I'm back from Australia

Hi there

I returned yesterday from a week in Melbourne.  At 10 pm, the night before I left I couldn't find my mobile phone and I was due to leave the house at 4 am the next morning. 

I had to leave without my phone.  I never realised before how many times it would be necessary to have a phone when on holiday.  Several times a day in Melbourne, I was told that a firm, business, hotel, shop, restaurant, airline would ring me soon, and please could they have my number?  I was so stressed.

I saw the stage show "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Reimagined".  I'd seen "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Parts 1 and 2" before in Melbourne.  Twice.  Because of covid, the show had been cut down from playing over two nights, to one night.  I wanted to see if the show still could be understood after cutting out about three hours.  Yes, it flowed fairly smoothly.  There were a couple of little info dumps but I guess that's understandable.  All the magic trickery was still there.

I also saw "Hairspray - the musical".  This show has sort of followed me around the world over the years.  I often ended up in cities where it was playing - dating back to New York in the year 2000 - but I never really cared about seeing it.  

The show was a nice part of my Melbourne holiday.  More modern shows have great CGI effects and I sort of missed that with "Hairspray".

I went to the Queen Victoria Night (food) Market, the QV day market, and the casino where I spent $5 on a poker machine and won back $6.60.  I also visited Conservatory buffet where I scoffed down 8 oysters on the shell.  

I took the tram to St Kilda, walked the beach and bought a couple of really gorgeous cakes at the famous street of cake shops which used to have about fifteen cake shops, all running side by side but now - unfortunately since covid - has only two such shops in the street.

I love to walk along South Bank, between the river and all those fancy-schmancy restaurants, reading the menus.  The weird thing is that I suddenly craved good old-fashioned fish and chips whilst I was in Melbourne,.  Couldn't find a place anywhere in the CBD that sold them, not that there arent thousands of other restaurants and cafes, selling all sorts of international food, to pick from.

 And talking about fashion.  It was Melbourne Fashion Week.  A couple of times I passed venues where the fashionista were gathering for parades and whatever, with the paparazzi outside and the elite of Melbourne clustered around the doors.  I even saw the most gorgeous male models posing for a fashion photographer outside the most grungiest building, in amongst graffiti walls, empty crates, dirty pavements, boarded windows.  It was behind Victoria Market.

Over two days, I was confined to David Jones/Myers/The Emporium Mall/Central Mall, all places that were joined together and I could escape the serious rain.  The state of Victoria was suddenly in the midst of serious and sad flooding.  I'd only taken one pair of shoes with me and I did every shuffle step imaginable to escape the deep puddles, and the rain.

Because I didn't have my phone, I couldnt take any photos.  Curses!  

I found my phone under the sofa today, hooray...  But not before I'd done a lot of cancelling at Vodafone.