Melbs

My holidays are now complete. I think I went on 3 holidays in 5 weeks, which is rather decadent.

Holiday #2 involved a long weekend in Melbourne. Mark had been there all week, bumbling around at Melbourne Uni being philosophical and drinking coffee and wine and the rest of the time lounging around in a suite in a 4 star hotel. Oh the life of a philosopher.

I arrived on Friday via the aeroplane at around 10pm. Mark came to fetch me from the bus station and we caught the lovely tram up to Fitzroy to drink some wine and eat some late night desserts with some philosophy persons, before returning to the city and undertaking a lengthy slumber in the world's most comfortable bed.

Saturday it rained. And rained. And rained. And rained a bit more. We caught the trambulator to North Melbourne to a lovely cafe called the Auction Rooms and ate a wonderful brunch, accompanied by fresh juices and several coffees, giving us an excuse to sit there for almost 3 hours watching the rain fall outside. Not sure what to do, we ended up just heading back to the hotel and lying around for a bit, before heading back out on the tram back to Fitzroy to be our old friends Sam and Georgina's first ever houseguests in their new Melbourne flat!!! After a long stay working in NZ followed by several months travelling in South East Asia, they decided to move to Australia after visiting us in Sydney back in 2009. They had only been in the flat a few days and only had a mattress, 2 bar stools and an old TV to their names, but they also had a kitchen with wine so we had a bottle and talked about moving to Australia, moving to the UK, travelling.... It made me sad in a way that they are just arrived here and have a whole new life of fun to look forward to, while we are on our way out....I'm also sad that they are now in Australia just as we are leaving, so we won't get to hang out....the next time we see them will be at when they come back for their own wedding in the UK next July!

We walked out in the pouring rain over to the Veggie Bar and had a grand old meal and more and more wine before it was time to head to bed.

Sunday saw a slightly nicer day.



On the tram. Like the last time we went to Melbs, this time again I got so excited by the tram and took about 7386249372847 photos of the tram and us trambulating on it from inside and out. I have also used the word 'trambulating' so much now I think it might become a real word.

We went to Seven Seeds on Sunday for lunch - delicious toasted sandwiches and even more delicious coffee. We headed on down to the National Gallery of Victoria and had a little wander round, then back up to Brunswick Street for shopping and cafes. Sunday night was spent with Malaysian food and cocktails - we went back to Double Happiness, the bar we had been at on our last visit to Melbourne. It was brilliant.



I had a lychee based cocktail. Then we went over to our other favourite, the rooftop bar at Cookie and drank Kir Royale whilst gazing over the bright lights of Melbourne's CBD.

Monday we checked out of the hotel and went to the National Library of Victoria to print out boarding passes for the flight home. It's a pretty impressive place inside, all domed roofs and old books.

We were thinking about going up the Eureka Tower to the Skydeck on the 88th floor, the highest viewing platform in the Southern Hemisphere, but weren't sure as it was pretty expensive and the weather was still a bit grey. In the end though, we thought we'd go down there and have a look.



We decided to go up and it was so worth it! Seeing the city from so high up is really great. I didn't realise the sea was so close either, I thought Melbourne was inland, but you could see St Kilda and the coast really close by. It's also a lot higher than the Sydney tower so you get more of a sense of looking down rather than just out. Mark was clinging to the walls at first but he soon got used to it!



That's the view over the CBD.

From there we headed back to the hotel to collect our bags and make our way to the airport, where I proceeded to go mad for 2 hours as I had finished my Agatha Christie the day before (it was too exciting) and had literally nothing to do, until Mark went and bought me a newspaper to make me quieten down. Haha.

In which procrastination benefits the blog

My parents and Bec arrive upon the morrow, after they have finished marauding through Singapore. I thusly really ought to be cleaning the house and getting all organized for their arrival. I kept telling myself 'I won't leave everything til the last minute' all week, but still found myself bumbling around IKEA at 5pm this afternoon faffing over buying a new pillow I should have gone to buy about six months ago.
Last Friday I went to a party in the apartment block above the Coke sign in King's Cross, which was a novelty! It was a philosopher friend of Mark's who is from USA and is just visiting Sydney to work there for a month.
Went to see The Flaming Lips on Tuesday night at Hordern Pavillion. Best gig EVER! Came out feeling so revitalised and joyful, they let tons of balloons out into the crowd to play with, Do You Realise?? sounded so good!!



Went to Ice and Slice in Newtown with Katherine on Thursday for some good old pizza (slice) and gelato (ice). I also managed to impressively get home from Newtown to Meadowbank in just 45 minutes. Mark didn't believe me, but you can just do it if you pay attention and time the stupidly infrequent trains right! Friday night I was planning to be good and come home to tidy but ended up in the pub with Becky, Richeal, Cian and Karl. Foolish. And while I was podging up on beer and potato wedges Mark was in the gym so I felt doubly guilty and must try to live a healthier life. Friday was also my last day of work - I have 4 and a half weeks off!!!! SPRING BREAK!!!

And now I am here on the blog and STILL not sorting the house out ! :(

I never wrote about Melbourne properly...

I arrived on the Thursday, on a surprisingly on-time Jetstar flight to Avalon and caught the bus into Melbourne, arriving at Southern Cross station. From there, I walked all the way up to the university, trundling my case, because I did not understand how to buy a tram ticket at that stage. This later turned out to be a good thing because it gave me a good idea of where stuff was, while most of the people who had been around for the conference for over a week already didn't have a clue!
Once there, we went to the last conference talk of the day which was Matt Kennedy (one of Mark's old Nottingham colleagues) and then went for some drinks in a pub with a few people in tow. Then pizza, then we decided to investigate some bars, the first being the rooftop bar at Cookie! It was so good! We went back again on our last night to say goodbye, which is when these photos were taken.





It was very busy and had heaters and amazing views and was playing some awesome Boards of Canada-type electronica out of speakers on a post which suited the view so well. Would be great in summer!
After that we went to a cocktail bar which may or may not have been called Double Happiness. It was so good in there, with a proper cocktail waiter who could make you custom cocktails if you just told him what you wanted it to taste like. It also had an open fire which was so nice to get all cosy by. Quite a few people from the conference ended up joining us so it was very jolly. Ended up spending a shocking amount of money but hey ho, and walked back to the uni (we were staying in a college room there) to discover oh dear it was 4.30am.

BUT still four hours later we were up again for Kit Fine's talk at 9am on Friday morning. I have no idea what it was about but it was nice to see. I drank a lot of coke and then we headed back to bed for a bit. Mark then went off to the conference farewell lunch and I dozed some more in the room before meeting him on Brunswick Street for juice, then getting the tram to Greg Restall's house to which we had been invited for dinner, which was lovely.

On Saturday we had a big scrambled egg brunch and a gallon of coffee followed by a look round the shops, including this amazing stationary shop that I am going to order a ton of stuff from (we couldn't buy stuff there as we couldn't get it home on the plane!).



In the evening we went to the Vegie Bar and had a vegie roast! With a really nice bottle of some wine called 'Tempranillo', which I'd not heard of but is a spanish grape or something. Mark made me put my fangs in to laugh at me.



Then we went to a bar called the Carlton where there were all these big taxidermy animals (giraffe and ostrich etc) for some gin, then back to the rooftop bar for more more more wine!





We love the tram! Mark also managed to maintain his new quiff all week, which is quite impressive because normally when he gets quiffed he lets it drop after about 2 days.



On Sunday we had most of the day until our flights so we went to the Dali exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria. It was an amazing exhibition, they had so much stuff there, including full length screenings of Un chien andalou. It was also really well laid out and the little information bits were written really well, obviously curated by Dali experts rather than just general curators who sometimes seem to miss the point of everything. It is also nice to see some big name art in Australia, because it does seem like they miss out a little in general, although that's perhaps just my European perspective.



Then after some food we headed for our planes, Mark to Tullamarine and me back to Avalon, but fortunately our flights arrived at Sydney at the same time at the other end at about 10pm Sunday night and we pootled off home to bed.

I want to go back to Melbourne :( But I must stop procrastinating and TIDY UP. I have the sorest throat in the world, I can barely swallow and it's been like that for two days. I must also therefore get healthy. The cricket also appears to have been rained off, I wonder if there will be any at all today.

Melba

I had possibly the most fun in my life EVER in Melbourne last week. I keep desperately trying to find ways to go back very soon for another few days. It is an amazing city, feels so much more vibrant and cultural and alive than Sydney.

It was also made great by trams, amazing cocktails, vegetarian roast dinners, endless wine, Kit Fine, open fires in all the pubs and bars, and central heating. Central Heating! I hadn't seen a proper radiator in over a year, I wanted to hug it.





So right now I am feeling rather flat, post-fun blues. I need a good night out, but I ought to save some money after Melbourne seems to have eaten rather a large sum!

I put up some photos and I shall do a full update shortly.

Aw Ricky Ponting's chubby little face. The Ashes coverage keeps showing wide shots over London. It makes me homesick.