Wednesday, May 23, 2018

We’re back!

[S] It has been four years since we were last in Melbourne and it still feels like one of my favourite places.

It was a very early alarm that woke us at 3.15 am this morning for our 6 am flight.  We were pleased to see that the violent winds and thunder and lightening of the night before had passed, although there were still plenty of ‘lumps and bumps’ as the pilot described it, to keep us alert.

We landed at 8.15 am local time - we’ve taken to lingering at the airport until the peak traffic abates, so we grabbed a coffee and some tourist brochures and sorted out local transport cards and data and roaming for our phones before a leisurely trip into the city.

We are staying in a different location from usual - we’re outside the ‘square’ by about a block, near the QV markets and the beautiful Flagstaff Gardens.  The free trams are just a five minute walk away, the accommodation is really nice, and we even have a pool and a gym.  I might be persuaded to do some lengths in the morning!

First job of the day was to try to get tickets to the show ‘Beautiful’ which is based on the life and music of Carole King.  We were pretty keen to see it so it was good to get tickets, since we had tried and failed online before we came.  Then we saw that ‘The Wizard of Oz’ had just opened so we tried to get tickets for that too.  There was a matinee on today with what seemed like thousands of college groups attending and the box office was so preoccupied with getting them in and having the show start on time that they wouldn’t sell us tickets, so will have to go back when they are less busy if we are going to squeeze it in.

I was amazed that I could remember where the theatres were after all this time – Melbourne is so easy to navigate.

[A] Found The Book Grocer on Bourke Street - $20 for three books was too good to pass up.  I'm pretty sure they weren't there last time we were here - there are obviously quite a number of them around now, and we certainly haven't noticed any before. 

[S] We’ve decided to take a day trip on the train and visit Geelong – the weather looks good on Saturday so we’ll aim for that.  Allan’s conference is on Friday so that’s shopping day!

Ate too many chippies with our pre-dinner drink (and kept falling asleep!) so just popped down to Nandos for a quick dinner.

St Kilda day tomorrow!

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