Weekend In Melbourne

Finally, our long awaited weekend to Melbourne happened last week and it was so much fun. We originally had flights booked for February but had to cancel because Toby couldn't take time off work. Fortunately for us the airline made a change to our schedule which made it really easy for us to get our money back as we just told them we couldn't make the new times. And even though these flights were a bit more expensive we got some extra time down in Melbourne thanks to the Anzac Day public holiday on Tuesday 25th April.

The CIS Old Boys Club Reunion. L-R: Toby Clewett (March 2003), Praj Basnet (October 2005), Lindsey Buckle (still suffering), Brent Dacre (bad influence, started the whole thing, May 2005), Shuwana Shiraze (contractor, went to Lithuania for a cold spell, the mad monkey, between USC and RMIT), Stephen Fenner (contractor, unassuming yet surprisingly good at blowing smoke rings after a few cocktails apparently, approximately November 2005)

When we got there we dropped our bags off at some RMIT offices where friends who used to live on the Sunshine Coast now work. It ended up being something of a team reunion as we all used to work together in the team I currently work in at the University of the Sunshine Coast. I am currently not thinking of joining them down there but mainly because they work on the student system and I don't and have no desire to either. It has been something of a sick joke in the office over the past few months that those people coming to work in a tie will soon defect to RMIT. The IT Director didn't seem to think it was funny though and her blood turns cold at the mere mention of the word RMIT, and the names of some former employees (you know who you are, Brent). Fortunately I don't think she bothers to read this so hopefully the photograph won't freak her out too much. Maybe I'll make it my screen saver just to tease her. Just kidding (you never know she might read it and I don't want to be one of those people who gets sacked for writing stupid things on their blog).

I do miss those guys, especially Brent and Praj whom I worked closely with for quite a while and whom some of you may remember used to have a blog I linked to, which I removed when they started getting lazy. For old times sake we went for a few drinks along with Praj's girlfriend Tracy and it was just like old times only different. For a start it was in Melbourne, secondly it was cold and thirdly there was a decent choice of bars. Much fun was had.

Unfortunately too much fun was had and too much drink consumed for us to think about bothering to go see the people we'd actually travelled down to stay with, Jon and Kristina, good friends from Brisbane. Shame on us! We'd been hoping they'd join us and keep us in check but after a week at work they were tired and wanted to chill out at home. We finally loaded our sorry selves onto a tram (actually, the others did it for us because we were confused small-town folk) and Jon good-naturedly picked us up from the tram stop and drove us home when really he probably just wanted to punch us. By the time we got home Jon was chilled out and started cracking open the beers. It was really good to see them again and I'm so glad they forgive us for turning up so late.

On Saturday J&K took us to the Victoria Markets which are huge and impressive and full of pretty much anything you might want to buy grocery-wise. The deli section was phenomenal. Every sort of bread, cheese, cold meet, nuts, olives, nibbles, dried or smoked fish, just everything. I was gobsmacked. And the fruit and vegetable section looked much fresher and more inviting than the supermarket. I'd love to have somewhere like this to do my weekly shopping even if it was a bit crazy and busy with people moving around all over the place and getting in your way and huffing and puffing at me just because I wanted to stand in the middle of the aisle and take photographs.

Jon and Kristina live in a nice suburb on Port Philip Bay, called Elwood, not too far from St. Kilda. They live about a minute's walk from the beach which is perfect for Jon who's a keen windsurfer and can just carry his rig over the road and through the park. They've made lots of nice friends locally and whilst Jon and Toby went for a sail on the windsurfers, Kristina and I went for a civilised drink at a local bar with a couple of Kristina's friends. I have to admit that despite the cold I was tempted to windsurf. I even took my wetsuit with me but having not seen Kristina since June last year I was keen to spend some time with her.

That evening Jon & Kristina invited Luke and Kate around for dinner. Luke and Kate are yet more friends of ours who decided to move to Melbourne. What is it with Melbourne that has made everyone suddenly want to go live there? I mean it's nice and everything but it's not that great. I liked it because it was cold and city-like, with older buildings and a bit of character. But I wonder if I lived there if the novelty of that would wear off and I'd start thinking it would be really nice to live somewhere a bit quieter and warmer and with a nice beach, like the Sunshine Coast. Anyway, it was nice to catch up with Kate and Luke too and the dinner was scrumptious: morrocan chicken with figs or dates or something. Or were the figs and dates in the ice cream Kristina made? It was all yummy anyway.

L-R: Kristina, Kate, Luke (and me - kind of looks like his head is directly on top of mine), Toby and Jon, wearing an oven glove in case you were wondering what that weird white thing is.

Kate got very excited when I told her that I was taking a photograph to put on my website and made me promise to email her the link. Unfortunately I can't for the life of me remember where I put her email address. Although, I imagine if it really was a case of doing it to save my life I'd remember. Sorry, Kate, I hope I get this to you somehow.

The next day Jon very kindly offered to drive us around some wineries. We headed out towards Mornington Peninsula, stopping on the way to check out the famous brightly coloured Brighton Beach huts, which are very cool. I pondered the pressure that must be upon the owners to have the grooviest beach huts and I wonder if there are guidelines as to how they have to be maintained. One of them even had the Australian flag painted onto it.

Brighton Beach Huts: brightly coloured!

Mornington Peninsula was beautiful. I was very excited by all the autumn leaves as I haven't experienced proper seasons for such a long time. In Queensland the leaves fall off the trees all year round and they seem to go from green to yellow to brown, completely missing out the red bit which is the prettiest. We spent some time enjoying the coastline and the countryside but mainly just the wine. It was really good, and brave, of Jon to offer to chaffeur us around. Thanks to our yummy meal and lots of wine the night before no one could actually taste any wines in the first place, which is a shame as apparently it's really nice. We knocked them back anyway and after lunch we really got into it and started actually making purchases. Here's a lovely photo of us outside one particularly nice winery, our arms full of bottles of wine.

Nice leaves, nice friends, nice wine.

After dinner that evening Toby and I had one more friend to catch up with. Pete's in a band and so lives the life of a night-owl which is considerably different to how Toby and I live. Nevertheless, despite a day on the booze, another big scrummy dinner courtesy of Jon and Kristina (asparagus pasta this time....mmmmm), and just being generally knackered, we dragged ourselves out with Pete. We didn't regret it. He took us to The Espy in St. Kilda where we watched a band called The Nudist Funk Orchestra or something. Thankfully, they weren't nude but they were funky.

Our last day in Melbourne was spent just chilling and wandering around J&K's neighbourhood. Someone had suggested we go to see the penguins on some island in the bay but that seemed like a long way to go so we went to see March of the Penguins instead. It was lovely.

That's all for now folks. Sorry for another long post. As usual, there are more photos at http://snapper.cvsdude.com/gallery/linsb/v/20060425_MelbourneAnzacDayWeekend