Melbourne!!!

Strangest thing ... in Europe and now Australia. Easter is a BIG DEAL. For everybody.

In Norway, everything pretty much shut down for days. If you wanted to get gas, or milk you might get lucky and find some little gas station, but only if you were lucky. Here in Australia, we have discovered that Good Friday is a MAJOR BIG DEAL. With Easter Day ... not so much ...

EVERYTHING is closed today, but will be opened on Sunday. Weird ... go figure. Makes totally no sense to us.

As you can see ... I have Internet. We checked in to the Marriott and were upgraded to be able to use the Executive Lounge - so while Gary sleeps downstairs after our walk, I am up in the lounge ... blogging and surfing since I am addicted.

The people here at the Marriott pointed us in the direction of Chinatown for lunch ... their thinking that something just might be open there.



They were right and we found a place serving dim sum:


Sublime! Except for some disgusting sweet pork thingy (there in the bamboo basket) that was supposed to be sublime ... so said my Chinese speaking husband. Wasn't. Had to dip my chopsticks in straight pepper oil and stick it in my mouth to get the taste out. Must be an acquired taste. Ick!



Then we took a walk (map in hand, thank you very much, Gary) toward the river and ran into these very harried (drugged?) businessmen. Maybe my most favourite statues of all time:

Adorable in a wee bit of a scary way, no?

Simply love them!

Again, the beautiful buildings:

We walked by a beautiful church on the way and decided to go in and sit a spell on this Good Friday. It was peaceful, quiet, and there was music, scripture reading and a sermon which although it was not our church - we enjoyed and invoked the spirit of the season.

I liked this. I have absolutely no idea what it is:

Downtown is beautiful. I have seen night shots of downtown Melbourne and I want one of my own, so I may be trudging back to the river tonight to get some night shots ...

Planning on having a blast while we are here. Hopefully we are going to go watch the March of the Penguins as they come home to Phillip Island every night to rest one of these evenings. Cannot take photos, but maybe I will find something to shoot - just can't flash the poor little guys trudging up out of the water heading for bed - everything else is fair game!

Also have plans to drive the Great Ocean Road a couple of times (complete with the twelve apostles) for photos and pick a spot for photos at dawn. And head to some national forests where Gary ran into herds of kangaroo and emu years and years ago. We are hoping there progeny will still be there ... out in the open for us to photograph!

Well, off to put my feet up! Figure out what live show we are going to: Mama Mia! or Wicked. And maybe getting a little shut eye myself!

Until tomorrow ...

Or whenever ...