The Queens Visit

Now I am no royalist. I have very little interest in anything to do with royalty. I couldn't tell you how many kids Princess Mary has, or how Beatrice fits into the royal family.  I didn't even know that Prince Charles and Diana divorced until a couple of days ago. However, I unintentionally ended up in the city yesterday watching the Royal visit. 

I had organised to meet up with some uni friends for lunch. We caught the train in to the city and were going to go to St. Kilda, although the Queen interrupted our plans. I knew that she was visiting Melbourne yesterday, but I had no real desire to see her. What I didn't know was that both the road and the tram line to St. Kilda road where completely closed off due to her visit. With no way to get to St. Kilda, we changed plans and decided to go to Greville Street instead.

Unlike me, my darling mother loves the Queen. She took my little brother and sister out of school for the day so that they could go into the city to try and catch a glimpse of the queen. She was that excited that she couldn't eat her breakfast. I'm not even joking, she actually said that.

My lunch finished at about the same time as the queen was due to arrive at Federation square, so I decided that a might as well find Mum and watch the parade with her. By the time I got back to Flinders Street, the crowds were so big that you  couldn't move. People couldn't get in or out of Flinders Street station. Not only was in annoying for people who weren't there to see the Queen, but it was also pretty unsafe! 

This was about an hour before the queen arrived. This crowd more than doubled!

There was heaps and heaps of cops around too, and I had to have a giggle when I walked past to having a word to this old man about his 'protest'. His sign has something to do with how America saved Australia from Japanese invasion, and that Britain had betrayed us. They must have let him stay though, because he was still there when I walked back past later on! 

My friends and I couldn't be bother dealing with the crowds, so I gave up looking for Mum and headed further down St. Kilda road to get away from all the people. We found a nice grassy spot out the front of the arts center, and soaked up the sun while we waited for the queen to pass. 

As we walked down, I had another giggle at this bunch on the Balcony of the arts centre who had come out to see the Queen.  Not your typical royalists?? 

I'm glad that I wasn't particularly interested in seeing her, because the whole thing was a massive let down! When she eventually came past, all you could see was her brightly coloured hat near the front of the tram. It could have been anyone! My friends decided that this lady in the crowd was the Queen, and that everyone was looking in the wrong direction. For all you could see, it could have been this lady in the tram!

I kind of felt sorry for all the people who had waited for hours to see the Queen. You really couldn't see much at all. But Mum was happy. She walked around grinning for the rest of the day, and called me before I went to bed to ask what I had done that day, just do she could hear me say 'I went and saw the Queen.'. Cute. My little brother and sister where pretty un-fussed by the whole thing too. They were more concerned about going to Sugar Station. 

One of the best bits of the day was a compliment from my little brother that came while he was reminding us to go to Sugar station for the 50th time.  He told us that going there was more important than seeing the Queen, and that it was the most important bit of the whole day. After a short pause, he then added that I was 'a tiny bit' more important than lollies. 

More important than the Queen AND lollies! I must be important! haha

Class of 2010 Muck Up Day - The Day that wasn't

It's almost that time of year again, where society is tormented by evil brats. No, I'm not talking about Halloween, I'm talking about muck up day!

Muck up day, for those who don't know, is almost rite of passage. Basically, you get to mess sh*t up, because you're finishing school. It's a celebration that traditionally takes place on the last day of year 12. Student get to dress up, and mess up.

Not surprisingly, Muck Up day is banned at many school, as 'celebrations' often get out of hand. Think Xavier College Class of 2008. 

My school was no exception. Tomorrow, marks a year since that fateful day of my Muck up day. Technically, our school didn't even have Muck Up Day, instead it was meant to be a 'celebration' day. We were aloud to dress up, and cause a little bit of mischief, but almost everything we could cause mischief with was banned. Flour, banned. Baby oil, Banned.  Water pistols, banned. So basically, we couldn't do anything. 

But did the schools tactic of banning everything ensure an incident free Muck Up Day? Hell no. 

Instead, my classmate came up with more 'creative' ways to cause mischief. Someone (who will remained un-named) decided to put quick dry cement in the female toilets. And someone else put expander foam in several of the school locks. 

How they managed to do this, I have no idea. The school supposedly had security surveilling the school the night before Muck Up day, and the toilets should have been locked. 

The school discovered the damage before the school day even started, and they were not surprisingly very unimpressed. We spent the next few hours being screamed at by several teacher. They tried every tactic they could think of to get the culprits to admit. The threatened to cancel the Valedictory dinner, threatened police involvement and tried to make the culprits feel guilty for ruining the day. But, they never managed to find who did it. Well actually, everyone knew who did it, they just couldn't prove it! 

Pretty much the only half decent bit of the day was first thing in the morning, seeing everyone dressed up in the Supernatural theme. Apart from that, the rest of the 'celebration day' was pretty average! 

Me as a Zombie Doll.

Medusa, cross-dresser and zombie doll.
(Not sure how Darcy dressing as a girl was supernatural.
To be honest, I think he just wanted an excuse to dress as a girl) 

Vampire, Zombie dolls and the devil. 

Did you get to have a Muck Up Day? Did/has your school banned Muck Up Day? What did you do to celebrate the end of school? 

Shut Up & Dance - Melbourne Fringe Festival

Over the last few weeks, I have been volunteering at the Melbourne Fringe Festival. For those that don't know, Fringe is a festival that offers artists an opportunity to showcase their work to a wide audience. You can read more about it here.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to see many performances, because I was quite sick with Bronchitis for most of the festival. However, on my last volunteer shift I hung around for a while in the Fringe Club, a bar in the North Melbourne Town Hall that offered free entertainment every night of the festival. The event for that particular night was titled 'Shut up and Dance'. The name alone had me interested, but as I watched all of the performers arrived in their costumes, I knew I had to stay and watch!

And I was glad I did! The basic format of the night was a whole range of different dancers performing for the audience. There was Go Go dancing, Samba dancing, 'Punjabi' dancing, cheerleading and square dancing. After performing, some of the acts then taught the audience of few moves. The crowd was fantastic, and everyone joined in. Picture over a hundred people, dancing in sync. It looked amazing!

Anna's Go Go Academy was my favourite act of the night. They performed a 60's style 'go go' dance, and sported full 60's costumes. Complete with bee hive and tiny shift dresses. After their dance, Anna, the founder of the academy taught some basic steps to the crowd. I loved it, and am now definitely considering trying out a few classes!

In between the acts, they had some 'free dancing' time. This was almost as good as the acts themselves, because the atmosphere was incredible! Almost everyone in the room was on there feet and dancing. And not just an awkward shuffle from side to size, or people grinding up on each other like everyone does in night clubs. People where actually dancing. Proper dancing! Their was people ballroom dancing, people doing break dancing, some latin dancing, and people doing there own style! Safe to say I think a lot of the audience where dancers. What I loved though was how into it everyone was. No one cared what they looked like, they where just having fun. And the energy was infectious!

I was kicking myself that I hadn't found out about it earlier, because I knew so many people that would have loved it just as much as me. I hope they do it again next year! I will be there for sure!

Here is a clip I found of the Samba dancers on YouTube. It gives you a little idea of what the night was like. (p.s It's worth watching just for the gorgeous dancers!)

Did you go to the Melbourne Fringe Festival this year? Have you been in previous years? 

Dressing up or Dress up?

Everyone loves dress up parties, especially ones with decade themes. There is just something so fun about dressing up in the ‘fashionable’ clothes your parents once wore. I love to giggle at Mums perm, shoulder pads and lycra, but I know that karma is going to bite me in the arse. And probably yours too. At some point in 20 or 30 years, the next generation will want to borrow OUR old clothes for a dress up party. They will be sniggering at what used to be OUR extremely fashionably wardrobe.

Although the idea of having our fashionable 2011 wardrobes ridiculed may seem absurd, it is highly likely. And, unless you want to spend your life wearing basic tees and bootcut jeans, it is unavoidable. Your current wardrobe will one day be giggled at, as the fashions of today give way to a new ear. The most important thing is that you love what you wear, and you feel great. So rock your leather shorts, fluro platforms or dip dyed hair. Just be ready to laugh at yourself in 20 years time, when your daughter rocks the same look for a dress-up party.

So what fashions will our generation be defined by? For the 80's, it was the perms, lycra and legwarmers. For the 70's, it was the flared pants, platform shoes and headbands. 

This is my list of the top 10 recent fashions most likely to resurface at a fancy dress party in 20 years. 

- low cut skinny jeans

- The colour blocking trend

- Jeggings/Leggings

- Maxi skirts/dresses

- Havianas

- Boot Shoes

- High wasted short shorts (Bum cleavage optional) 

- Ray Bans

- Anything Vintage

- Oversized Bags & Sunglasses

And finally, I need to add one more thing. It's not an item of clothing as such, so I didn't add it to my list, but it deserves a mention.

 Orange Fake Tan! (I have actually seen people this orange, on numerous occasion.)

Is there anything I've left out?  Do you agree with my predications? 

Let me know!