Yesterday was a big day of travelling - Scrabblette and I have come to Melbourne to attend ConVic. I'm not very good at planning holidays - by the time I've organised everything it feels like a plan I need to work through rather than a time to relax - but this one is going well so far. The flight was fine, the accommodation is fine (with broadband!), and we're getting around the city pretty easily. All you need is a tram ticket and a satellite navigation system.
Scrabblette is a big fan of art galleries, so our first outing yesterday was to the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art. The only map we had was a tourist map which conveniently omitted the dozen or so blocks we needed to walk. I tried to get Emily the satav to help us, but she just said "GPS is off". The walk was so long though that we figured out that Emily has a flap which needs to be open before she can see satellites.
After the ACCA and the VCA (Victorian College of Art) Gallery we got to the NGV (National Gallery of Victoria) but were too footsore and hungry to stop. Instead we found a stall at Flinders St station selling choc-coated churros, and we scoffed far too many of those while watching the Victorian Police Jazz Band in Federation Square. Then we poked around the city for a while, looking for bookshops, before catching the tram out to Fraser and Melissa's real house. I just told Emily where they lived and Emily told us when we were nearly there and hence had to get off the tram. Very cool.
While Melissa rushed around with Biggie and Otto, Scrabblette and I played Tier auf Tier and Ingenious with Fraser. Tier auf Tier looks very cute, but I didn't find much interesting tactical play in it - I guess it really is for little kids. After Gulo Gulo being such a cool game maybe I expect too much of kids' games. Scrabblette then suggested Ingenious, which she loves, and Fraser proceeded to wipe the floor with us and chuckle evilly while doing so.
Then Melissa came back, and we met the girls (Biggie maybe remembered me from a couple of years ago), and went down the street for dinner. Melbourne is such a cool place, at least in the bits I visit - going down the street for dinner in Brisbane is often difficult because there is nowhere to go to! Yes, the baba ganoush is very good. Then Fraser very kindly took us home via all of the suburbs named after AFL teams (don't have that in Brisbane either).
The kid arrives today, and ConVic starts tonight. But right now, we need to get soome breakfast.
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2 comments:
Well notall the suburbs, but we did do Carlton, Fitzroy, Collingwood and Richmond and if I had thought of it earlier we could have added a few minutes to the trip and added North Melbourne and Melbourne :-)
Have fun... wish I was there. At least Randy should be attending.
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