I spent the last week in Melbourne with Loz. It was so fantastic to get away, relax (more or less) and have nowhere to be and nothing to do. We were as free as the wind (albeit sick, those silly children at kids club having given us all of their germs!). We stayed with my sister and her partner, and got to meet her gorgeous little girl - my niece - for the first time. Ruby Kate is 9 months old, very long and very skinny with an average sized head (we heard all of the statistics). I adore her.
We were there five days. In that time, we paid for no trams, shopped every day and watched trashy foxtel tv with Pix when we got home at night. It was excellent!!
On monday, we managed to get a tad lost... you see, our map did not reflect the updated tram routed. Oopsie! Running late already, we ended up on a tram running completely the wrong way. Deciding to hop off, we ran for the doors... Loz got through but i was not so lucky. This led to the hilarious scenario of me staring at her through the glass doors as the tram moved away. Thankfully, i could jump off at the next stop and haul my suitcase back to her. Eventually Pix came to pick us up. We weren't actually lost, we knew where we were and where we had to go... but finding a tram that would take us there was hard!! We were only five minutes away really. We got in and met the lovely baby before racing to get changed, nearly missing our taxi and hauling ass to
Patee Thai in Brunswick street.
There, we met up with Robyn, the awesome girl that i met on my tour of Ireland back in January. It was so fantastic to see her!! She brought her sister along, and the four of us say on the floor amongst embroidered cushions and elaborate designs, to devour a fairly impressive amount of thai food. So much that the man taking our order laughed at us (he was odd though, he said the orange juice was toxic, but it seemed fine to me!). We got along well, there were no awkward silences and after a few hours we were sad to part ways. Robyn was off on a trip of her own, so unfortunately we didn't get to hang out more!!
Tuesday, we slept in (WOO!). We met Pix's nanny, a lovely girl our age, named Jess. She's studying law/business at uni and nannying a few days a week. Smart idea, it pays super well. She sent us on our way to the Docklands, Melbourne's newest cool-zone... and we proceeded to promptly get lost. Wandering amid giant bunny sculptures and cows stuck in trees, we went full circle with still no idea of where we were going - so we stopped at Gloria Jeans for delicious toast. Mmmmm. Eventually, we figured we'd hopped off the tram in the middle of the Docklands. The DFO (our original destination) was back the way we'd come, and Harbour Town was ahead of us. We made our way to HT first. It was incredibly huge and incredibly awesome. A few hours later, we'd bought boots on sale, scarves, various items of clothing and assorted accessories. We'd also enjoyed the fake snow area where kids were making snowmen, and the machines that blew fake snow across the walkways.
On schedule, we retraced our steps and found the DFO. Our sense of achievement was immense. The pain in our feet was also immense. So we made it quick as we zoomed around the enormous complex. Buy of the day? Awesome top/hoodie/dress to wear over leggings and chillax in from country road ($100 reduced to $20). Melbourne sales are incredible, i swear.
We made it home without further tram-related drama, woo!! Enchiladas for tea, then an excellent night of watching pageant babies on foxtel (complete with follow up showing the girls at 17). Hilarious.
Wednesday, we had plans to watch the new SATC2 movie, because we were still knackered and recovering from KC last week... but we slept until 11am, took a long lunch at the Chocolate Lounge above Spencer Street Station (most amazing mocha i have ever experienced), and meandered through the DFO for awhile. JayJay's proved most surprising, yielding a cool dress and awesome tutu skirts. Not to mention the awesome earrings. We gave up early today and headed home, to chill with Pix on her day off and order thai for dinner (coincidentally from the same place that we'd eaten on monday!). More trashy foxtel viewing ensued.
On Thursday, we again slept in. Eventually, we managed to drag ourself into the city, where Starbucks provided our morning coffee hit. Amazingly, when we ventured into Supre, we were stunned to find that 'slutty' is apparently only a clothing option in SA. In VIC, Supre is awesome. Normal clothes for normal people. Real love set in when we went upstairs and everything was crazy cheap. I ended up with a tie dye skirt for $8 and an awesome jumper for $16. Supre in melbourne is awesome. And they have an online store :P Target led to slightly less cheering rewards, but wasn't a total failure. Myers and DJs were less appealing. Sick to the death of wandering the streets, we headed home.
With a few hundred written pages of instructions from my sister, we picked baby Ruby up from daycare. It was a scary place, with babied lined up in cots everywhere... she was glad to escape!! We walked home and spent the afternoon playing with toys that made funny noises and were attractively bright. Rubes was a cranky pants because she'd missed her nap, but food (although it went everywhere) helped. Aaron came home in time to bath her, and Pix managed to restrain her calling to check up on us to a cool half dozen times. Ruby was smiley smiley by the time she walked through the door. Indian take-away tonight, and masterchef... then Loz and i met the difficult challenge that was fitting all of our new crap into our suitcases while watching True Beauty on the telly. Ahh foxtel, how i shall miss you.
I got up early on friday to spend some more time with the bubs, who was smiley with me and grizzly with her mum and dad, so yay to me. Pix took us to the airport (where we stocked up on Krispy Kremes for the folks back home and i got 'randomly' checked for explosives) and we headed home. We got home sicker and possibly just as tired as when we had left, but we were far more relaxed and better dressed.
It was super fun getting away for awhile. Our plans to do things other than shop required too much energy to organise, but that was just fine with us. We achieved all of our shopping goals, except for a failure to succeed in finding brown flat boots, which we both were looking for. Not bad overall. I loved my little niece, and it was fun spending time with my sister. I think she and i are very similar, which is fun. So, i'm now broke, very sick and back at work (so stress levels are sky high). But, i have a week worth of pleasantness to look back on. Yay for melbourne!!
