Take your date row boating was pretty amazing on central park lake, New York but to be honest anything we did in the 5 days we were in New York was pretty amazing, because it was NY right! (ya, I know! Freakin’ tourists!)

Ok, so let’s say you’re not a tourist, you’re in your home town and you’ve decided to take your date out on the row boat date night. There are 2 scenarios:

1. The Lake: Rowing on a lake is easy. It’s perfect for new lovers who are still getting to know each other as it provides a quiet place for the two of you to chat and laugh at each other’s rowing technique. For the seasoned relationship I recommend packing a picnic, a camera, and I highly recommend $30DN’s conversation starters if you haven’t already downloaded a copy. Download here. You may find rowing alone isn’t stimulating enough on its own.

2. The River: if you’re rowing your date on a river (like what we have here in Melbourne) you pretty much don’t need to sort anything out. The river currents will provide enough entertainment that you probably won’t need to arrange a picnic. Although having a backup plan just in case is worth it. At least have the conversation starters on you for something light that you can pack and use if the currents are not entertaining you.

This footage was taken a few months ago – so we didn’t exactly do it this week. You’ll notice that Emma is doing all the rowing here. She wasn’t leaving a good impression on all the other ladies out on the lake! One dude actually clapped Emma… his date was not impressed at all!

Happy Dating!

Den.

Oh, PS… if you want to see Emma’s “singing in Vegas” clip. PLEASE comment below and convince her – it’s hilarious!

Night Walks
I remember when I was little we went with my Girl Guide troupe on a night walk through a huge nature park with torches to act as spotlights. We had a ranger with us who pointed out possums and whatnot. It was a blast!

Grab yourselves a torch and head out to see what you can find. If the wildlife proves coy, make sure you have a blanket in the car so you can get frisky in the dark together.

Night Markets
Over summertime in our city, we have night markets once a week. Paper lanterns, amazing international foods, live music and stores selling fortune telling and handmade candles. It’s a fantastic night out. Search around your own local area to see what night fairs or markets you can find!

Nature Walk
Nothing like a picnic for two and a hike through the picturesque outdoors together on a Sunday afternoon. Find a beautiful part of the world and go explore it via the nature trails.

Nepalese Food
This little-known cuisine has a lot to offer! Tasty curries and coconut rice… it’s delicious! And it will be kind to your purse as well.

Nude Beach
Release your inner exhibitionists at a nudist beach! It’s brilliant, safe, clean, legal fun and a great way to stretch your comfort circle. Nothing quite like skinny dipping in ocean waves!

We did it. And if we can, you can…

Nude Anything!
Speaking of naked, just add Naked to any other activity to make it an N-date. Naked Cooking! Naked Nintendo! Naked Movie Marathon!

Got any nice N date ideas to add that I may have overlooked?

Lucky we bought all that because what we didn’t realise was just how long a fiddly 500-piece puzzle would take us. Hours and hours and hours went by and we sat at our dining table and plugged away. Neither of us are avid puzzle-doers (I help my 4-year-old cousin sometimes and even those are a little difficult! Ha.) so we tried to figure it out as we went… start with the edges… look for similar colours… failing that (like with that one corner you’ll see in this video that is just ALL WHITE) it’s a matter of finding the right joins for each piece. Who knew they were so complex? Who knew it would take all afternoon and all night?

But the lovely thing about it was being able to switch our brains off from thinking about other stuff – like work. It was a great chance to just focus on something completely different. No TV, just some quiet music and the two of us. Bliss. Perfect date for a Lazy Sunday.

Check out the awesome time-lapse video we made of this date! The internet can teach you anything!

Rate the Date
Romance Factor: 3/5
Cheese Factor: 3/5
Fun Factor: 4/5

Summary:
A perfectly comfortable date for two, great for winter time or for lazy Sundays. Get enough food – you may be there awhile! 500 pieces was good, if you’re brave or super-intelligent, perhaps you’d prefer a 1000-piecer. Happy puzzling!

But they’re weeks away yet. Let’s concentrate with the one at hand.

Date Ideas Beginning with E.

Crap.

Alright, forgive me for any long bows I might draw here…

E is for Ebay
This a brand new date added to the system by Razzie in Melbourne and I love it! I can’t believe we didn’t already have it in there. It goes like this:

“Pour a glass of wine and pump the tunes. Go through your wardrobes and choose a few items that you could do without but are still in good condition. Take pictures of yourselves posing in the clothes. Post them up on Ebay and make a few extra bucks!”

You get extra points for taking ridonkulously silly photos and using them! Take the cash you make from your sales and go shopping together for your next date night!

E is for Exercise
Get active together! It’s good for your endorphins! Whether you take a jog around a scenic lake, head to a Yoga class or go for a bike ride, spend a day getting sweaty together. Jump in the shower afterwards together to get clean!

E is for Expensive
Get dressed up in your finest and hit the luxury brand shops near you. Think Prada, Chanel, Gucci, Tiffany & Co. Stop for coffee along the way as you browse.

E is for Education
Edumacate yourselves on something you’ve always wanted to know! Perhaps a historic tour of your own city, a wine tasting session, a cooking class…. Learning new things together sparks the same brain chemistry as when you first fell in love!

That’s it. You only get four for E. Do tell if you have any more bright ideas for us though! Stay tuned next week for F.

What I love about the Melbourne Comedy Festival is that they run a box office from the Town Hall that you can walk into at any point during the festival and get tickets for whoever you want to see at whatever time you like (providing they’re not sold out already!). Similarly, you can walk in off the street and just go “Who’s on now that’s good?” and the Ticketing guys will talk you through the shows getting the rave reviews.

So we had heard Tom Gleeson was putting on a good show from a few different sources. We rocked in at 8.05pm to the ticket box and in less than ten minutes were at the Vic Hotel with a glass of wine and a beer ready to laugh. Pure date night gold!

This one did cost us a little more than $30 (Double. It cost us double.), but some of the shows won’t set you back that much – particularly if you go on Tightarse Tuesday!

Here’s a little clip from Tom Gleeson at last year’s Comedy Festival Gala (warning: probably NSFW if your boss is a hardarse. Language and adult themes and such.) It’s a particularly funny clip to me because Den happens to BE a male masseur… anyway, just watch it. He’s funny.

And from personal experience we can also recommend the highly inappropriate, extremely hysterical Eddie Ifft – but don’t go if you’re one of those sensitive types… he’s riDONKulously out there and nothing is sacred (just the way we like it.)

On second thought, here’s another Tom Gleeson video from this year’s Gala. Very funny. Enjoy!

Ever played roulette? No? Perfect. Set a budget for your date night (it’s no secret we like ye olde faithful $30 limit) and head to a low-betting table at a casino to learn the ways of roulette and (hopefully!) win some money. If you pick a table where there are no other punters, the dealer will be very patient in explaining the rules to you.

If you win big? Head for a lavish dinner together. Lose it all? Ice cream and a nice walk for you! Follow the link to check out our casino date night review.

C is for Cinema

The cinema is one of those tried-and-true date nights that couples always seem to gravitate to. We don’t need to tell you how to go to the movies. But what we will tell you is that if you’re sick of the cinema, there are a few twists you can throw into the mix to make it a little different. The Drive-ins, the Open Air Cinema and the Gold Class cinema are all on the list… click the link to read more about 5 Different Ways to Do the Movies.

C is for Cooking Dinner

Not just slap together the old spag bog with a jar of sauce! We’re talking a proper, fancy, three course meal from scratch complete with candlelight and soft music. You may even want to dress up like you’re in a fancy restaurant to make it extra-special!

C is for Camping

Whether you travel all the way to your backyard or to a campsite, this is a great cheap date idea and a lot of fun for two. Of course, a campfire, ghost stories and roasting marshmallows are obligatory. Cranking up the BBQ to cook some sausages is a must.

C is for Cut Each Others’ Hair

Are you high? Of course you’d never actually do this. But the idea has been submitted to our date generator and continues to hold it’s place there nonetheless.

C is for Comedy

Laughter will keep you young and keep your happy-hormones firing on all cylinders. Spending a night at your local comedy club is the perfect way to relieve a stressful week and to break the tension if you and your partner have been a little niggly with each other recently.

C is for Café

A blissful, relaxed few hours in a favourite café is a great rainy day date idea or a perfect Lazy Sunday idea…. Surround yourself with good coffee, the weekend papers and the latest issues of your fave mags and while away the afternoon in peaceful contentment.

C is for Concert

Is your favourite band coming to town? Do you have a secret affinity for the orchestra? Surprise your date with tickets to a concert that you know they’ll love and win yourself major brownie points in the meantime! If you want to be really impromptu about it, find the place in your local area that sells half price tickets the day of the show and really take them by surprise!

C is for Coin Flip

Bored out of your brain and want to shake it up a bit? Jump in the car or take to the streets armed with a coin. At each intersection, flip to see which way you will go (“heads, we go left; tails, we go right”) and see where you end up. Perhaps take a GPS device just in case you get entirely lost together!

We kicked it off last night with a visit to Cafe Lalibela for African food in the heart of Footscray, Melbourne. It doesn’t get more authentic than eating with your hands. They served their dishes up on huge ‘pancakes’ of traditional, sour injera bread. You tear pieces off and use them to scoop up the tasty, spiced stews that are set in the middle of them.

Everything on the menu costs $12. They have some of the best vegetarian cuisine around – and we definitely recommend the vego dishes over the meat ones. The dishes were very filling, especially when you factor the bread into it.

Grab yourself an Ethiopian Beer while you’re there for a tiny $5 (Cafe Lalibela imports it into the country themselves!), and let the wait staff recommend to you their favourites… they definitely know what they’re on about.

Cheap as metaphorical chips, you won’t be disappointed and you’d be hard-pressed to go too far over your $30 budget. Take your own wine if you like, they don’t sell it there (Remember: it doesn’t count in the budget if you already had it in the house!).

Cafe Lalibela
91 Irving Street, Footscray (Melbourne, Australia)
Reservations Recommended! (03) 9687 0300

The ABC Dating trend has been bandied around for awhile now. We’ve heard of couples that have done it themselves, it’s been written about in the media and now?

Denis and I are going to attempt it.

So on top of our usual date night parameters (Being a $30 Budget, taking it in turns to organise the date nights and making sure we date once a week) we are now Alphabet Dating.

It’s pretty straightforward – we start with a date that starts with A (i.e. Going to an Art Gallery) and work our way through B, C and the rest until we get to Z (Which will undoubtedly be a trip a Zoo of some sort).

It starts tonight… stay tuned for the update on where we’re going and the review. I’ll also be listing great date ideas by letter for the next 6 months as we go!

We’re looking forward to it. And hey – if you feel like your love life needs a metaphorical Berocca, why don’t you join us in our ABC Adventures?

We’ve waned from our usual Wednesday night date night, which means some weeks go by with us forgetting to schedule a date night… and while we’ve had lots of quality time spent together, that’s really not what it’s all about.

It’s served to really reinforce to us again that if you don’t have a schedule and structures in place, date night will never happen. It’s too easy for us to fall off the wagon and end up in front of the TV every night (the fact that Den gave me the entire Sex and the City Box Set for my birthday also hasn’t helped matters any!).

So.

We’re getting back on the date night horse. (It’s a fancy horse, too!) We’re recommitting to date night with each other again. And if you’ve forgotten all about your own date nights too, we recommend you do the same.

Remember the rules?

1. Pick a night every week.
That is your night together. Don’t schedule anything over the top of it. If you absolutely have to, then you can negotiate in advance with your partner to move it to another day for that week only.

Wednesday is our date night.

2. Take it in turns to organise.
It is no fun for one person to continually be the instigator of date night every time. If you’re stuck for ides, guess what? We’ve done the hard work for you. If you head to $30 Date Night and set up an account, you can even save a list of the date ideas you love the sound of so that you can refer to it when it’s your week to organise the date.

3. Mix it up.
Humans are creatures of habit. If you don’t consciously choose to do new, fun things with your partner every week then you will end up at the same favourite restaurants (think about how many times you go to the same place to eat out, or order takeaway from the same Thai food shop…) or doing the same, comfortable activities again and again.

You may love doing those things, but your relationship will not thank you for it. Remember, it’s been proven that doing new things together as a couple sparks the same hormones as when you first fell in love! Bring back the butterflies by doing something fresh and different every week!

And remember, it doesn’t matter if you have kids, or your budget is tight, there are ways around all those things and that is essentially what $30 Date Night is all about. Don’t make excuses. Don’t wiggle your way out of it. Just do it.

Who’s with us?

Happy Dating!

Full List of Date Ideas We’ve Done:

1. Ten Pin Bowling
2. Going to the Movies
3. Playing Pool in a Seedy Pub
4. Going shopping for Den
5. Roulette at The Casino
6. Getting Arty at Home and Sketching Each Other
7. Italian Night at Home
8. Getting Lost in a Hedge Maze
9. Baking Cookies
10. The Driving Range
11. The Comedy Club
12. Maha Middle Eastern Bar & Grill
13. Kikki-K Love Conversation Starters (and a picnic)
14. The Bookstore Date
15. Visit the Farmers’ Market
16. Fish & Chip Picnic
17. Ice Skating
18. Vegetarian Restaurant
19. Stargazing
20. Mineral Hot Springs
21. Jewish Holocaust Museum & The Immigration Museum
22. Fondue Date Night (aka Death by Cheese)
23. The Providore in Beechworth
24. Yum Cha
25. Cirque du Soleil (Tickets were a gift = less than $30!)
26. The RSL
27. Lunch at a Winery
28. Deck 88 at Eureka Tower
29. Bingo!
30. Video Game Arcade
31. Vietnamese Pho
32. Joint Manicures
33. Swimming at the Local Pool
34. Borrow a Kid
35. The Nudist Beach
36. Plane Spotting