On Friday afternoon, Diana and I put up posters for our brand Be You! (like us on Facebook!), set out a CD boom box, and white girl danced our hearts out. For all of you that know me, I'm sure you've witnessed "the dolphin" and "the point" randomly at a bar when I'm in the right mood. Now just envision my terrible dance moves (along with Diana's) on the corner of Elizabeth and Collins Streets in Melbourne CBD (just think Michigan Avenue in Chicago). We've coined this new tradition as "Friday Funday."
Now you may be asking yourself, "WHY would she do something like that?!" The answer is simple: Be You. Dancing terribly makes me happy and being happy is contagious. So, Friday Funday is a way for Diana and I to transfer our happiness to others. If you look around, too many people are unhappy, and a lot of the time, they're unhappy because they are being something other than themselves. Or people are just pretending to be happy. I was guilty of it just a couple months ago! I was working a job I didn't love, was friends with toxic people, and pretending to love "settling down" in one place. It wasn't until I looked within and started to be myself that the gates to happiness opened.
Essentially, our brand Be You! is to remind everyone that it's okay to break out of the mold and do things that make you happy, even if others disapprove. To pay this message forward, Diana and I hung up two posters while we danced. One read: Friday Funday!; the other read: Be Spontaneous, Be Creative, Be _______, Be You! As pedestrians passed, we danced around, smiled ,and yelled, "Happy Friday!" And you know what? I think we changed quite a few people's days around. A handful of people came up to us and gushed about how happy we were and how it made them happy as well. An older lady sat on the bench and watched us for an hour, multiple people videotaped us, a guy in a wheelchair gave us hugs, some stepped in to dance, etc. We made an impact on more than a handful of people in Melbourne that day.
And funny enough, guess who we ran into while we were dancing on the street?! The opening act of La Soiree! (click here for a reminder of what this is). All of a sudden while we're dancing, I hear a man yell, "Go girls!" and then realized who he was! Of course we convinced him to take a photo with us :)
After about four hours of dancing, Diana and I met Rom and Kelly at the Bottom End for happy hour. A few of their friends showed up as well and we all drank champagne (it's free for ladies between 5-7pm FYI) and then we told them about our adventurous day. They loved it! We then gave them a taste of our dance moves as we walked from the bar to dinner. We set up our boom box and danced down the sidewalk (see video below).
After dinner, we decided to check off another bucket list item: karaoke! First, we went to a place called KBOX. It wasn't really what we had anticipated...at this place, groups rented out rooms and sang with their friends in small groups. Because there were only three of us that decided to go to karaoke, we party crashed one of the rooms. Diana stole the mic from the group of 7 dudes and 1 girl and then started performing "I Would Do Anything For Love" by Meatloaf. And don't worry, she didn't forget to incorporate a leg guitar move (yes, I said LEG guitar) and intense screaming into the microphone. I would not have been surprised to see her just drop the mic at the end of the performance and walk out. One of the BEST performances I've seen...my abs hurt from laughing so much!
After KBOX, we went to a dodgy karaoke bar in Chinatown to sing Toto "Africa." Our stay at this bar was short-lived and we left right after our performance. By the time we got on stage, our voices were nearly gone due to a day of yelling and singing, but we still entertained the crowd.
Our final stop of the night was a bar called Berlin Bar. One side of the bar represented East Berlin and the other side was West Berlin. The West was gorgeously decorated with fancy drinks while the East depicted a communist bunker and had only a few mediocre drink choices to represent life in Germany until the Berlin Wall came down in 1989.
This Friday will always have a special place in my memory. It was the day Diana and I unofficially launched our business and made $4.65 in the process, which didn't even cover the price of the boom box batteries but will provide us years and years of smiles and fulfillment :) Here's to many more Friday Fundays in many more cities around the world!
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