I have just spent a really enjoyable weekend in Melbourne with D. But first, I owe kathsonno a big apology, as we'd made rough plans to meet up on Saturday afternoon - I realised as I was getting on the plane that I hadn't confirmed with you or given you my mobile number to contact me on, so when I got to Melbourne I rang directory assistance looking for you in the Mornington area ... no luck. No one with your initials came up. And I just never got to an internet cafe. Maybe next time I'm in Melbourne and am more organised?

In the meantime, we left on Friday evening. The new Adelaide airport complex is quite shiny, and reminiscent of the small bit of Fumicino Da Vinci in Rome that I remember. The flight passed quickly - in fact, I felt like it consisted of take off, a trip to the toilet, and landing. D informed me that I was in the toilet for a long time, and that as we'd scoffed dinner due to lack of time, he had worried that I'd eaten too quickly and ended up vomiting. Fortunately this was not the case as my dinner remained firmly (yay!) in my stomach.

We were collected by my friend V and her partner who were putting us up for the weekend. It turned out, when we arrived, that she had vacated her bed for us and was sleeping on the single fold out bed in the lounge. Very sweet. We paid for her groceries that weekend, and took both her and her partner out to dinner on the Sunday night before we left.

Saturday morning was spent on Bridge St, starting with a very yummy breakfast at the Groove Train cafe. D decided it would be a good place to try as it was both reasonably priced, and frequented by cyclists (the sort that dress like they're in Tour De France and drink espresso before hopping back on their bikes to go ... wherever it is road cyclists go, lol). It was a good choice, as the food was excellent, and the orange juice was served in very tall glasses! From there we wandered back up Bridge St and did a little shopping - I bought a cute dark plum/maroon sun dress with a cream, pink and white print, and a green t shirt for D. Then we looked in a few other shops - United Colors of Benetton, for example, which brought back a lot of memories of shopping in Italy - before I had the bright idea to walk to Chapel St from there. Haha. It's not like Adelaide where you can actually manage to walk from one end of the city to the other fairly quickly ... although in my defence, I did ask a shop assistant who told me it was 1.5 km away. Ha. More like 3 km. Never mind, we made it as far as Richmond East (another ten to fifteen minutes from Chapel St) before giving up and catching the train to the city in time to meet D's friend K.

K took us to lunch at the Blue Train where I had a most delicious lamb cutlet salad with roasted pine nuts. K paid for lunch as we had hosted her last time she was in Adelaide and driven her around a lot. We all went to the National Gallery Victoria and saw an exhibition of one of the first impressionists, Pissarro. It was interesting to see the development of his style, and the experimentation that ultimately blended with his initial style to produce paintings that more and more looked like photographs if you stood at either an angle to the image or a few metres back. After the gallery, D and I headed back to Chapel St with the agreement to catch up with K for dinner that night to celebrate her birthday. We arrived right on Chapel St (by tram) instead of trying to walk a ridiculous distance - I bought a pair of sandals (which later broke when someone stepped on the back of the shoe in a crowd as I was lifting my foot up to take a step), and then headed back to V's place to prepare for the night.

V had study to do, so we got information from her on which tram to catch and which street to find the little bar/restaurant at which we would meet K. Unfortunately, despite relatively clear instructions from K earlier in the day, V before we left, another random girl on the tram, and a police officer ... we still got lost. However, the group still were waiting to order by the time we found the place, so we weren't holding anyone up. We ate at the Kitten Club - very tasty, and expensive. D and I shared a plate. Has anyone else noticed that the more you pay for a meal, the less food you actually get? The top floor of the Kitten Club was actually a jazz lounge, so we headed up there after dinner and relaxed to a live band consisting of a piano, bass, electric guitar, two saxophones (alto and tenor) and a drum kit. No vocals. I had a glass of wine (white) with dinner, and an Absinthe and apple based cocktail in the jazz lounge. We had a fairly early night, leaving at about 11pm to catch a tram back to Flemingon where V's apartment was. While we were waiting for the tram to leave, we had some random crazy people provide entertainment as they set up their portable cd player and amp and did the chicken dance and then sang along to "Voodoo Child".

D cooked breakfast for all of us, including V, on Sunday morning - bacon, eggs, toast, tomatoes, and hash browns. Mmmmmmm. After that he went to a Lithuanian event (folk dancing) at the Lithuanian Community Centre (or, "Lithuanian House"), and V and I went to Chapel St. Or intended to. We ended up detouring to Bridge St, and we never quite left it. Never mind, I can do the rest of Chapel St next time, lol. I bought a $600 silk Cooper St dress that had been marked down to $89 from a shop called Green With Envy, a singlet top from Esprit, a satin dress from a shop called Mazi, and an Oroton handbag marked down from $500 to $200 and which I got another 10% off as there was a pen mark on it. Then we headed back to V's apartment and recovered from shopping while we waited for her partner to get back from work, and D to get back from his outing to Lithuanian House.

At V's suggestion, we went to dinner at the Leveson. Unfortunately a guy from the first series of Australian Idol, Millsy, was playing there (obviously still milking his "Final Five" fame for all it's worth, from a show that aired four years ago). We sat as far as we could from the music. but then unfortunately the set finished and Millsy sat down on the table smack bang next to us. So ... naughty Sari has a bright idea. I stood up and moved over to where he was sitting and held my camera out in front of me. He looked up and grinned, ready to let me take a picture with him, and then I said "sorry, could you take a photo of me and my friends, please? The camera has auto-focus, so just press down once". He got up and took the shot for us, and then handed the camera back. I thanked him, and then we turned out backs to him and proceeded to pay him no attention whatsoever. lol. That took him down a peg a little, and rightly so as he is an arrogant idiot who thinks the sun shines out of ... hmm, yes, well anyway. D and I finished the evening by watching some of the free entertainment available due to the Commonwealth Games being on. We watched a light show on the Yarra river with music and fountains made from metal sculptures of fish, and then a few different percussion ensembles in the Sidney Myer Music Bowl (an open air performance venue in the botanic gardens) before we headed home for the night.

Monday was our last day in Melbourne, and we started it with another of D's tasty breakfasts (as good as the one from the Groove Train cafe) followed by a bit of cleaning in V's place (she had gone early to university). We locked up and threw the keys back in through the bathroom window, lol, before heading into the city and checking out the Melbourne Aquarium for a few hours, and then catching the bus to the airport. And then? Home again. Hooray! But I look forward to heading to Melbourne again sometime soon! :)