Melbourne City Romp!

lol, there goes trying to write regular posts! The last one was in June - we're now in October! However, I blame that partly on Facebook and the status feature. The fact I can write about what I'm feeling in one sentence as my status has become my pseudo blog.

Its funny but as I look back on the June blog it feels like nothing has changed i.e. in the sense I'm still doing a PhD and being busy with PhD stuff and lacking in sleep. But so many things have changed in the sense that some people have left my life, others have entered it and some people have become more important. And without those people I wouldn't have been able to handle things that have happened in the last few months as well as I have. So a big *hug* and thank you to those people :)

I also feel like a different person - I look back and I think that it is me, but its someone different. I definetely wasn't as emotional and outspoken before, I'm pretty sure. I feel, I don't know, not less naive, b/c there are still so, so many things in life I don't know. Maybe that I've learnt things as a person, and hopefully improved as a person.

But that is a long term development, to see if I've changed or not for the better. One thing that I was looking forward to for a while was the Melbourne City Romp, which was on the 14th October. I'm a fan of the TV show The Amazing Race, so when I heard about the Romp, which is an event to raise money for the Burnet Research Institute I was in! Its basically the Amazing Race with checkpoints and clues, except it is centred around Melbourne and not around the world.

My team mates were my two brothers, and collectively we were known as The Defenestrators *lol* our facebook addiction is evident here! Being worried about missing our check in time at 11am, we arrived 45 minutes early so we wandered around a bit but it allowed me to get a city romp t-shirt, showing that yes, I was really into this! But after checking in at Fed Square, we got our first clue via SMS - which directed us to the Immigration Museum. We also got a clue sheet, which contained a clue and grid reference to direct you to the location - known as the checkpoint where you could then find the task for that particular location. Once you had the answer for the task you SMS the answer, then wait and see if you were correct.

In high spirits, we headed to our first checkpoint, the immigration museum. We were lucky in the sense that Michael had been to the Immigration Museum the week before and knew which exhibit we needed to go to. We solved that one easily and then found we were free to go where ever we liked within our four hour time limit. This is where strategy came in, which I left to my other brother, Darren as he is a feverent fan of the Amazing Race. We decided to follow our fab four checkpoints, and do any other checkpoints that we saw along the way. The fab four checkpoints were four checkpoints that if you visit and solve correctly you would be in the running for another prize (which was different from the prizes for the winners in each category - corporate, family, friends, university). From the Immigration Museum, we headed to Batman Park as one of the clues indicated that a checkpoint was there. However, we searched with no avail. From there we went to the Police Museum, which was one of our fab four checkpoints. That proved more difficult as we hadn't been there before. Finding the entrance was a bit of a challenge then solving the clue, as we had to search all the exhibits. We had to determine the other name for Australia's Jack the Ripper. But after successfully solving that, we headed back into the CBD and city square.

At City Square, the clue was to determine the direction that Burke and Wills are facing in the statue. It was here that we saw another team that were all dressed in labcoats - there was even a five year old with his own lab coat. So cute! Anyway, after that, we headed to Flinder's Lane, where we had to count the number of light boxes in a laneway, then Lt Collins Place and the Royal Arcade, where we had to figure out what game Sherlock Holmes and Watson were playing. This clue was one of my favourites, as the answer was on the sign for one of the stores. At this point, the SMS system was stuffed which meant we had to start submitting our answers on paper which meant we lost more time trekking back and forth to the checkpoints to submit our answers. After that, we headed to Myer, simply b/c if you solved the Myer clue, it meant you were in with a chance for another prize. Plus it was on the way for our fab four.

So we head to Myer, and our task was to head to fifth floor, where you had to look at funiture in a particular collection and determine which continents are represented in the furniture names. We had a bit of trouble finding it as we were at 5th floor Bourke St, rather than 5th floor Lonsdale. It was funny walking around Myer, with the City Romp number on our chests as we weaved around shoppers *lol* it felt very Amazing Race at that point. We then went to Melbourne Central, where the task was to count the number of hands on the clock. We were also trying to find our fab floor clue which was referring to the place that manufacturers lead products and is housed in the largest glass dome - which hints at Melbourne Central, but we couldn't find it :( We FINALLY took a break at Melbourne Central (which was sorely needed, was feeling tired) then headed to the State Library, which had to be the most frustrating task of the romp, which was count the number of times the word 'library' appears on the front of the building, mulitply that by the number of colums on the building, then divide by the number of legs seen on the statues at the library. In the end we couldn't get one of the listed answers, so we guessed it, as we only had an hour to go, and we still needed to head to Melbourne Uni for our last fab four checkpoint.

So with that we headed to Melbourne Uni. This was a good move, as both my brother and I know Melbourne Uni quite well. This made the two checkpoints there a breeze, and gave us the chance to then head to Argyle Square on Lygon Street (count the number of white squares below the stairs that lead to the square - that was the easiest task of the romp!) the Royal Exhibition Building (to find the word that isn't written in the dome of the building) the Melbourne Museum (find the egyptian mummy in the Mind and Body exhibit) and the Carlton Gardens (find a tree planted in honour of the Dalai Lama).

By that point, it was four hours and I was completely buggered. I think my brother would've kept going until all the clues were solved, but Michael and I were stuffed. But the romp was a lot of fun and I'd do it again if it happens again *fingers crossed* I might do it with different people though - just to make the experience different. Luckily my brothers didn't take my complaining too seriously, and we work together reasonably well. We're still talking to each other :)

However, it has given me second thoughts about ever being a constestant on the TV show Amazing Race...I'd really have to improve my fitness if I was ever going to do it. Now its back to PhD stuff again...