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| Back in Melbourne, here's a shot of the famous Brighton Beach bungalows |
| Erin's Journal 01-24-03 Australia East Coast We're back in Australia, and adjusting to a new time zone again. This one's not bad - 2 hours later, as if we'd gone from Denver to L.A. Glenn had a little trouble staying in bed, but I convinced him not to get up at 5:30am for the sake of being able to stay up later. We did get up around 7:30am Melbourne time, which was perfect. We had a plan to meet up with Martin, the son of some Roberts family friends we'd be staying with up in Sydney. He is a vintner, a Master of wine, and we looked forward to seeing what it would be like to drink for a living! Nah, for him it is an art and an obligation. Anyway, we also wanted to get a few other chores done before our appointment with Martin, such as getting the car washed and gassed up, paying a medical bill that had arrived at the house while we'd been in NZ, etc. We also had to get our laundry started, and that was our first chore. With a limited choice of things to wear due to this, I ended up going out in pants, which I soon regretted. The weather here in Melbourne was predicted at 40C, 96F! Added to that, the smoke from the devastating fires in Canberra and areas of northern Victoria was clearly evident in the sky, and made for a hot blanket of haze covering the whole city. We got a late start on the laundry, which put us a little behind on the chores we could get done before our noon appointment with Martin. We managed to get gas in the car and figure out where to pay the med bill, but then headed out to the winery. We waited a little while for Martin's current meeting to end, then introduced ourselves and were treated to a personal tour of his operation. Martin's company does contract wine-making. That is, they have grape-growing clients who pay them to design and produce wine with their product. It's an interesting idea, and a good one for the smaller vineyards who don't want to pay the huge start-up costs for wine-making equipment. Martin walked us around and we chatted for about an hour, before he had to head off to another meeting - it's getting to the busiest part of the year in his trade! We took off and drove back into the part of town we're familiar with, stopping to get cash and a drink. Then we headed for the mall, where Glenn got a haircut (again!!!) and we picked up a few things at the grocery store. We then headed back to the house, as we had been invited by Martin to go out tonight at a club in town around 10pm. Knowing we'd be tired, I suggested we nap first, but when we arrived at the house I was too keyed up to sleep and ended up doing more laundry and reading. We had dinner with John and Elaine, a wonderful homemade cannelloni, and watched the news a bit. The usual - USA annoying everyone, seemingly picking fights with every country they can and praising the ones that stick with us even when the policy isn't so smart... We don't have a lot of good things to say about our current president's foreign policy, although we realize that we don't know all the insider information behind these events. We decided we were too tired to go out after all, and called Martin to apologize and say thanks again. Then we watched a bit more news and read in bed. It was a hot night, so it took a while for me to get to sleep. |