life in Melbourne
We arrived in Melbourne three days ago and immediately put on our hoodies. It was maybe 65 degrees out when we walked out of the airport, cloudy with a cool wind. Quite a shift from the 85 degree heat and 95 percent humidity of Cairns!
Summer weather has, however, returned to Victoria, giving us warm sunshine and just the right amount of moisture in the air. Melbourne in summer is quite a bit like Seattle in summer - it's just that their summers happen at opposite ends of the year. It's perfect biking weather, which is convenient given that we've managed to borrow a couple of bikes for getting around the city. Melbourne has bike paths and bike lanes throughout the city, and there are excellent maps showing you where they are (as well as where the bus and tram lines run). And it's mostly flat. It's a great place to live if you don't have a car.
We are staying with a friend of a friend in West Brunswick, which is northwest of downtown Melbourne - maybe 20 minutes by tram. There isn't much here, as we discovered shortly after we arrived and went out for a walk to find dinner - only to find almost everything closed by 6 pm. But we're next to a lovely park and right next to one of the main bike paths, so there are benefits to being out of the busier parts of the city.
After our life of leisure in Queensland, it's back to training now. We're biking as much as possible, and are training about every other day at Blue, a community circus space about 7k from here. It was pretty humiliating to get up on my rope and realize how much condition one can lose in 3 weeks! Of course, it was also bloody hot in there today (rope people reading this: it was perfect for the sticky knee climb) so I'm going to blame some of my lethargy on that. I've got 2 weeks to get in shape to perform in Tasmania!
Our other main activity here is catching up with friends, which has been really wonderful. I haven't seen many of these folks since I lived here back in 2005! And very few of them had met Shawn, so it's been fun introducing him to my mates here - all of whom think he's fabulous, of course.
Last night we went to "Le Grand Cirque," a circus variety show at a lovely theatre in downtown Melbourne. My friend Jai, who's rigger and stage manager for the show, was kind enough to get us comps for it. It mainly featured Chinese acrobats, contortionists, and acro-balancers but with some Australian aerialists and dancers as well. And it featured one of the funnier clowns I've ever seen - he did a bit where he blew up a giant balloon and then got inside it (!!!!) that was the funniest thing I have ever seen in a circus show. Shawn even got to be part of the show, as a plant used by the clown in one of his audience participation bits. He was great - he even did a very respectable cartwheel on stage. :-)
This weekend we're planning to hit some of the local craft markets in hopes of picking up more gifties for the folks back home. And we've got two birthday parties to go to! It sort of feels like we live here, which is really nice - and a little disorienting sometimes.
OK, time to upload more photos!
Summer weather has, however, returned to Victoria, giving us warm sunshine and just the right amount of moisture in the air. Melbourne in summer is quite a bit like Seattle in summer - it's just that their summers happen at opposite ends of the year. It's perfect biking weather, which is convenient given that we've managed to borrow a couple of bikes for getting around the city. Melbourne has bike paths and bike lanes throughout the city, and there are excellent maps showing you where they are (as well as where the bus and tram lines run). And it's mostly flat. It's a great place to live if you don't have a car.
We are staying with a friend of a friend in West Brunswick, which is northwest of downtown Melbourne - maybe 20 minutes by tram. There isn't much here, as we discovered shortly after we arrived and went out for a walk to find dinner - only to find almost everything closed by 6 pm. But we're next to a lovely park and right next to one of the main bike paths, so there are benefits to being out of the busier parts of the city.
After our life of leisure in Queensland, it's back to training now. We're biking as much as possible, and are training about every other day at Blue, a community circus space about 7k from here. It was pretty humiliating to get up on my rope and realize how much condition one can lose in 3 weeks! Of course, it was also bloody hot in there today (rope people reading this: it was perfect for the sticky knee climb) so I'm going to blame some of my lethargy on that. I've got 2 weeks to get in shape to perform in Tasmania!
Our other main activity here is catching up with friends, which has been really wonderful. I haven't seen many of these folks since I lived here back in 2005! And very few of them had met Shawn, so it's been fun introducing him to my mates here - all of whom think he's fabulous, of course.
Last night we went to "Le Grand Cirque," a circus variety show at a lovely theatre in downtown Melbourne. My friend Jai, who's rigger and stage manager for the show, was kind enough to get us comps for it. It mainly featured Chinese acrobats, contortionists, and acro-balancers but with some Australian aerialists and dancers as well. And it featured one of the funnier clowns I've ever seen - he did a bit where he blew up a giant balloon and then got inside it (!!!!) that was the funniest thing I have ever seen in a circus show. Shawn even got to be part of the show, as a plant used by the clown in one of his audience participation bits. He was great - he even did a very respectable cartwheel on stage. :-)
This weekend we're planning to hit some of the local craft markets in hopes of picking up more gifties for the folks back home. And we've got two birthday parties to go to! It sort of feels like we live here, which is really nice - and a little disorienting sometimes.
OK, time to upload more photos!