#55 - a great day in melbourne

I loved my day in Melbourne!  :)

It started with a great run around the Albert Park Lake.  It was such a gorgeous day today - the weather was so much better than yesterday.  The lake looked gorgeous - it was all sparkly & blue & pretty.  (Yesterday it was more on the grey side!)  Anyway, I went on a run & then stopped at the Carousel restaurant for some poached eggs & a flat white.  (If you've been reading any of this blog you will know how obessesed I am with both of those). 

Then, I met up with Anita Poon's friend, Jonny, in Melbourne.  Anita worked with him in SF & Jonny had just moved out to Melbourne 6 months ago.  So funny that he lived in SF for 12 years and we just met each other in Melbourne!  Anyway, Jonny was a great tour guide & we pretty much walked all around Central Melbourne, checked out all the little alley-ways (I think they call them lanes or arades), went to the Queen Victoria market & pretty much laughed our way around town.

  Such a fun day!  Oh and we also got our nails shined at one of those little booth-thingys in the mall.  It was hilarious - I had gone into the bathroom & when I came out Jonny was there getting his nails done.  They have this very special "system" that makes your nails super shiney.   For some reason, we ended up spending a lot of time chatting with the nail-people.  The girl I was talking to was leaving tomorrow for Christchurch to spend 5 weeks on the South Island of New Zealand!  So I gave her a ton of recommendations & then she ended up giving me a free nail-buffing thing!  I was so excited.  :)

Another particularly funny moment was when we were in the Queen Victoria Market looking at beetroot.

  Jonny told me a very funny story about his scary experience the first time he ate beetroot.  I can still start cracking up just thinking about it. 

After walking around for awhile, we went back to one of the lanes/arcades/alleys & got a coffee & some food at the Brown Sugar Cafe.  There are all these tiny little cafes lining the streets - it's defintely a cool vibe.  And then after that - we walked around some more & then got a drink down by the river.   It was such a GORGEOUS day!  It SO felt like vacation sitting outside, along the river, in the sun, having a glass of wine. 

I think I had been suffereing from post-NZ-depression so it was great to have a day like today in Melbourne!!!  Thanks Jonny!  :)

Later that evening I went out to dinner with Steve & Naomi to Mecca Bah in the Docklands.

  YUMMY mediterrean food.  And it was so fun to see another part of the city.  The Docklands are a new-ish area of town & it's all looks very modern, fancy-schancy, clean & bright.  There were also all these really cool art sculptures around.  Steve & Naomi told me that whenever there are new buildings in Melbourne, they are required to put some $$ towards artwork.  So cool. 

Very fun day exploring the city!  I think I'll do more of the same tomorrow - might go on a different running route, explore some of the museums, who knows....it's defintiely different to be in a large, very international city like this coming from New Zealand, but I really do love the feel of this city & I'm just going to embrace it.  :)