Simon was covering a race and since accomodation and rental care was covered I tagged along!
We left after work on friday and since Simon and I were booked on different flights,I joked that I would see him in Melbourne. This was a joke that turned on us as I had booked a flight to Melbourne - Avalon, which is 1 hour outside of the city! So I land late on Friday night in this small pokey countryside airport with 1 gate, 1 conveyer belt, no cafe, no bookstores, nothing! Even sheep grazing peacefully on the grass outside! I'm still clueless at this stage thinking, "wow Melbourne is rural? i thought it was a city?"
So I call Simon in a panic after he sms me to say he had arrived and i couldn;'t see him anywhere! He offered to pick me up but I couldn't bare to stay for over 1 hour in the wops wops so I caught a shuttle bus into the city.
Dramas, on the first night!
The next day I shopped for 7 hours straight. Had a rather average brekkie of croissant with smoked salmon and cream cheese (energy food to burn!) Then checked out the Queen Victoria Markets which were kinda cool as they had a food section with slabs of foreign cheeses, pasta, meats, wine (very french and different from normal supermarket stuff). Bought some Melbourne wine and cheese and crackers.
Then I headed to the main shopping street and shopped till i could not see straight! Strangely all I bought that day was x1 black cardie, x1 black scarf, lots of food and nothing else!
On Sunday I limped around the large factory outlet and bought work pants, a handbag and gym clothes, got my hair cut and blow dried!
In Summary, Melbourne was certainly funky and different, (had Nepalese food on sat night) but at the end of the day, it's a city and all cities are the same really. It was a fun weekend!
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Ozzies like to make a big deal outta Australia Day so they had some huge extravagant outdoor show at Darling Harbour with ships coming in. Some were pretty cool, very old ships! 
The fireworks were pretty awesome! they even had a Fighter plane fly over the harbour which was really loud and had a tail of fire! So weird, like being in some war movie or something. It was so fast I couldn't get a photo.
