Arrival in Melbourne

In real time it took 24 hours door to door – my little sitter was very tired. We left Los Angeles Wednesday evening at 9:30 pm, crossed the international date line, and arrived in Melbourne Friday morning at 9:30 am. One reason it took so long was that we landed in Auckland and spent about 1 ½ hours in that airport. The good part was that we could walk around and get the blood moving in our lower extremities again. We did have 3 seats for the two of us, so were not as cramped as we could have been.

Notice that I didn’t describe the food on the plane??? It was normal airplane food – not good.

Moshi (the former grad student who arranged our trip) met us at the airport and took us to the hotel. Moshi’s sense of direction isn’t too good, so we took the “scenic route”. Then he missed the driveway, so decided to back up on a busy street. Many cars honked at us. I was really happy to get there in one piece. First on Chuck’s agenda was to find someplace to eat lunch. First on MY agenda was to find an ATM so that we would have money to buy lunch. The concierge provided a map and advice and off we went. There was a choice of Quizno’s, Subway, and some Asian fast food place. We decided to live dangerously and do the Asian. We had Vietnamese wraps, a Chinese beef & vegetables on rice and miso soup.

Chuck went back to the room and I took a long walk through the upscale shopping street. Perhaps my idea of upscale and Australia’s idea of upscale is different – I thought that it was more like Melrose Ave. I did find a French restaurant and made a reservation for dinner.

We went for a very early dinner – 6:00. We shared a salad, had mussels with fries, and shared a tarte tatin for dessert – with a nice Sancerre, by the glass, we were very happy. This place was very much like bistros in Paris.

Walked back to the hotel and were in bed by 7:45. I took a sleeping pill to ensure that I would sleep through and not wake up in the wee hours. Jet lag hits me like that – I’m wide awake in the middle of the night and then want to go back to sleep in the morning when I should be out sight seeing.