A Perfect Day with Angels and Doing Time.

The perfect day started off with me - of course- running late.  I was suppossed to be  meeting with Alexandra at Flinders Station in the CBD (Central Business District) at 9am and it was already 9:15am.  Alexandra was one of my dormmates from Queenstown.  We had been planning since I left to meet up in Melbourne at the end of the monts when she was here.  We hadn't seen eachother in about 2 months so I was really looking forward to seeing her.  On top of being late I had no credit on my phone so I couldn't even call her.  Bonnie sent her a text from her phone for me so I was hoping I could find her easily at the station which I did.  It was so good to see her again,  though we had planned (before I left QT) to meet up in Melbourne plans tend to change so the fact that it actually happened was great!
Since we were both on an extremely tight budget we decided to go to Federation Square (across from Flinders) and go to the ACMI and check out the free galleries. The current one was on the evolution of film.  There were old film cameras, original pencil drawings with explanations on how they were made to look like they were moving, how silent films began, how sound was brought in.  There were pictures of people like Chaplin and Bette Davis.  There was information and articles on how the Drive-In began.  All this led into the evolution of video games, this I loved.  They had Atari original joy sticks, Nintendo and Nintendo 64 incased in glass.  I cannot believe that things from my childhood are not only part of the evolution of technology but actually incased in glass!  It was so wierd.  I was like "OMG I remember when that first came otu we played it all the time.  They even had the Nintendo's hooked up to tv's so you could play them.  I played Super Mario 3.  The hand control was sticky but I could still play and had no problems spinning the wheel and getting extra lives though I couldnt find any tubes I could go down when I knew I could...I was getting so frustrated.  It reminded me of when I had the chicken pox and mom and I would sit and play it all day!!!  I swear we would've stood there and played for hours but I tore us two away from our games to move on. 
There was a big Matrix dome display.  The walls were black with green coding all over it just like in the Matrix.  On the wall when you walked in there was a button, this set off a camera.  While the camera was going you could do fight moves and kicks and it would film you...slowing it down and making it look like you were in the matrix.   We did it over and over again trying to get the best we could and this is what we ended up with Matrix Emmie Style - Time Slice and
Knock Out - Time Slice  It was so much fun. 

There was a screen with a camera that cast your shadow in wierd ways with shapes around it and when you moved it made dinosaur noises.  We also filmed ourselves;  you make a 12 second video of what ever you want and then it gets printed into a flip book.  I now have a little pink flip book of me and Alexandra dancing like idiots.
After acting like children and spending two ours in the gallery we went outside for a smoke and decided what we wanted to do next.  As we were sitting out there I noticed this massive television screen in the middle of Fed Square.  On it was a view of this live feed of the Square and you could see people walking by and waving but then this Angel would drop out of the sky with a big "thud" and start interacting with the people.  Loving this we walked over. We started waving and imitating the Angel.  It's a promotional campaigne for Lynx Excite (our Axe) called Even Angels Will Fall.  We blew kisses, took pictures and even attempted the sexy Angel walk.  We started to leave the Square wen this guy runs up to us and says "would you mind if we filmed you girls for YouTube.  You were great back there, you were hilarious and would love to film you two"  So we get interviewed about the type of guys we like and if smell is an important aspect, and who do we like better Finnish or Australian for Alexandra and Canadian or Australian for me, I said Australian.  We were having a hoot. We were laughing and she swore and then said "can I say that on YouTube?"  We got filmed for about 5 minutes and then they said it was enough though the guy said "I could film you girls all day your hillarious"  The cool part is we got in a a promotional video for Lynx|!!! Check it out  Lynx Excite - Angel Falls AR
Buzzing about what had just happened we made our way to the Victoria market, bought friendship bracelts met up with a couple of her friends and then went to Melbourne Central Station where we parted ways.  We said good bye and gave eachother a huge hug and promised to meet up again somewhere in the future.  We wanted to see eachother within the next couple of days but with me working two jobs and her leaving to go home it just wasn't possible. So with sadness in our eyes we waved and she said "thanks for a perfect day" and perfect it was.
So I have grabbed a second job at a place called Misty's.  It's an All American Diner meaning real North American food lol I love it http://www.mistysdiner.com.au/index.asp.  Nik (from Drax) works there and said they were hiring so I went in and pretty much started right away.  They are training me to open (8am) which I don't mind.   In a few weeks I get the uniform...poodle skirt for the weekends and a little 60's dress for during the week and my name tag says Frankie haha...yes another place with a floor name.  The owner is from Arizona.  She likes having workers with the American/North American accent to make the place more Authentic, a lot of the employees are travellers which I think is great!
With starting a new job and working most nights because of Drax I haven't really been doing too much.  I haven't been out to the bars with anyone and I have been keep to myself a lot as I have been feeling I need some down time.  Yet I have found that it's getting a little depressing and I am not really doing too much but after the day with Alexandra I remembered how much fun it was to go out for a day so I have promised myself that once a week I am going to do a little day trip.  This week I went to the Old Melbourne Gaol (pronounced jail, we are not gonna talk about how I thought it was pronounced).  I wanted to do the Watch House tour.  I made it just in time for te 12:30 tour.  You are brought into the building by an officer who lines women up on one side and guys on the other.  He then hands us our arrest sheets.  Name - Shannon Shoreberg ( I think) Charge - Assault with a deadly weapon. Reason for arrest - attacking the cops when they tried to take away my orange peeler.  It was hilarious.  He then brings us into a room and lines us up where he tells us we can not touch anything (due to the fact it was a heritage building), then he says we only speak when spoken to and we answer yes sergeant.  We couldn't stop laughing and asked what we thought was so funny and separated two of the women.  After we signed one of the guys in (as an example) we were brought into a hall way where we lined up again and were asked to show our hands to make sure we had no drugs, weapons or contraband hidden anywhere and then we had to turn and face the wall with our hand in front of us.  He said we would usually get strip searched but it was too cold.  It was so funny.  After we were taken into the mens ward where we got locked in a cell and the lights turned off.  Looking down the hallways was really wierd. There was graffiti etched into the metal doors, all original from actual inmates.  The cells were brick with a few benches and a toilet which can only be flushed from the outside meaning when the prison guards felt like flushing them.  There were dry cells and wet cells meaning that if someone was really drunk they would hose them down.  The watch tower where we were was where people were held from 1 day to whenever while they waited for their sentenced and then moved across the central courtyard to the prison.  The men's ward had a courtyard which was the size of a regular sized hotel room which was now covered meaning no actual sun and air.  This is where the men would spend most of their days (it wasn't always covered) so when the sun was out they were out but if it rained they were in their cells.  There was a private room for people that needed protection (pedifiles) that walked out to it's own courtyard that was the size of a shoe box.  There was a padded cell where the crazies went and that just gave me the creeps.  We were taken over to the womens ward where they only had three cells because they didn't get a lot of women.  Though the first person ever to be put there was a women.  At the opening ceremony to the Gaol a women was arressted for yelling profanities haha how funny is that.  Their courtyard was small though it seemed to be brighter and seemed more outsidish.  I sat there looking at all the gaffity that had been carved into the walls.  I read a few.  I tried to imagine who these women were, waht they were doing there,  how long they were there for.  I imagined them sitting around on the ledges with cigarettes in their mouths, eyeing eachother, playing cards.  I tried to picture it all.  I didn't really know what to picture but I almost felt sad walking through there and reading the graffiti etchings.  After that we got to take our own mug shots and head off to a self guided tour of the prison.  On my way over I found out that years ago people were hanged there and there bodies were burried along the side of the watch house.  They weren't originally burried there but a woman who owned an oyster shop had claimed her husbands body after he had been hung there.  She took his body and hung it in the front window of the Oyster shop to show the cruelty of the law.  After that no one was aloud to claim the body of their loved ones.

The prison was a little eerie, 3 stories high with cells running down eachside of the walls.  Iron stairs and doors.  The cells big enough for a small thin matress on the floor with a window that barly let in any light.  One of the guys that had been on my tour said he used to work as a prison guard and this is what it looked like.  Each cell (that was open) had information up on some of Australia's most notorious criminals.  The womens hall had been torn down but bellow it there was a not a torture chamber but a place tat if you were bad they would send you down there with no light or communication to break them down.  There was a mask called the calico hat.  When inmates would come out of the lower rooms they would make them where these scary looking hats so they were still separated from everyone else.  There were actual mouldings of some of the criminals heads.  The floors were made of stone and it was cold in there.  There was so much to read I could've been there for hours it was really interesting but sad and eerie at the same time.  The gaol only closed in 1996 for the reason that it was over capacity and they didn't have anymore room.
After I got back for the gaol I packed up a bag and headed out to visit Dallas for the night.  Him and Alana had gotten their new house and a few of us were going over for drinks.  It was so much fun.  We were snapping pictures and with Juzzy working at Drax and Claire and Mike who used to work there, we couldn't take a normal picture.  We kept making stupid Drax pictures "it's not possible to take normal pictures anymore" Juzzy told me.  I did try and smile but it just didn't feel normal haha.  Juzzy fell asleep on the couch so Claire and I took out my makeup and painted his face though working at Drax wearing makeup doesn't faze him.  Mike and Dallas were good sports and willingly let me paint up there faces   "don't worry boys I do mine all the time".  We ended up walking back to Juzzy and Claires where I fell asleep almost immediatly curled up on the chair by the fire place only to later curl up on the mattress with Doobie their dog and Dallas slept on the couch.  Can you believe Dallas moves out of their place into his own only to sleep there the day he moves out. Dork.!!!