Melbourne is the Best City in Aus

I’ve just spent 3 days in Melbourne, for the first time in over 5 years, and I had an absolute blast. I went down there to do 2 things (see Picasso and attend Furnitex) but ended up doing and seeing a heap more – including doing a podcast!!! Here’s a quick rundown of what I did and saw between midday Thursday and 6pm Saturday

• Listened to G’Day world and Productivity show on the plane, was so inspired and texted Cameron right there on the plane and said I wanted to do a podcast, can we set it up for tomorrow (we were going to catch up for a coffee anyway)
• Met up with my friend who caught the plane half hour after me
• Caught skybus to the city – excellent service $24 return – 20mins to city
• Walked to Hotel Ibis 600 Little Bourke Street – excellent hotel for a cheap city hotel
• Lunch at Bar Hum Bug next to hotel – excellent food
• Tram to Exhibition Centre – what a fantastic building
• Saw Decoration and Design and Furnitex – D&D was great, but Furnitex was a bit disapointing – but both were completely overstimulatiing to the visual senses.
• Needed a drink! stopped at The Establishment in King Street for a quick G&T
• Bit of a rest before dinner – could not rest – too much going on so I pop down to the internet cafe in the foyer, check some emails, create a wordpress.com blog for my community group I belong to and do some preparation for tomorrows podcast
• Dinner again at Bar Hum Bug – again excellent food – and 1/2 bottle of red wine
• Take a taxi to show us around Docklands and to find an after dinner coffee place
• Ended up a tour of docklands, then the city then down to Federation Square
• Affogato at Lower House at Fed Square – a Parisian Wine Bar – good Coffee
• Back to hotel
• 12midnight, 1am, 2am, 3am – NO Sleep – had a mild panic attack because I could not sleep, tried TV watching, classical music, sleep tape, herbal sleep stuff and prescription medication – managed about 2 hours total in the night – I’m sure the cause was complete over stimulation of the senses – and too much wine and coffee.
• Breakfast at the hotel – completely stuffed due to lack of sleep
• Headed down to NGV International – was a bit too early so went for a walk around Southbank
• Saw Picasso - Great but probably too much to see – found 5 of my favorites – one of the Sleeping Woman oil’s was my favorite there.
• Tour around NGV International – absolutely superb building – just to see the stained glass roof again was worth it.
• Cameron picks me up
• Lunch at Mario’s cafe in Brunswick Street – Fantastic Food and good coffee
• Do Productivity Show podcast – I sucked at it, but it was fun
• Go to PolyEster books – definitely a must if you are down that way
• Cameron drops me off at Royal Exhibition buildings (another must see building) to see the rest of Furnitex with my friend
• Pop into Melbourne Museum (was opened just after I was last in Melbourne so I had not seen it yet)
• A few hours to kill so tram down to Chapel Street
• Had to stop off for a quick afternoon beer
• Take the tram back to Fed Sq via Bridge Road
• Early Dinner at Fed Sq – terrible food and even worse service – Time Out Cafe at Fed Sq
• Back to Hotel – friend on bus as she’s heading home – early to bed with sleeping tablets
• Slept in late and had 20mins to be up, showered, dressed, packed and checked out – did it.
• Tram down to Docklands. Breakfast at Berth Cafe over the water – good food but service was a bit lacking.
• Saw the Da Vinci Machines exhibition – not really worth it for the $18 but probably would have been better if I had more time
• Tram down to Federation Square – this time for a proper look around
• Saw TV50 a fantastic exhibition of 50 years of Aus TV at ACMI (Australian Centre for Moving Images) – they have a wall of 750 TV’s – talk about overstimulation of the senses
• Sent a text message to the Optus Message Board at Fed SQ
• Tour of Fed Square – excellent and learned a lot about the building – book at Melbourne Information Centre
• Quick 15 mins through NGV Australia – Ian Potter Center – mainly to see the absolutely stunning building and do a pilgrimage to the McCubbin
• Bought a 2nd hand book at the book fair at Fed SQ
• walked right through a protest by the Lebanese against Israel
• Tram back to Hotel to pick up luggage
• Skybus to Airport to Check in
• Friend picks me up and I go to her house for about 45mins to see her new house and consult on her renovations
• Back to the airport, on the plane, try to relax but can’t
• Home – back to normality – Crash and sleep very soundly!!!
• Wake up today – did I really just have this crazy three days away??? yep and it was worth every crazy fast paced second.

Now back to reality…