Melbourne and other events
The first weekend of November saw us in Melbourne, as a result of the Local Hero award I'd won back in May. We'd decided that the best use of my prize was to get a night's accommodation at the Park Hyatt there and spend a long weekend enjoying the city. Best. Idea. Ever!
I hadn't been to Melbourne in a good 5 years or so, and that was a rather bizarre weekend just before Christmas with Cathryn. In all honesty, the only major thing I could remember from that weekend was a taxi driver making off with my iPod and then having to race around Brisbane (including Megamart, which really dates the story) to get a replacement before going to the Middle East with Dad. Krista, of course, had never been.
Friday morning, therefore, saw us getting up freakishly early to get to the airport for an 8:00am flight which ended up being slightly delayed. We got to Melbourne around midday and sorted ourselves out to find Little Collins St, where we'd booked a night's accommodation to kick off with. A quick lunch was followed by some navigation of Melbourne's iconic trams to get to the Melbourne Museum to see their exhibition of artifacts from the "Titanic".
This was really spellbinding stuff, as there were reconstructions of real cabins and the Grand Staircase from the interior of the liner as well as a lot more focus on the human scale of the disaster than I'd ever really met before. On arrival, in fact, everyone gets a "boarding pass" describing one passenger and why they were travelling on the liner. Near the end is a huge board detailing all the passengers and crew so that you can check how "you" went in the disaster - Krista and I both drew people who died. The board also explained just how multicultural the liner was, as there were passengers with Finnish or Estonian names and even a couple of people who sounded like Ottoman subjects at the time.
On our return to the CBD, we had a quick browse in the Foreign Language Bookshop and the ever-fabulous Haigh's Chocolates, before getting changed for dinner with Cathryn. This was at "Hellenic Republic", a Greek restaurant owned by MasterChef's own George Calombaris. Needless to say, the meal was fantastic and featured the best moussaka I've eaten outside Athens, as well as an entire cooked flathead and a dessert featuring ouzo-marinated strawberries.
As the night was still young (and still eerily light, courtesy both of daylight saving and being further south), Cathryn took us to a strange counter-cultural event called "The Village", which we were dutifully surprised by.
Saturday saw us clearing out from our first hotel and migrating to the Park Hyatt. To say that we were stunned by the new location is an understatement - this is a five-star hotel in a five-star location, just behind Parliament House. Our suite (it wasn't just a room) was immense and featured such things as a walk-in-wardrobe and lights that basically responded to touch, rather than flicking switches.
Our location meant that we could catch the free City-Circle trams to near the Queen Victoria Market, which had a similarly mind-blowing effect on us as we were immediately faced with a sea of produce, seafood, meat, sweets of different kinds and even live chickens. Indeed, at one point I was surprised to see a woman walking behind me with a large cardboard box which suddenly started clucking!
From there, we returned to the centre of town for lunch at the Hopetoun Tea Rooms before picking up some chocolates at Haigh's and a handful of things (Teach Yourself Finnish, Teach Yourself Swedish, an Icelandic thriller, "Man Som Hatar Kvinnor" on DVD and "The Da Vinci Code" in German) from the Foreign Language Bookshop. This done, we retreated to our palatial suite.
Part of the prize also involved a three-course meal and wine at the in-house restaurant, which was fantastic as well. This is a fine-dining establishment the likes of which we'll probably never be able to afford ourselves, but we made the most of the chance.
We had a late checkout on Sunday, and after making full use of the breakfast buffet we checked out Captain Cook's Cottage and the Immigration Museum before heading back to the airport and returning to reality.
The rest of the week has been rather uneventful, except for our forays into the new Coorparoo Markets (or "Myer Markets", as I'm trying to call them, since they're in the old Myer building). While this is still a new market and there's clearly still some development to be had, the idea is solid and it's already making the area more enjoyable.
There's a Level B intake coming up at work as well, for which I've dutifully put up my hand. Donna and I are, however, wondering if I'm temperamentally suited to being a Level B or whether something less customer-facing is a better plan. This was of course where Call Quality came in, but they've shown themselves to be seriously unprofessional by forgetting to email me at any point during the application process (even though everyone else was) or even to confirm that I didn't get the job there anyway. Not even considering that it's been more than a month since that process was completed.
I hadn't been to Melbourne in a good 5 years or so, and that was a rather bizarre weekend just before Christmas with Cathryn. In all honesty, the only major thing I could remember from that weekend was a taxi driver making off with my iPod and then having to race around Brisbane (including Megamart, which really dates the story) to get a replacement before going to the Middle East with Dad. Krista, of course, had never been.
Friday morning, therefore, saw us getting up freakishly early to get to the airport for an 8:00am flight which ended up being slightly delayed. We got to Melbourne around midday and sorted ourselves out to find Little Collins St, where we'd booked a night's accommodation to kick off with. A quick lunch was followed by some navigation of Melbourne's iconic trams to get to the Melbourne Museum to see their exhibition of artifacts from the "Titanic".
This was really spellbinding stuff, as there were reconstructions of real cabins and the Grand Staircase from the interior of the liner as well as a lot more focus on the human scale of the disaster than I'd ever really met before. On arrival, in fact, everyone gets a "boarding pass" describing one passenger and why they were travelling on the liner. Near the end is a huge board detailing all the passengers and crew so that you can check how "you" went in the disaster - Krista and I both drew people who died. The board also explained just how multicultural the liner was, as there were passengers with Finnish or Estonian names and even a couple of people who sounded like Ottoman subjects at the time.
On our return to the CBD, we had a quick browse in the Foreign Language Bookshop and the ever-fabulous Haigh's Chocolates, before getting changed for dinner with Cathryn. This was at "Hellenic Republic", a Greek restaurant owned by MasterChef's own George Calombaris. Needless to say, the meal was fantastic and featured the best moussaka I've eaten outside Athens, as well as an entire cooked flathead and a dessert featuring ouzo-marinated strawberries.
As the night was still young (and still eerily light, courtesy both of daylight saving and being further south), Cathryn took us to a strange counter-cultural event called "The Village", which we were dutifully surprised by.
Saturday saw us clearing out from our first hotel and migrating to the Park Hyatt. To say that we were stunned by the new location is an understatement - this is a five-star hotel in a five-star location, just behind Parliament House. Our suite (it wasn't just a room) was immense and featured such things as a walk-in-wardrobe and lights that basically responded to touch, rather than flicking switches.
Our location meant that we could catch the free City-Circle trams to near the Queen Victoria Market, which had a similarly mind-blowing effect on us as we were immediately faced with a sea of produce, seafood, meat, sweets of different kinds and even live chickens. Indeed, at one point I was surprised to see a woman walking behind me with a large cardboard box which suddenly started clucking!
From there, we returned to the centre of town for lunch at the Hopetoun Tea Rooms before picking up some chocolates at Haigh's and a handful of things (Teach Yourself Finnish, Teach Yourself Swedish, an Icelandic thriller, "Man Som Hatar Kvinnor" on DVD and "The Da Vinci Code" in German) from the Foreign Language Bookshop. This done, we retreated to our palatial suite.
Part of the prize also involved a three-course meal and wine at the in-house restaurant, which was fantastic as well. This is a fine-dining establishment the likes of which we'll probably never be able to afford ourselves, but we made the most of the chance.
We had a late checkout on Sunday, and after making full use of the breakfast buffet we checked out Captain Cook's Cottage and the Immigration Museum before heading back to the airport and returning to reality.
The rest of the week has been rather uneventful, except for our forays into the new Coorparoo Markets (or "Myer Markets", as I'm trying to call them, since they're in the old Myer building). While this is still a new market and there's clearly still some development to be had, the idea is solid and it's already making the area more enjoyable.
There's a Level B intake coming up at work as well, for which I've dutifully put up my hand. Donna and I are, however, wondering if I'm temperamentally suited to being a Level B or whether something less customer-facing is a better plan. This was of course where Call Quality came in, but they've shown themselves to be seriously unprofessional by forgetting to email me at any point during the application process (even though everyone else was) or even to confirm that I didn't get the job there anyway. Not even considering that it's been more than a month since that process was completed.