Melbourne, Day 1

Sunday Oct 5
22:53 Daylight saving, Melbourne
Melbourne seems nice so far. The climate, at the very least, is more agreeable at the moment than Sydney. Sunny and warmish during the day, cool now. Hopefully, it won’t have the crazy mood swings.

Children under the age of 7 really should not fly. I ended up sitting in front of this brat of a kid that wouldn’t stop screaming and kicking my chair. Too bad his brother, who looked to be about 8 wasn’t the one behind me. I’d actually turned around twice to tell him to stop, and eyeballed him, like any good teacher would, since his guardian was not doing so. The Japanese girl in my row was not impressed by the kid either, but she just huffed to herself. Well, the Look was only good for a few minutes’ reprieve, seeing how kids at that age have the attention span and memory retainment of a Dorie fish. Thank goodness the flight was only an hour and a half.

Flew with Virgin Blue, a discount airline that services all over Australia. To expedite boarding, they actually had 2 doors going. With a seat near the back of the plane, I had to walk across the tarmac to get to the rear door. A different experience =)

The other thing of note today is that we had a fire. So as I’m unpacking, this chime starts going and I’m wondering what it is, but since it didn’t seem urgent, I continued to unpack. My roomie comes back from her shower and I ask her, and she’s not sure, only that people are evacuating the building. When we leave via the stairs (room’s two floors above ground floor), the distinct smell of smoke permeates the air.

The fire brigade comes, and I’m hungry, so a shot in the dark, I walk towards what I’d hoped was city centre. Had pad Thai that was mediocre, but hey, it was reasonably cheap, and it filled me up. Off I go to find my usual netcafe. I was giving up hope when I didn’t see the familiar orange signs, when I smelled something really yummy wafting from my right. I turn in, and it’s a Japanese crepe place. Everything looked delish, but I was full, so I wandered, and there ya have it, netcafe!

Turns out that that building is Central Station underground, and there was a Coles as well, so I got a few items. Finally tried a Nudie Crushie. They’re good. Period. =P

Boy do I ever miss the winter rates. EVERYTHING increases in price come October. Internet doubled. It’s still reasonable, but BOO.

Oh yea. So the fire? My roomie (Constance from Germany) tells me it was a faulty dryer. Good thing I didn’t need to do laundry, cuz the room is out of commission. I just saw signs telling us not to go in, for risk of electrocution. Ouch!

Anyways, I’ve grabbed a whole tonne of brochures from the desk downstairs. Gonna plan out this leg, with a tour to Philip Island or something.