Melbourne

Rusty here to finish off the trip. Our apartment was 45 clark street, basically the 50th floor (out of 52) in an 8-year-old skyscraper. There were only a few buildings taller in the city. Up we go to put up our bags and it’s like 2PM and check in is 3pm so we think we can probably just check in but no, the cleaners are still there and the place is TRASHSED!!! Whoever was there before us did a number on it and it was a mess. Anyway, we left to get lunch; everyone was tired, hungry, hot, and kind of a mess. So we ate at Burgatory, where all the burgers were named after saints or the 7 deadly sins. Kids thought that was funny.   or something like that and it was fine. Views from the apartment were amazing, but the AC left something to be desired.  

After a bit of a rest we rallied and explored the city sans Blake because he was too tired. We walked across the river to the CBD and got ice cream and soft serve in a fish waffle (Halle said the NYC version is better)  and saw street art in AC/DC alley and Hosier Alley. The street art had been really hyped up, but these alleys just seemed dirty and graffitied. We’ve seen far better. But, we did love these little Australian Open Monsters.

The did have a Street Art Gallery which was AMAZING. Super cool displays from street artists and an entire room of Banksy reproductions. I love street art. It’s so cool, so this was like the best art gallery ever. And it was free! Tara wasn’t quite as impressed as I was.

From there we walked to “the fortress” which was this cool gaming place I had read about online. I thought it was awesome. They had a tavern and board games and pc gaming and an arcade full of games that we didnt’ have at home. So we played Mario Kart and a fun drumming game and just had a good time. Josh got the high score on piano keys and I thought I was going fast. Tara and I drummed together and that was really fun. Halle and I danced on ddr. 

By now we’d all reached our threshold. We went looking for food and wandered into a mall that was a maze and finally found this Thai city place but our order took 30 minutes and Blake didn’t want that so we had to walk and get him sushi and everyone was tired and hot and BLEH. Our food finally came and I made an executive decision and called an Uber to take us home because I WAS TIRED and didn’t want to walk back. We ate some Thai food around the table and went to bed.

I was up the next morning to take some work calls. Tara was still crashed and Blake was up and wanted to explore so he and I hit the gym and the pool on the rooftop! BEAUTIFUL! I’m so glad we did this, probably the highlight of Blake and I’s time there. We just had fun hitting the weights and doing the punching bag and then had the infinity pool to ourselves.

But then it was time to be responsible and plan the day. Trying to find ebikes for us to bike down the beach. Marc had said to bike from brightnon to black rock but it wasn’t so easy. There were not many places that rented bikes and the path was far off the beach and it was HOT. I finally found a place but the guy was like “Sure, I can scrounge up some bikes” and that’s basically what he did. So we Ubered to Brighton beach and got our bikes in the wierdest rental situation ever.  It was more of a repair shop and he wandereded around pulling a bike here and there. Did they belong to customers? We aren’t sure.  It was hot (How many times can we say that about this trip)  and steep and the path was NOT next to the beach so it was kind of MEH. But we made it to Black Rock Beach and found a paved path that went down to the beach where we could keep an eye on the bikes and wade in the water and look for shells. I started texting Marc and he was excited –  He gave us some recommendations to eat in Black Rock.  We ended up at True South, It was Argentinian food served Tapas style and it was excellent. 

Now we had to zoom our bikes back to be there by 430 when he closed. I should have known he wouldn’t close on time, this guy was not in a hurry to do anything and was kind of an odd duck. At least he didn’t charge very much money. We were desperate to find some AC. Luckily there was a Woolworth a few doors down where we could buy some cold drinks and lap up the AC. Then it was off to Brighton beach to view the cute bathing boxes and relax for a bit. We got there, changed and jumped in the water. The boxes were beautiful and we got some great pics and saw Marc’s vacation house. Tons of fun.

This was maybe my favorite night. We just ordered some fish tacos from CDMX delivered and then ate them and watched Bobs Burgers and talked and laughed until bedtime.