Down Under

We arrived Monday morning in Melbourne, Australia after leaving Minneapolis early on Saturday afternoon. Crossing the International Date Line caused us to lose a day, but it was still a very long trip. LAX to Melbourne was just over 15 hours of flight time. Qantas somehow messed up our seat assignment request, but as luck would have it, the third person in our row was a no-show, so we had some room to spread out and actually managed some sleep. We don't feel too bad.

The flight arrived early and our driver did not, so we had to wait a bit for the airport pickup. But the car was a very fancy German premium automobile with a very talkative and entertaining Aussie driver. He told us all about race week this week -- a big series of horse races. It's probably the Kentucky Derby of Australia.

We got checked into the hotel in time to grab a quick bite of breakfast. After cleaning ourselves up a bit, we set out on our own to do a bit of a downtown walking tour.  Melbourne is a very happening place, fast-growing, with lots of new skyscrapers next to grand, 19th century buildings. It's also very cosmopolitan, with people of every ethnicity represented in substantial numbers.

Along the riverfront, just a few blocks from our hotel, race week was in full swing with live bands (some of them not so talented, but enthusiastic), people dressed as jockeys and waving flags, TV camera crews, etc. It was very festive. We saw one fancy party going on at a riverfront restaurant where everyone was dressed up and drinking champagne (at 10 a.m.). We would have crashed it, if it hadn't been for the four rather formidable-looking bouncers where were checking invitations at the gate.

The Lexus automobile company had pretty girls out on the river walk passing out free caps, so we each got our Lexus caps. We watched a magician performing on the street, doing a bunch of tricks for kids, and even pulling a cute, live rabbit out of his hat.

Our walk took us to St. Paul's Cathedral, a grand old Anglican Gothic structure dating to the 1880s. And across the street we visited Federation Square -- touted as a must-see for tourists and the center of Melbourne. But it's just a concrete plaza surrounded by art museums. The alley filled with street art, across the street, was more interesting.

By noon, the nearly three miles of walking and the long flight were catching up with us, so we retired to the hotel until our ground meeting at 3:30 p.m. There are only 10 in our group because our friends from Anchorage, with whom we have traveled previously, were forced to cancel at the last minute due to some health issues. We're sorry that Bruce and Diane can't be with us, but we'll hope to make some new friends, as well.

After our meeting and brief orientation walk around the hotel, the group scattered for dinners on our own. Mary and I got on one of the free trams (light rail) and rode four stops to "Chinatown." There were too many restaurants to choose from, but our tour leader had suggested one and when we came upon it after a few blocks of walking, we decided to join the throngs of people dining there. The Chinese dumplings were as good as in China.