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| The night view of the Melbourne Bridge all lit up in celebration of the Holiday Season!!! |
| Glenn's Journals 12-27-02 & 12-28-02 Victoria I was up this morning around 7:45 am so I could catch John before he went to play golf. I needed a jump as the battery in the car had died on me and I needed to find a shop to replace the battery. John used his Honda to give me a jump and Elaine helped me look through the yellow pages and make a few phone calls to find a place that was open today. (it seems that quite a few places close for the week between Xmas and New Years. Can you imagine that in the States???) As I was ready to leave around 8:30 am my parents called. We were finalizing the plans for the trip to Fiji and also wanted to chat about the news from my brother from yesterday. Erin checked on the car for me while I talked on the phone for almost an hour (remember the car was still running as it would not restart if it had been turned off). After a good conversation with the parents, I took off to an automotive shop to have a new battery put in. Erin called Rose, whom we had an appointment to meet at 10:00 am, and rescheduled for 11:30 am. I returned home around 10:30 am and we prepared to head out to Rose's place around 11:20 am. Rose was nice enough to allow us to download photos from our digital camera cards to a CD since she had a CD burner. She had all the right software to do the job and a quick enough machine that it did not take long to complete the task. As we were preparing to leave she woke Charlotte for lunch and we stayed a few minutes longer to chat with Rose and Brad. We thanked them for the use of the computer and went on our way. From here we stopped at Office Works and picked up some more cds before stopping for some groceries, including fresh bread from the bakery and some more milk and juice. We feel like we are eating John and Elaine out of house and home, so we need to pitch in. Upon returning home, we snagged some quick sandwiches using some of the leftover turkey and ham from Xmas dinner. Tonight Erin wanted to see Lord of the Rings at the movies, so we left around 6:30 pm to catch the 7pm movie if possible. We arrived at the Northlands shopping complex a little before 7pm and by the time we made it through the line, we ended up with tickets for the 8pm movie. This gave us a little time to catch a quick meal at the eatery downstairs before the movie. We found some Asian food and made our way back upstairs by 7:30 pm. We figured we would get in line but even at 7:30 pm we were still behind about 30 other people waiting to get into the movie. By the time the theater opened to let us all in, there were 150+ people waiting to find good seats at the 8pm movie. Erin quickly found some decent seats and we settled in for the almost 3 hour movie. Erin enjoys the Lord of the Rings movies but I am just ok with them. It dragged a little in the middle but was ok. By the time the movie ended it was well after 11pm and almost midnight by the time we arrived home and settled in for the night. 12-28-02 Victoria Saturday morning and the weather was warming up today into the 30's. After showers and breakfast Erin and I prepared to head into the city of Melbourne. Staying with John and Elaine in Ivanhoe (in the suburbs) has been quite relaxing but we should see some of the city while we are here. Elaine suggested taking the train into the city as it would save us from having to find parking and the cost associated with parking in the city. The train from Ivanhoe is located at the end of their street (Maltravers) and was only a 3 minute car ride to find. Once at the train station we asked for assistance and bought a day pass that allowed us travel on the trains, trams, and buses for the full day. We took the train into Flinders Station where we could walk around the center of town. Once in town our first stop was an internet cafe to work on editing photos and the website. Erin was very succesful at editing photos while I did not have much luck with the website as the page builder tool would not continue to effectively work throughout the session. Sometimes the network is down or being maintained and is either very slow or doesn't work at all. Today it was not working very much and required me to sign out and back in a few times before I finally gave up. I sent a few e-mails and did some research for the New Zealand section of the trip before we called it a day. After the internet cafe we wandered around town checking out the sights and shopping along the way. We bought a few things today including a book of Australian photography by Ken Duncan that will be a great coffee table book once we get home. We walked around town until 5:00 pm when we noticed most of the shops closing for the day. We made our way back to the train station where we took the train back to Ivanhoe and returned home. Dinner tonight was pizza that Erin and John went out to buy. Erin and I watched a movie while we ate. After the movie I worked on journals while Erin got into another movie. We called it a night around midnight. Tomorrow we would go into the Victoria market. |