How much for a Jäger?

We’ve yet to write about going out in Melbourne so we thought we’d relay last night to you as an example. We didn’t strictly go out in the city; it was in Mornington, but it was pretty much the same as a night out in Melbourne right down to the atmosphere.

First as we’ve already mentioned getting anywhere in Australia involves massive amounts of travel so it took us the better part of an hour to reach what many consider to be the outskirts of Melbourne to go to our friend Mitch’s for pre-drinks. We had enough to drink to tide us over, but if we’d realised what was about to hit us we’d have lost ourselves in the alcohol before going out.

We first went into a bar called God’s Kitchen, which was really nice although a little pretentious. Everything was going really well first drinks lined up on the bar and then the bartender yelled over the music “That’ll be $24”. Bearing in mind this was for two Jägerbombs and is roughly the equivalent of £18 we were pretty stunned. Both having been students up until this point and both having done pub work we were unused to any drink making it over the £5 mark let alone costing a whole £9. Simply put, going out anywhere in Melbourne is expensive with prices rising even further the closer you get to the city centre – so be ready to either pre-drink till you can barely walk to tide you over for the night or you will find your bank account drained. Speaking to Mitch we found that on a pretty average night he can easily burn through $200 if he hasn’t been pre-drinking. $200!!

We moved on to another bar and sat out in the garden. Alex by this point had moved onto some disgusting whiskey, simply because it was the cheapest drink we could buy. We were there for over an hour before moving on to the club. The club wasn’t particularly special, just a normal student club but the music was great and we danced away the hours. Having lost Carro at some point, we were in the taxi queue when we saw her staggering down the road towards us. We all made it back to Mitch’s in one piece, although the morning after was certainly interesting. Mitch, Sam and Carro were all due in work but due to some serious hangovers, the morning didn’t go off to a great start and all ended up being late in. Lucky for us two, we treated ourselves to a Maccas and headed on home to relax.

Rex’s Rules of the Road

• Pre-drinks rule the roost – cheaper and can be a lot more fun!

• In Australia they have something we will be campaigning for in the UK, drive through bottle shops!

• There are very few real pubs in Oz, be prepared for a lot more bars and smaller nightclubs.

• Taxis can be incredibly expensive unless you live close by, so either share the fare or try and find a place to crash that is a lot closer than your pad.