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Unfinished Melbourne: Day 5
Soundtrack: “My Bag”, Lloyd Cole and the Commotions There’s always mixed feelings about the last day. The knowing that I’ll be heading back to the 6.30am alarm, getting ready to go to work, the daily commute traffic, the junkie-like fix of the morning coffee, salad for lunch, the daily routine, the torment of only being able to dream of travel to come. Then there’s being home with L, the comfort of familiar surroundings and sleeping in our own bed, getting to know our two new feline overlords, the comforting stability of being home while dreaming of travel to come. The alarm kicked me out of bed at 6.30am so I’d…
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Unfinished Melbourne: Day 4
Soundtrack: “Unfinished Sympathy”, Massive Attack Today was kind of a rest day, in that I had definite leg tireds so hoped to not walk so much. I decided that if I wasn’t going back to the old breakfast favourite cafe, I’d be totally promiscuous and not even go back to yesterday’s spot. Instead I crossed the laneway to a place offering middle eastern style eggs. These came out in a scorching hot dish, swimming with meatballs in a tomato sauce, along with some creamy labneh. With a couple of fingers of crusty bread on the side it was a decent way to start the day. Probably not every day, though…
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Unfinished Melbourne: Day 3
Soundtrack: “In the Land of Make Believe”, Dusty Springfield I woke feeling almost human, if still a little not quite myself. It was a day for big decisions: do I go back to my regular breakfast place, even though the most recent menu change basically removed anything I found interesting, or look for somewhere new. I like to think I’m loyal, not a fair-weather fan, but this is breakfast we’re talking about. So when I walked past a laneway cafe offering Spanish-style coffee options, I was enticed into the strange doorway and offered a seat. Seems the price of my breakfast loyalty is a coffee bon bon, the Spanish equivalent…
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Unfinished Melbourne: Day 2
Soundtrack: “Under the Clocks”, Weddings Parties Anything I bounced out of bed carried on the wings of angels, full of vim and vigour and carpe diem. Or not, as reality may be. At some point, after too little sleep, I texted AJ and suggested that due to my intake last night, pushing back our brunch catch-up to after 11am might be wise. The next several hours were a mix of trying to sleep, trying to consume any non-alcoholic liquid I could locate, sitting under the shower, all underpinned by a horrific thought that I’d misplaced my tracking bracelet/smart watch at some point as It wasn’t on my arm and I…
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Unfinished Melbourne: Day 1
Soundtrack: “Hong Kong Garden” Siouxsie and the Banshees New trip, 5 days in Melbourne to shop, eat things, and most importantly, see Massive Attack. An early morning, and much inclement weather on my drive to the airport (the airline sent an email the night before advising of possible delays). It took some time to find a parking spot some distance from the shuttle bus, and I was a little damp by the time I got to the stop. After checking in and security, I settled in for an expensive coffee and breakfast based on a croissant (in the same way movies are based on a true story — Paris has…
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No Tour: Naarm Day 2 and change
Soundtrack: “Changes”, David Bowie After a night of excellent sleep (sassy tracking bracelet’s words, not mine, though I felt I slept pretty well) I headed down to my regular little laneway breakfast cafe. A place where I’ve gone most trips in the past few years, where I can sit in a slightly untidy corner next to various boxes of ingredients, enjoy a spicy and hearty Eastern Mediterranean style pile of eggs and other yummy things (though checking back to my last visit I went with eggs benedict as they’d started drifting more Mexican inspired). This time around it’s more change, big change, under new management type of change. gone are…
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No Tour: Naarm Day 1
Soundtrack: “Under the Clocks”, Weddings Parties Anything / “Reward” Teardrop Explodes Not really a tour, just a couple of days in Naarm/Melbourne to wander, shop, and celebrate old pals turning older. The day started in Perth, way too early, as I was on the 6am flight. As per usual I slept badly, but these days I have a monitoring bracelet/smart watch to give me a second opinion on this: it scored me a 57 “needs attention”. I’m taking that as it saying my sleeping needs to be better, rather than it being otherwise really shady. I’m likely to catch enough shade from the old friends, I don’t need a portable…
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No Tour, One night in Perth
Soundtrack: a Lady Gaga medley This one’s for the work folks who said I should write about going out on a Friday night, so blame them. Well, it sounded like a silly idea, writing a travel blog post about a night out in a city I’ve lived in for the best part of a half century, and maybe it is. To be honest, I spend more time overseas than I do Friday nights in Northbridge, so stepping out of the carpark onto James Street felt a bit like going back to somewhere I’ve been before. Sure the geography, in terms of the street layout is the same, but the shops,…
