally walk faster than that, so I was sure I could turn that 5 minutes into "right on time". Except then I pushed the button for the bus stop a tad too early, and he pulled up at the stop before the one I actually wanted, but I was too embarrassed to say anything because that's totally how I roll, so not only did I have to walk an extra chunk of distance, but I'd neglected to take into consideration the fact that Brunswick Street consists of alfresco dining and People Who Stroll, and that the former means you cannot overtake the latter.

ANYWAY. That's a really long winded way of saying "I was flustered when I got there". And then I had to make decisions, which made me even more flustered. Because when it comes to the Cider House? There are a LOT of decisions to make.

In addition to three or four pages of cider options on the menu, there was the inevitable "what will I have to eat?" decision, which was made even more "Oh God, what if I end up with food envy????"-y by the fact that ordering chips (America: read "fries") involved the following steps:
1. Decide what type of chips you want. 4 options.
2. Decide what kind of seasoning you want. 5 options.
3. Decide what kind of sauce you want. 6 options.

Applying my (possibly flawed) maths abilities leads me to the conclusion that this offers ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY DIFFERENT POSSIBLE COMBINATIONS. YOU GUYS. THAT IS A LOT OF PRESSURE AROUND DECISION MAKING.

In the end, here's what I had:

A felafel burger (sadly, it was not one giant felafel, like I was hoping for). Oven roasted potato skins with rosemary seasoning and roasted garlic aioli. And a pint of Cheeky Rascal apple and raspberry cider. All of it was delicious.

After several hours of entertaining conversation and stuffing ourselves with chips, I mentioned that I'd walked past a place not far away that had a sign out the front saying they'd been awarded the title of "Best chocolate macaron in Melbourne". This was a pretty big claim, so we had to test it out:

The one on the left is a blood orange macaron, the right is the famous black and white macaron, which is some kind of vanilla bean custard filling with a big blob of 70% cocoa dark chocolate in the middle. The blood orange one was pretty amazing, but I'm not sure I'd agree that the other was the *best* chocolate macaron in Melbourne. Maybe that's because I like my chocolate macarons more chocolate-y and less STEALTH chocolate-y??

And no, I don't have photographic proof that anyone else was there. We're bloggers - we take photos of food, not people, dammit!!! The moral of the story? Blogger lunches are awesome and should happen regularly. Also, that it may take us a really long time to organise stuff, but once we have? It's freaking spectacular.

Who wants to come to the Cider House with me at periodic intervals to try ALL the chip combinations???

K xx