We bid our farewells to Amy, Mar and James and headed to the airport for our JetStar flight to Melbourne. The flight was about 1.5 hours, again, no food or drinks. We're starting to feel like we're flying on some U.S. airline. Heheh. We were picked up at the airport by Paul and little Mattea. She started out shy, but eventually would warm up to us!
We went back to Paul's home and met up with Janita and baby Jonah. Their kids are absolutely adorable and so cherubic looking. We decided to take a walk to a local restaurant for some brunch - sandwich for Eric and french toast (with bacon and balsamic vinegar) for me.
After a tasty brunch, we headed back to the house with
a mini side trip to the playground for the kids. Once we got home, I passed out for a 3 hour nap. I think it was the benadryl I took the night before that did me in. It was either that or Amy constantly hounding us for sleeping in. Heheh. I finally woke up and joined the rest of them outside for some relaxation in the backyard. It was nice seeing the kids roam around a backyard. You don't get to see that often in San Francisco. Mattea has this awesome trampoline that I will have to try before I leave.
We then had a delicious BBQ roast beef dinner prepared by Paul and Janita. The meal was accompanied by cole slaw, roasted potatoes and roasted pumpkin. I took a liking to the toasted pumpkin. It was better than sweet potato.
Afterwards, we just sat around and relaxed. It was nice finally settling into a home and not a hotel. The perfect day of relaxation after some rigorous sightseeing in Sydney!
Day 56 - "Lazy Tourists in the City" - Melbourne, Australia
I guess we needed the sleep. We ended up getting at least ten hours of sleep. It was wonderful. We then had breakfast and laid out in the yard with Janita and the kids. We did a couple of loads of laundry just so we weren't complete sloths.
We decided to check out some of the city, so we took a tram to Flinders - City Centre. Once inside Flinders station, we spotted a stand called Lord of the Fries, which we had planned to eat at anyway. You can pick
from a list of sauces for your fries. We ordered fries with a French-Canadian sauce also known as Poutine - cheese with hot brown gravy. It was just as tasty as it sounds, really was heaven. Melbourne offers a free tram that goes around city centre. It offers free commentary too. Being the lazy tourists, we hopped on for a few stops. Saw Parliament and some other old looking buildings. We got off near the Carlton Gardens, where we went to check out the Royal Exhibition Building. Walking over there, we thought we were on some college campus. The place was packed with what looked like college students. Turned out they had just taken some exam at the Exhibition Building. We think it was some nerdy math/engineering type of exam cause about 90% of the students were Asian - not to be stereotypical or anything. As a sidenote, Melbourne appears to be a very culturally diverse city. I would say it is at least 50% minority. Hmm, is it considered a minority if they make up 50%?
Anyhow, we couldn't get into the Exhibition Building so we headed out to try to find this bakery I saw reviewed on Trip Advisor. Sadly, we weren't able to find it, so we decided to backtrack and walk through Greektown and Chinatown. We found a Target in
Chinatown so naturally we had to go in. We decided to get some supplies for the rest of our trip. We considered getting some clothes for New Zealand, since it's supposed to be colder there and I have no sweaters and Theresa only has one pair of pants. Unfortunately, things are not as cheap in Target over here. In fact, dresses were being sold for $70-$120, at Target! We bought some toiletries and were on our way. We definitely stuck out as tourists. As a future reference, not only do Australians drive on the left side, they walk on the left side too, using the right side on escalators as the walk up way. There were many times we were on the right side and were battling crowds like salmon swimming upstream. Also, we definitely felt like the typical tourist in SF who assumes that it will be warm, wearing shorts and t-shirts, but ends up buying those sweatshirts that say San
Francisco across them. It was very windy and the air was freezing. We later learned from Janita that you can get all four seasons in one day in Melbourne. One day it's 90 degrees and the next its 50. Bizarre. We were getting cold, so we opted for an early dinner at il Solito Posto. Janita recommended this penne ragu with veal that was delicious. Theresa had a yummy fusilli with pancetta, chilli and onions.We wanted to do more sightseeing after dinner, but it was just too windy and most shops had closed so we'll have to save it for another day. We caught a nice sunset, warmed up with a cup of hot chocolate and called it a night.
For pictures of the day, go to: http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=bigtandeze&target=ALBUM&id=5405426625320145297&authkey=Gv1sRgCO3whLCQlcWAXA&feat=email
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