Our trip to Melb
I’m so behind at the moment that I thought I had written some posts about our trip to Melbourne last month. A quick check of my archive tells me that I only composed them in my head.
We went over for my cousin’s engagement party - I’m so happy to be sharing this journey with her, we shall both get married within two months of each other. She had her party first and we went for a long weekend to share her celebration and for a bit of a rest. We had a really great time. C says it was a holiday for ADD people but I think even though we were basically doing things all the time, spending three hours in a bar on Chapel St is hardly taxing!
We stayed on Swanston St which turned out to be a bad idea because they were ripping up the tram lines right in that section for only 48 hours, the only 48 hours we were there. But aside from tha
t, and the trams not running down that street, we were in the perfect location. After a dismal breakfast in the hotel, we spent a lot of the rest of our time in and out of the alleyways finding all kinds of scrumptious things and shopping surprises.
We also hung out a bit at Federation Square and found some awesome yarn bombing out side of the Starbucks right there!
I was really impress by a few overtly environmentally friendly initiatives and actions that I saw about the city. The first was this bike one - you can hire a bike, ride it about and then leave it at another station - and there are stations all about the CBD. I thought this was really really cool.
I also noted giant signs talking about the water restrictions. Though we have similar restrictions in Perth, they aren’t actually really talked about, like this:
And, just cause it amuses, Batman Av:
During one of the first shopping outings, we found Tansy’s new book Reign of Beasts in Dymocks on Collins St. And bought a copy! C of course had finished it by the time we arrived back in Perth. I am proud to say that I finished Power and Majesty on the trip.
I scored a new pair of shoes from somebody who forgot to mention I needed to wear (and thus bring) closed shoes to the taping of The Project. C had seen a live taping of the show last time he was in Melbourne and was keen to go along again. It was raining a lot that evening and we headed down to the Channel 10 offices. We were early and needed to by shoes and after that we took shelter in a lovely bar and drank cocktails and ate Mars Bar cheesecake. We headed back to the offices at the appointed time and it was all very TV-ish which was a lot of fun. They gave us lots of lollies, I guess to hype us up and we were taught to clap to sound like we were more people, and to shout and laugh as well. We were hustled into the show and sat and watched the episode go live to air. It was a bit nervewracking knowing you HAD to laugh at the jokes but it was all very interesting and new.
Afterwards we headed back to the Cabinet Bar for some drinks and a bite to eat. And watched a couple on a blind date.
On the Monday, before we headed home, we wandered down to Southbank, contemplated seeing a movie, and then had a lovely secluded lunch on this balcony overlooking the water instead. The food was divine.
I dragged C down to the restaurant that sits under one of the pylons to a bridge across the river there:
And then we headed back to try what, we were told by Narrelle Harris, was The Most pretentious coffee in all of Melbourme. We drank a lot of coffee (I mostly drank decaf apart from this one) but apparently this was the most snobbish. We’re engineers and interested in mechanics. I though, am also a coffee snob.
We drank our coffee over a very long and enjoyable conversation with Narrelle, who met up with us there. It was really lovely to catch up with her and of course there were lots of stories and laughter. Interestingly, this coffee, which they describe as being more like a tea than a coffee, was unbelievably gentle on my stomach, when normally a black espresso would not have been so.
And I promised on Facebook a picture of the puppy when we got home - he is normally white, but shown here to be dusty from the red dust at the farm he hung out on whilst we were away.
Mirrored from Champagne and Socks.