SHOPPING AND VINO IN MELBOURNE

As we are in apartment buildings that are leased to the Grand Mecure the internet here is not free.  You can get free Wi-Fi at the reception which is in another building 8 minutes away or you could pay $18 a day for a connection in the apartment and that came with a pittance of free download.  I’ll stick to my handheld/Blackberry for internet access for another 3 days.  I should be getting used to limited access to the internet/Wi-Fi as this is not a ‘normal’ thing in Ethiopia as they have quite an antiquated network that is not 100% reliable at the best of times. 

Bacon and eggs were delicious this morning cooked by Bree and overseen by Danni.  Bree doesn’t see much kitchen time, so she was pretty rapped with her bacon and egg sandwich for me and the scrambled eggs and bacon for them on muffins.  I am glad that we were organized yesterday and stopped at the supermarket, it was a great way to start what was going to be a busy day, well as busy as a shopping day could be…… tough for some I know, but someone has to do it right!!!!!

Today was a shopping day.  I really had no plans while I was in Melbourne except to catch up with the girls.  I was happy to go with the flow and the flow was going SHOPPING.  I am not a full time shopper, I like to go to the shops and I would generally not leave without something in my hand, but to make a day of it was something different for me and I have to say I enjoyed the first day more than the second.  We shopped at Harbour Town which was a 7 minute talk from the apartment which was awesome.  We didn’t get moving till after 11am as Lisa had the day off and was going to be joining us today.  I find it difficult walking into clothing shops that are designed for the ‘skinny’ people, as I know there is no way in hell that a single thing would fit me, but as Harbour Town has an outdoors set up we found that we were able to just browse and then know we would catch each other up in the next shops.  We also had a common denominator of shoes, bags and perfume, so we all were able to spend a reasonable amount of time in these shops together.  The perfume shop was of excellent value and ended up buying 3 bottles of perfume, as I could justify taking them to Africa.  A woman always needs to smell good and I got a $50 bottle for $21, a $45 bottle for $6 bucks and the tester of the same perfume that was ¾ full for $2!!!  They were sensational value.  I was tempted to buy a pair of boots at one of the shoe shops that Bree and Danni had bought, but I thought about the practicality of wearing them in Ethiopia and knew it wouldn’t happen so I put them back on the shelf.  I really am trying to limit what I buy and I have to think if I would need it, would I wear it, would I be drawing too much attention to myself if I was wearing it and each and every time I end up putting the product on the shelf.    I did buckle and the girls were happy enough to take a load off as we stopped in City Chic (larger figure shop) and let me try on some dresses and give some opinions.  It is a novelty for me to try dresses on and show people and as it was a discounted City Chic I did buy 2 dresses for $60 and if you know this store their dresses are normally around $120 each, so they literally were bargains and they will be dresses that will be coming to the UK and Ethiopia. 

It was a great day and heading back to the apartment just before 4pm we stopped at the bottle shop on the way home and grabbed another 6 bottles of wine to stock up for our night tonight.  I haven’t shopped for wine in a long long time and it is pretty cool to walk around the white wines especially and see what they are naming them all these days.  Rock, Paper Scissors, Brown Cow, Seven Degrees and Ned to name a few.  It is amazing what 8 bucks a bottle can get you these days and the wines have all been quite nice.  We set up in the lounge room with some nibbles from the stash, a few bottles of wine and a movie as we waited for Dee to arrive from work and then we were going to head to dinner.  Danni was smart enough to bring along some DVD’s from home which was great as we watched a few of them over the course of the few days we were here.  It really is a magic view here and we also watched the sunset from the wall to floor glass walls and the golden reflection of the buildings on the water.  Ahhhhh the serenity…..  Dee arrived at 6.30pm and after another bottle of wine we decided to stick close to home and eat at one of the restaurants on the harbour front with the plan being we are going to have our BIG ‘Contiki Reunion Drinking’ night tomorrow night. 

Amongst all that I sent an email to Zeme asking about the ‘housing’ requirements and what I need to bring with me and what will be readily available when I get there.  I have no idea on how any of the this works in Addis Ababa, down to rentals, how long does it take, do I need any references, is it hard, is there availability?  So I have asked all these questions and will see what Zeme comes back with on this.

Our third day was spent pretty much like the previous day.  Dee and Lisa both had to work today, so we were going to see them at the apartment tonight before heading to Crown Casino for dinner and a few drinks.  We caught the City Circle tram, which is free, to Melbourne Central for a second round at the shops.  There are over 300 shops here which are contained underneath the shopping center’s massive glass cone that sits the Coop's Shot Tower which was built on the site in 1888. After last being used in 1961, the tower was retained to become a focal-point of the center, R.M. Williams and the Shot Tower Museum now take up the inside of it. The tower was also featured in the opening sequence of the 1997 Jackie Chan film Mr. Nice Guy.  It looked pretty cool and a great focal point of the center.  My shopping mojo wasn’t that enthused as yesterday, but was happy to walk the shops as the girls tried on shoes, clothes and our last shop was the Guess shop that had 75% off some of their stock.  I was looking at a $200 bag that was marked down to $75 bucks, I was that serious I walked around the shop with it under my arm for the 30 minutes we were in there and then at the last minute I put it back on the shelf.  I don’t need a Guess bag in Ethiopia.  This was probably my only dance with the spending devil today and I felt good that I hadn’t bought anything else as I know that I don’t NEED anything, really…I don’t.  We had lunch here and we also splurged on a beautiful cupcake that we took time out to enjoy before heading back to the apartment at around 2pm.  The young un’s decided to head back to Harbour Town for some last minute buys, Mama (me) decided to stay in and have a small nana nap till they got home at 4pm and we watched another DVD over a few glasses of wine as we waited for Dee and Lisa. 

I received an email from Europcar stating that there was damage to the rental car I had in Darwin.  This is always a worry when you have a car rental and I know to check the car but the airport staff just gave me the diagram of the car and said that if I disagreed with the marked damage to come back and see them.  Well I didn’t bother (bad move I was thinking now) and when I dropped the car there was no-one at the counter and dropped the key in the return box.  I really wasn’t impressed as I knew I hadn’t had an accident, but then how do I known if someone didn’t hit me in a car park or something.  I do have domestic travel insurance, so if it is a lot of damage I am covered, but it is a terrible feeling.  They were going to hold an amount on my credit card till the damage had been assessed and the letter didn’t even tell me what the damage was or what the charge was?  Well there was not much I could do from Melbourne, it was Thursday, and I would wait till I got back to Brisbane and just call them on Monday.    

We opened one of the bottles of vodka in the evening to get us started as we got ready for our night out. We were all pretty stoked for the night.  After finishing a whole bottle, we called a taxi and made it to Crown Casino just after 9pm.  Crown Casino and Entertainment Complex is located on the south bank of the Yarra River.  Crown's current casino complex opened in 1997, after moving from its original location from 1994 on the north bank of the Yarra. It is one of the central features of the Southbank area in the central business district.  The entire complex has a space of 510,000 m² which is equivalent to 2 city blocks, making it the largest casino complex in the Southern Hemisphere and one of the largest in the world.  We decided to eat first, started possibly a little late after the consumption of a bottle of vodka at the apartment, but better late than never to line the stomach for the alcohol beverages that were to follow.  We just decided to eat at one of the cheaper bistros, where the meals were decently priced and I could get a glass of house wine for $3, and apparently it is the same wine served in the Players Club upstairs, so it was a good drop!!!!  After dinner we decided to just stay at Crown and go to one of the nightclubs they had in their entertainment precinct.  It was cold outside and we really couldn’t be bothered braving the cold and walking around to find a place to drink when we really had it all here anyway.  We ended up at Fusion where we had to pay a $15 cover charge to get in.  That stopped us briefly as we assessed how busy it was in there for our value for money.  It was just past 11pm and the bouncer chick said it is only early but should pick up in the next hour, so we decided it was worth it and paid the cover.  I can’t even remember the last time I had to pay a cover charge to get into somewhere to drink.  Ibiza comes to mind straight up, but after that……..  The chick bouncer was right and after midnight the club really filled up and we were able to dance and boogie the night away till around 2.30am when we decided to call it a night and catch a taxi home. 

My flight wasn’t till 2pm, but we had to be out of the apartment at 10am, so I needed to get some shut eye as I still hadn’t packed but wasn’t too worried, even with the new purchases, I would have room, as that is the beauty of travelling with a suitcase….  It is the small things that make a travelers life a little more enjoyable. 

CONTIKI GREECE REUNION/ GREEK FAMILY/ GREEK POSSE

WEATHER: Cool in Melbourne and 15C

HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY: Reunited with my Greek Posse

BUMMER OF THE DAY: Realizing I may not be returning to Darwin for a long time

WORD OF THE DAY:  I Love a Sunburnt Country

DISTANCE TRAVELLED: 3752km

I leave Darwin today for Melbourne, from one family to another.  My Greek Posse.  When I did my Contiki tours last year there were 5 gals that were on my Contiki Spanish Spree that were also doing Contiki Greek Islands.  So after 2.5 weeks together we were going to be spending another 2 weeks together and we were so lucky that we all got along well and welcomed the extra time that we would have together on the trip.  There are just some people on tours that you connect with and Lisa, Bree, Dee, Jess and Kaitlin were lucky enough to have clicked.  Greece for all of us was a massive DRINKFEST.  I don’t think I have drunk so much alcohol in a 2 week period ever.  Seriously, the alcohol was cheap, we had great company and the days rolled into nights that rolled into mornings and the drinking just really never stopped.  We also picked up 2 new people to our family with Danni and Kasey and we were now complete with 8 of us.  There were nights we all looked after each other and the best day (I can remember) was an impromptu pool party we had in Santorini.  It was a great trip and at the end of it, we all promised once I got home that we would have a Greek Posse Reunion and this is how I came about my trip to Melbourne. 

I thought I was on an international flight this morning from Darwin.  Jetstar have their Singapore, Bali, Bangkok and Vietnam flights all pass through Darwin before heading into domestic ports.  So it didn’t sound unusual for me to think that I was.  So I was up at 4.15am, dropped the car back to the airport depot and walked the keys to the desk at 5.15am to find that there was no-one there to speak to.  This usually isn’t a problem as they have a key box drop, so I did this with no concern and a pat on the back of another successful car rental.  I had filled the car up last night and Brisbane people should not complain about the cost of fuel when it was 1.53 a liter in Darwin!!!  I headed to the Jetstar self-check-in machines, but they were all closed so I checked in with a check-in chick and asked about the flight and would you believe that it was actually a domestic flight!!!!  So I was at the airport 1.5 hours early!! Oh well it is always better to be early than late, but I could have used an extra hour in bed……  My suitcase weighed 4kg heavier than when I left Brisbane at 22.8kg and that doesn’t take into account the 2kg of salty plums I had in my carry -on bag.  It was nice to be travelling with a suitcase though and to have plenty of room to pack things.  I way too much clothes by in my defence I needed summer gear for Darwin and winter gear for Melbourne and because I could-so I did. 

I was surprised just how busy the airport was, there were people everywhere at 5.30am.  I headed through the security screening and I was pulled up again for my Ethiopian bangles and had to get a personal body search.  I was told to put my Croc’s through the scanner when I told her they are 100% plastic, she replied back, how are we supposed to know that (nicely) and I guess she had a point.  After the frisk I was then asked to do the explosive swab test.  I was fine with this as I have had several of them done and just takes a minute to complete.  Well you can imagine my HORROR when the swap came back POSITIVE!!!  I can’t even tell you what ran through my head those first few seconds of a positive explosive test.  Where did I get it from?  The car?  The hotel room?  The procedure then is for the tester swabs himself and then they re-test you.  I was so RELIVED when my second test came up negative and I was free to head to the departure gate.  I was heaving a sign of relief from that scare as I tried to find a seat to kill some time.  It was weird to see Red Rooster open so early and they had the full menu open but I am happy to report I was able to resist the urge to get a classic quarter and chips at 6am!!!  I managed to find a seat and set up with my computer and get some of the blogs that I had written the last few days loaded.  The one good thing to help kill my time was the free Wi-Fi that Darwin Airport offers.  As I haven’t had proper computer access since leaving home it was great to boot up and I was lucky enough to find Zeme online at the same time so we had a chat before he had to go to bed as they are 7 hours behind us.  There is only so much a handheld device can do, I love my Blackberry, but you just can’t beat a proper computer.  I could see now why it was so busy, looking at the departure TV’s there were 7 flights leaving before mine and my departure was at 7.15am.

We were on a A321-231 aircraft with a 3x3 seating configuration.  I had my window seat and the plane was full for the 3 hour and 50 minute flight travelling from the top of Australia to the bottom.  It made me think if I have ever flown this route before after living in the Territory for 15 years, and I think I actually did once to play in the Australian Junior Championships in 1990.  As we started down the runway I had a few tears in my eyes as I realized that I don’t know when I will be back to Darwin again.  I do enjoy my trips ‘home’ and they never seem long enough as I still know a lot of people here.  I should make a bigger effort to spend a week or 2 here and see as many friends as I can, next time.  I spent 15 years here and even though Brisbane is ‘home’ now, Darwin always holds a place in my heart and in my memory.  I can see now how ‘home’ was Newcastle for mum, but she always lived in the Territory for nearly 30 years.

This made my 61st flight in 16 months and it was a beautiful view from my window today.  We travelled over the heart of the Northern Territory with is beautiful red colored dirt making me think of lines from a poem by Dorothea MacKellar “I love a sunburnt country, A land of sweeping plains, Of ragged mountain ranges, Of droughts and flooding rains”.  We then travelled over amazing salt pans in the middle of nowhere and then into a brown colored land that snaked with a dark blue river for kilometers with not a cloud in the sky.  I sometimes want to tap people who sit in window seats to take a look out the window, there are amazing views that you would just never get anywhere else in the world.  I guess I am being a little sentimental at the moment as I leave my homeland, my country to live somewhere else and make it my new home.  This is only expected and I know for a fact just how good we have it here in Australia. 

As we came closer to Melbourne the Captain made an announcement that Tullarmarine had one runway closed and he had to hold in 2 holding patterns over 25 minutes till we were given the all clear to land.  We then had to wait another 15 minutes for an aerobridge to become available before we were then able to deplane.  Talk about a rig-marole.  I text Danielle and Bree, Bree had arrived 30 minute prior to me, so the airport pickup worked out well for Danielle who had taken the rest of the week off work to spend with us for us to meet at baggage claim.  Lisa and Deanne are from Melbourne and Kaitlin, Kasey and Jessica were unable to join us for the 3 nights so we had half of the Greek Posse reunited.  It was great to see the girls and they looked so different, in a beautiful way, out of their backpacking travelling clothes!!! With a few hugs and a few OMG we can’t believe it we headed back to Danni’s place for her to get her gear.  We also stopped at a supermarket to stock up on some munchies and buy dinner for tonight.  We spent 150 bucks on snack food with the exception of some mince, spaghetti sauce and garlic bread, 150 bucks on chips, dips, cheese, soft drink and biscuits.  Oh breakfast was also included in that of bacon, eggs, muffins and bread.  I wonder if we will consume all of that over the next 4 days!? No meal was complete without alcohol and the girls purchased 4 bottles of wine and 2 bottles of vodka to get us started for 100 bucks.  Ahhhh now this really is a Contiki Reunion!!!

It was now after 3pm and our apartment was ready for check-in.  We were staying at Melbourne Docklands and where reception was, our apartment was in a different building.  So once we checked in we had a security swipe to get us into the building 2 down and then the reception guy met us in the car park, to walk a flight of stairs to get to the lift to get to the apartment.  It was a little work, as we had our bags, plus the shopping but between the 3 of us we did it all in 2 trips and the views that we had were certainly worth the work.  We had a 3 bedroom apartment that over looked the marina, Etihad Stadium and part of the city.  It really was a beautiful outlook.           

The rest of the afternoon was spent with a wine glass in the hand and just catching up with Danni and Bree and then Lisa and Dee arrived at 6pm having had to have worked today-suckers!!!  Then dinner was cooked by Danielle and we just sat around the table till 11pm just catching up, laughing and drinking 3 bottles later.  There were a lot of questions for me, which is natural, as it is pretty unusual and different what I am about to embark on.  I am getting used to all the questions now but I am hope that when I tell people behind my motives (besides Zeme) I hope that I am not making people feel bad about their way of life here in Australia.  Not every country has all the opportunities that we are given here in Australia; we really are a lucky country.  But I am not so focused anymore on the ‘western’ culture as I am now in trying to help people that are not as fortunate as us.  My whole mind set has changed and when we spend 100AUD on grog I think now that a well-paid Ethiopian gets paid that for a month’s worth of work.  This is purely my perception and I couldn’t give a hoot if some-one spends 100 bucks on shoes, but my mind is ticking on what could be done with that money in Africa.  I am on an email list for a volunteer company called Global Volunteer Network and in their latest newsletter you can donate 44AUD and this gives a child in Africa a hot meal for lunch for 12 months.  I spend more than that on a night out.  It is all just a perspective and I don’t intentionally want to make people feel bad. 

Dee had to work in the morning so she and Lisa said their goodbyes and we would be seeing them both again tomorrow.  What a day-a long day, but I am happy I took the time to come and see the girls on my trip home.  We have a great group and a lot of people always talk about catching up again after tours and it never happens, for whatever reason, but I was always confident that it would, once I make a commitment to people, 99% of the time I stick to it.  This has worked in my favor most of my trip but has also been my downfall as I probably would have made my return to Africa a little earlier if this wasn’t the case. All good things come to those who wait.