May Melbourne Trip Part 2: Wanderings

It's only taken me three months to get around to finish telling you guys about my trip to visit Gra and Sam IV. I'll also ask you to bear with me if there are any random typos or missing letters, as my "M" is still acting up, and I got 60mg of codeine going through my veins, so my coordination may not be at its apex.

So after arriving in Melbourne and watching a show, I slept like the proverbial log and then... um... okay, so, as I said, it's been three months, so I'm not going to be able to put events in even a remote chronological order, so I'll try my best and in all likelihood just jump around randomly.

With a few days of wandering under my belt (and the trip last week), I can say that I love Brunswick street. Cafes, book stores, CD/DVD stores, funky bars, Jasper's coffee and all manner of groovy-looking hippy chicks, goths and ferals. Also, Bobbi's sister works at a health store (which Graham pointed out the night before), and I popped in to say hi. She sort of recognised me, but couldn't quite place me until I identified myself and who could blame her? I ain't exactly the skinny, long-haired wee man I used to be. Christine, on the other hand, looked absolutely fantastic. There was a spring in her step and colour in her cheeks I'd just never seen before. She looked fabulous!

I also spent a great day catching up with Sam. You all know I think Sam is great (and I know he reads this blog) but I do have to say at this point that the direction "get off at the tram stop near the Uni", when the uni in question is Melbourne University, may not be the most precise piece of navigational advice ever dispensed. There are a lot of tram stops near the uni. Add to that the fact that we agreed to meet at a cafe in/near the uni, but given that all the buildings I was walking past were freakin huge, I could've been two streets away from all the cafes in the known universe and I would've had no idea. As it was, it took me a fair while just to find the Element bar, which was a great cafe/restaurant place on the corner of... well, I don't know really, but it's very close to Lygon street.

Sam had much more luck finding me than I did finding a cafe and together we headed into the city. He showed me the Kelvin club (all mahogany, red carpets and polished brass it was), the gentleman's club were he works/worked (I haven't heard from him recently, but he was hoping to find somewhere else). It's interesting to note that the all memebers of the Australian SAS have honorary membership, so in a subtle corner is a cupboard with some memorabilia, including a mannequin in current desrte cams with an - I would imagine - deactivated M4 carbine.

He also showed me Minotaur books, a shop in which I could easily spend a great deal of money, and a fantastic Chinese restaurant in a side-street that looks like a greasy-spoon diner, complete with plastic cups, and yet serves awesome food for a great price. Then we checked out Mission Impossible 3, which I very much enjoyed.

There were more wanderings, including a great day shopping in a Spanish Deli and finding things for pizza (about which more later), and a couple of very enjoyable caffeine-fueled reading binges.