Australia Day Recap

[I would have posted this earlier, but every time I tried to post it Blogger was having some sort of meltdown. *Sigh*]

It feels a little weird to be doing doing a recap on a Friday, but yesterday was Australia Day (Americans, think 4th of July - kinda) and so it was a public holiday. Back at work today, and then w00t! tomorrow is the weekend. Yay!

Stephen, my friend (and ex boyfriend from back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth) is in town at the moment from Brisbane and yesterday we planned a night out on Wednesday night and then to spend the whole day together yesterday.

Wednesday night got off to a bad start because I couldn't find my ATM card, and so I was stressing out about not having any cash for the evening or the next day (when the banks are of course all closed for the public holiday). After I tore my room apart in a major panic attack, Stephen ended up having to largely treat me for the evening. Exactly what I had planned on doing for him! We had a fantastic Vietnamese dinner at VietKing in Newtown, and then headed over the road to the very busy and buzzy Newtown Hotel for a few bevvies.

Yesterday we met late morning in the city at Books Kinokuniya, where Stephen proceeded to plonk down a fist full of vouchers and some cash and walked away with bags full of manga and graphic novels. I could have spent about $500 in the design section alone, Kinokuniya is that sort of place for me. I have a thing for stationery shops (and hardware stores), and the stationery section at Kinokuniya is like heaven. It brings out the inner 16 year old Japanese girl in me.

After Kinokuniya we headed down to the DVD section of JB HiFi, where I bought Season 1 of "Arrested Development" on sale. Score! I swear, temporarily diminished funds was all that stopped me from blowing an absolute fortune on discounted DVDs!

After the spending spree Stephen and I had a fantastic lunch at the Galeries Victoria Wagamama. Since I gave up drinking I haven't yet found a drink I considered as delicious as a Caprioska, but Wagamama's fresh apple and lime juice combo runs at a great non-alcoholic second.

I had pre-bought tickets for an afternoon session of "Brokeback Mountain" (my comments on the movie are in my previous post), so we headed back to Newtown to see it at The Dendy. They had two screens showing it and every session was sold out, which made me glad I had pre-bought the tickets. We got there well ahead of time, and by they opened the doors for our session the line was snaking right down and around the cinema. The atmosphere was fun and expectant, and I certainly wasn't let down by the film.

Stephen headed off to see some more friends in the evening and I cooked myself some dinner, blogged my thoughts on the movie and went to bed. A pleasant way to spend Australia Day! January 26th is also the anniversay of my Dad's death, and some years it has been an emotionally fraught day for me. This year I was a little bit more distracted that some previous years, and while I didn't let the day go by without thinking of Dad I didn't get maudlin. It was a good day.