australia // day eleven // taking it east

there were many important things to show boyfriend while in melbourne, besides the obvious meeting of friends and showing-off of city sights, like taking him to my old stomping grounds and indulging in one of east melbourne's favourite burger bars; grill'd. when i lived in camberwell, whenever someone would visit me (and too many times on my own that i'd care to remember), i'd take them to grill'd; really pioneering the 'healthy burgers' fad and the first place i ever had herby chips, grill'd was my go-to burger joint back in the day - despite it's hefty price tag (worth it)(not when you convert it to pounds from dollars i soon realised).

he was impressed but not as transformed by the healthy options as i'd well suspected he wouldn't be, but did give the herby chips two thumbs up and ate the remainder of mine too (and still doused them in ketchup, the fool!). i'd gone for my regular tuscan chicken sans onions (they forgot to remove the onion even though we were the only people in the restaurant...), while he'd chosen the simple simon or whatever the basic beef and cheese burger option was. mine was deeeelicious, as i'd expected, his was probably boring, but that's what you get for being unimaginative.

the restaurant had tripled in size since i was last there - i remembered it being a take away joint with a small alley-way of bar stools for the losers who eat in (me). now though, there's almost three different dining areas; the initial take away, bar stool area, plus a giant open plan restoration and a couple of secret booths against exposed brick in the back. we were the only ones there, but took a booth anyway - why shouldn't we!

after our massive lunch, we wandered up and down burke road - home of my last gig in retail, and loads of great memories. i took him in and out of the shops i used to frequent, showed him where my old flat was and where i first live when i'd moved to melbourne back in 2007 (the two flats were less than a kilometre away from each other, ha - i didn't like moving, and i liked the area!) - both no more than four minutes walking distance from the shop i'd managed on the high street. aaah, laziness was my thing back th... oh wait. burn.

after kicking it out east for a couple of hours, we made our way back into town for a quick drink or two with a friend of ours from london who'd recently made the move to melbourne himself, before meeting up with some of the girls i'd worked with for dinner. we met at another of my fave places; 'your thai' on swanston street - the quickest thai food you'll ever have (side note; i once timed how long it took from order to meal; less than three minutes. that's... bad). another 'must do' on my list of things to do while in town, and catching up with the girls was priceless too.

another day down, the list was getting a whole lot shorter. almost home time...wah!