Melbourne day three

After a bad night of sleep in the hotel (too noisy, crap bed) and a reasonably OK breakfast we went to Marisa. Then we had a fantastic lunch prepared by her mom and after that we drove in to town to visit Brunswick Street. One of the nicer streets in Melbourne with lots of little cafes.

A guy was playing above average blues music in front of a bunch of dead ducks.

Brunswick Street. It was nice and sunny.

Afterwards we went to Marisa's parents house again. I watched bowls.

Waiting at the airport. I think Melbourne Airport is my second least favourite one after Heathrow in London. It looked crap. Everything was old. Bar stool seats were broken. Only one out of five monitors with flight information was still functioning as designed. Also one out of five monitors could not be read at all.

At least the view was somewhat entertaining.

Melbourne day two

There is an Irish pub close by. They sell Bulmers cider but I -think- it's the English one instead of the Irish one.

Hanging out in Melbourne after breakfast, recharching my phone.

Lots of morning traffic.

Nicole in Melbourne. She was pretty tired.

Nicole picking her nose (not really!) at the German embassy while waiting for forms to be filled out to get her new passport.

We walked from the embassy in to town through the botanical gardens.

There are also lots of European trees that are dropping leaves now.

It was a very pleasant walk.



Then we walked past my future... ;-)

And we walked past this musicall art. Lots of bells playing little melodies.

A ferris wheel.

I think because it was lunch time, there were a LOT of runners walking everywhere.

Over the tracks.

Parliament house.

In the evening we were waiting for Angeli and Ruud, people we only knew through Nicole's blog. They recently immigrated and since we were in town we thought we'd have a bit of dinner together. We waited for them opposite the train station.

It got dark before we found a restaurant.

Marisa, Nicole, Angeli and Ruud. (spot the Dutchie!)

Angeli drinking her first wine in a year's time.

Marisa and Ruud.

It was lovely to meet them and I hope their immigration will be most successful! :-)

Melbourne day one.

Mouth masks at the airport. Not that there was anything wrong with these people but we can all get on the scare tactics bandwagon of course...

Lots of leg-room on the airplane...g
We took an express bus in to the city of melbourne.

We had to change bus when we reached the outskirts of the city. This was the view while waiting for our mini-bus that would bring us to our hotel.

We had a bit of a stroll and Nicole found something to play with.

The back (or side?) of the Princess' Theatre.

The first time EVER I heard of this beer. Apparently it's the most famous of Italian beers.

We stay in a "serviced appartment" so we had to do some shopping. Naturally that means buying milk.

And some fruit.

First things first: Connecting to the hive.

I wanted to look in the GEOX shop here in Melbourne and I scored! I bought two pair of last season's shoes for less of the price of one pair!

In the evening we went out for dinner with Rob and Marisa. We went to an Italian restaurant where they use spelt instead of flower. The food was nice. Yeah, all three courses. I had not eaten this much in two months.

Marisa and Nicole.


They have a gazillion rollers hanging from their ceiling.

Tom Poes

This is a typical row of houses in the city (centre) of Melbourne. They look nice but they're also very small I think.

Street corner close to our hotel.

Flinders station. The masses running in to catch their trains.

We found a nice little street to sit down. I actually found a vanilla slice (Tom Poes) that was 99% like the Dutch version. It was fantastic.

View through the street where we were sitting.

View in to another little street as we walked on.

St. Kilda

The girls while waiting for the tram that would take us to St. Kilda. Melbourne's famous beach.

And what a tram it was! People from Amsterdam will recognise it. It's a Siemens "Combino". Most seats are comfortable but because the wheels are stuck to the chassis (as opposed to using a bogie(draaistel)) it can get a little rough when going around the corner.

The front carriage from the inside. Exactly the same but mirrorred.

Acland street in St. Kilda. Known for it's....

Cake shops!

It's a famous beach but the beach is actually really small.

People were kite surfing.

After St. Kilda we went to another part of Melbourne. In Brunswick street we found a place to have lunch. It was a bit of a guess but the salmon was really nice. It came with spinach and green beans.

That's it from the outside.

Old building in a side street.

After a rest in our hotel we went for a walk around the hood. We didn't know we were this close to China town.

As a bonus we found a Wagamama. Can't just walk past. Just can't. Have to go in. It was a very cute one though. Very small with only one long table and a few smaller ones. The chicken katsu curry was fantastic though.