Melbourne - June 11, 2006

Okay, so I woke up early this morning and took a shower. This hostel did not provide any soap and since I didn't have any soap, I improvised. First, I ran stark naked across the locker room (the showers were on one end) to the sinks and grabbed a HUGE handfull of handsoap and ran back into the shower stall. Then, when I ran out of that, I used some shampoo (Pert Plus, if it makes a difference) for the rest.

Then, sitting in my room, I started contemplating my Tasmania plan a little bit. All three people I had mentioned "Tasmania" to here immediately said "Oh, make sure you visit Port Arthur." Now, Port Arthur was not in my plan, but I thought maybe it should be. Also, it would allow me ot leave Launceston on the morning of June 14 and spend the night near Hobart airport - just so I could avoid the uncertainties associated with a 2.5-3 hour drive in an unfamiliar country before a morning flight.

So, I headed to the "free half hour" computer and started looking to see if Hobart had any Hilton-branded hotel or a Holiday Inn (I have points with both these groups - enough for a free room night). Unfortunately, no such luck. I looked through Expedia and found that I could get a room at a Best Western for about US$75 for a night, which I booked. Looking at a map, it looks like I can do a nice "circle tour" of Tasmania. From Hobart, I will drive straight up to Launceston. Then, on my return, go along the eastern coast to Port Arthur before heading back to Hobart. I'll spend that night in Hobart before taking the flight to Sydney on the morning of June 15. From various web sites, it looks like the distance from Port Arthur to Hobart is only about 100 KM. I'll probably leave Launceston early on 14th morning so I can have some time in Port Arthur (here is info on Port Arthur from Wikipedia.)

When I was walking around last evening, I remembered walking by a very interesting looking store that is essentially just a huge magazine shop. They sell nothing but magazines. The store is called Mag Nation ("You can handle anything in the store except the staff!") and it has a coffee shop as well as free wireless internet access. So, I decided this was my chance to add a few pictures to the blog and catch up on my email [Note: You may want to go back and check my past posts which I have edited and have added photographs]. I checked out of the hostel (left my big bag in their bag room) and walked over to the store (it doesn't seem quite as cold today). I ordered a coffee and opened up my laptop and started work on all you see here. Not only is this a nice store, but the people are VERY friendly. They had just opened when I got here and their coffee machine wasn't going yet. They asked me to make myself comfortable and they would bring me the coffee. Then, the guy brought me my latte and confirmed that I had connected alright. He then assured me that I could stay as long as I wanted and connect as long as I wanted with no restrictions at all. I think I'll buy a couple of magazines here just to reward their outstanding, low-key approach. Any of you ever visiting Melbourne, make sure you stop by Mag Nation (corner of Collins & Elizabeth, I think) and buy some coffee and magazines from them.

Since the Internet connection is working so well, I decided to use Skype to make a couple of free calls. Then I found that I had forgotten my "microphone-headset" in the other bag at the hostel. My backback had the Etymotic earbuds as well as the big Sony noise-cancelling headphones. So, I decided to try using the headphones as a microphone. It worked just great, with both amma and Jerrie commenting that the sound was clear. The only problem is that I was sitting in this store talking into the big headphones! I know this attracted a couple of strange looks from customers. At least no one actually came up to me to let me know that headphones are supposed to go on my head (over my ears). It's great to improvise - especially when it works!

After about three hours with the Internet (and three cups of expensive coffee and two magazines for a total bill of about $40), I headed back to the hostel. I stopped by McDonalds and grabbed a "Tandoori Chicken Sandwich" for lunch. Graeme called and said he'd been delayed, so I relaxed in the lobby of the hostel for a little bit and then decided to walk to Rod Laver Arena to see if I could pick up the tickets for the show that night. It rained on me almost all the way there, and when I got there, the place was completely deserted. I set up my tripod and took a picture of myself in front of the Split Enz sign and walked back (in intermittent rain) to the hostel. The walk to the arena (though wet) was beautiful - along the Yarra river. The hostel is a couple of minutes up from the spectacular Flinders Street Railway Station (the yellow building pictured below). It still wasn't really "cold" in any Minnesota sense, just a little wet and gloomy. Graeme called to say that he was going to be delayed further and I could either wait or take a cab to his place. Anxious to just relax (and dry out) for a while, I went back to the lounge of the hostel and relaxed, finishing the "Stillborn" medical thriller I was reading (it was okay - not as good as I expected, but not terrible either).

Graeme picked me up at about 5 PM and we drove to his beautiful home in the Melbourne suburbs, where we dropped off my bags. I met his girlfriend, Karen and immediately felt comfortable and welcome. Since we were later than we planned, we quaffed a quick beer and then headed off to the concert (with Graeme as my date). We parked at Graeme's work parking structure and stopped by a food court for dinner. I ordered another "Curry Laksa" at the Chinese place and still didn't do it as much justice as I would have liked. Then, we walked to the arena (about twenty minutes away) and sure enough, got wet in on-and-off rain through the entire walk. We picked up the tickets and headed into the arena to find that our seats (Row E) were literally the fifth row from the front of the stage. We were right there in front of the stage. Spectacular seats - a nice change from the relatively poor Melbourne seats. The opening band of Evermore was much better than I expected. Excellent, tight band with very young musicians. The incredible drummer is only 16 or something. After their set, I headed off to the merchandise booths to buy all the super-expensive merchandise. I was buying stuff for a Enz-list friend as well as for myself. T-shirts were $40 a piece. Programmes were $20 a piece. VERY expensive. In all, I ended up spending about $200 on Enz merchandise, for which I actually got very little. I'll continue the concert report in the next post. Graeme and Karen are pictured below: