Good Luck Arrives
I think my bad luck has been pretty well
documented throughout this journal so far.
I think my bad luck has been pretty well
documented throughout this journal so far. Granted everything that has happened
has just added to the experience, and so what if I end up loosing a leg, or some
other part of my anatomy, what a entertaining journal I will have to look back
in 10 years. But finally today my luck has turned around. Now when you hear
the big turn of luck you may say, "yeah big deal" but to me it was! And in my
opinion I think someone how has been testing me finally felt sorry and threw me
a bone.
From the beginning of the day; I woke up in Frankston with plans to get down to the station by 7 or 8 oclock to get a jump on Melbourne as see what I could see. I arrived at the station at about 11am. I also learned something very important about train travel in the Melbourne area, just because the gates to the station are open doesn't mean you don't have to validate your card. Nothing ended up happening to me, but should someone have checked I would have been fined. I figured out the route I needed to take, which was very easy seeing that Frankston was the end of the line. I began my travels into Melbourne.
Let me quickly tell you about my accommodation in Melbourne and my flight out. There is a site in australia called Wotif.com, essentially what this site is, is a last minute discount center for hotel rooms all around Australia and all around the world. I will a little apprehensive about booking a room site unseen based on my experience in Sydney but this site seemed to have better photos and a map that showed it was in a good neighborhood. So travel suggestion for those coming to Oz, use this site before you come. I also booked my ticket to Perth. Yes Perth, for you who had heard about my plans, I was planning on taking the train to Perth. 3 days across the desert. It seemed like a good experience but everyone recommended that I not waste my time on it. All the people I talked to said that it was long, boring, and they would never do it again. Some people just said, it was an experiance... that I will never do again in my life. Seeing I was on a limited time schedule I decided to skip it. So I would only be staying in Melbourne two day.
I arrived in Melbourn right on the Yarra river, and the train station. The train station, while a little run down, was actually quite beautiful in my option.
Just across the road from the train station was my hotel. Well if the place I booked over the internet said it was three stars, and in my opinon it was more like 2, this place said it was four stars an it was more like five. The Duxton hotel was by far the nicest place I have stayed on my trip, and with the exception of the Grand Hyatt in Sydney last year, the nicest place I have stayed in this country. I won't go into the details, but lets just say I got it for a steal.
(the Duxton)
As much as I would have loved to stay at the Duxton all day my time was limited. I wanted to take a quick look at the town, and figure out if I was going to meet up with Quimby and or Steve. Quimby to make a long story short is friends with my sister Michelle. And Steve works at Intrepid where I used to work. Steve is in town working on a deal, and Quimby moved here a while back from San Francisco. When I left the hotel, the guy at the front desk said that the room rate for calling cell phones was really high and I would be better off if I called from a pay phone instead. The thing about pay phones in Australia is that they operate on charge cards made just for pay phones, which meant if I wanted to say my coins, which I did, I would have to go find a place to buy one of these pay cards. At this point I was realizing how much easier it would be just to have a cell phone.
I managed to get a hold of Quimby (who by the way I had contacted before to let her know I would be here) and she said barring a concert that she may have to go to, she would be able to meet me for drinks later tonight. She also didn't think that she was going to be able to get tickets to the concert anyway, so we planned on meeting later that night. I called Steve and arranged to meet with him the following night.
I then set out to see as much of Melbourne as I could on foot in the next three hours. At this point let me just tell you that I just loved the look and feel of the city. Sydney is a very posh modern city with very hip people. To me Melbourne is more stylish city with more of an old world British influence going on. The diversity seems to be more evenly balanced, while Sydney just seems like a suburb of Beijing. Melbourne has beautiful old buildings tucked away between modern buildings. Also Melbourne is a huge F1 town. There are posters of F1 drivers everywhere, there are t-shirts to be bought, their a billboards with F1 cars and drivers, this place loves it F1. (Of course that is because they have an F1 race here in town.)
Anyway, I walked around the city streets and shops and made my way out to a beautiful building that turned out to be old Melbourne Museum. Right next door to it is the new Melbourne Museum which is a perfect example of the dichotomy of styles in this town. Judge for yourself.
Anyway, to keep this journal short, all I really did for the rest of the afternoon was walk around the streets and shops of Melbourne. I also ended up finding a coffee shop with wirelss email access so I was able to update the site.
I returned back the Duxton later that afternoon about an hour after Quimby said she would come by. Not sure if I was getting dinner with her or just drinks I ordered room service and had a burger for dinner. I watched the simpsons and took a shower. Quimby actually ended up coming about 20 minutes early but that was ok. I ran down, and met her for the first time. I was expecting an Australian, because Michelle said she moved to the states from here but Quimby told me she has lived all over the world but just when to school here. So here is my good luck story. Quimby told me that she ended up getting tickets to this concert she thought she was going to go to, and she had an extra one for me. She said she didn't think I had ever heard of this artist because she was Australian. He name was Kasey Chambers. Ok to the average joe in America you probably have never heard of her, but not only have I heard of her, but I would probably say that she is in my top four favorite artist... period! In fact I have already seen her in the states twice. So this was a huge huge deal to me. It really didn't sink in at first, but the more I thought about the odds of being across the globe not even knowing she was in town, only know one person in town, and that one person just happened to have one extra ticket to one of my all time favorite musicians... come on I think that it more than just good luck.
Quimby and I went a grabbed a couple glasses of wine before we met up with her friends.
I have to run... but need less to say the show was amazing, the music was incredible, and I had a real night to remember. Of course I forget to bring my camera though, but I was able to find this picture of the concert online.
From the beginning of the day; I woke up in Frankston with plans to get down to the station by 7 or 8 oclock to get a jump on Melbourne as see what I could see. I arrived at the station at about 11am. I also learned something very important about train travel in the Melbourne area, just because the gates to the station are open doesn't mean you don't have to validate your card. Nothing ended up happening to me, but should someone have checked I would have been fined. I figured out the route I needed to take, which was very easy seeing that Frankston was the end of the line. I began my travels into Melbourne.
Let me quickly tell you about my accommodation in Melbourne and my flight out. There is a site in australia called Wotif.com, essentially what this site is, is a last minute discount center for hotel rooms all around Australia and all around the world. I will a little apprehensive about booking a room site unseen based on my experience in Sydney but this site seemed to have better photos and a map that showed it was in a good neighborhood. So travel suggestion for those coming to Oz, use this site before you come. I also booked my ticket to Perth. Yes Perth, for you who had heard about my plans, I was planning on taking the train to Perth. 3 days across the desert. It seemed like a good experience but everyone recommended that I not waste my time on it. All the people I talked to said that it was long, boring, and they would never do it again. Some people just said, it was an experiance... that I will never do again in my life. Seeing I was on a limited time schedule I decided to skip it. So I would only be staying in Melbourne two day.
I arrived in Melbourn right on the Yarra river, and the train station. The train station, while a little run down, was actually quite beautiful in my option.
Just across the road from the train station was my hotel. Well if the place I booked over the internet said it was three stars, and in my opinon it was more like 2, this place said it was four stars an it was more like five. The Duxton hotel was by far the nicest place I have stayed on my trip, and with the exception of the Grand Hyatt in Sydney last year, the nicest place I have stayed in this country. I won't go into the details, but lets just say I got it for a steal.
(the Duxton)
As much as I would have loved to stay at the Duxton all day my time was limited. I wanted to take a quick look at the town, and figure out if I was going to meet up with Quimby and or Steve. Quimby to make a long story short is friends with my sister Michelle. And Steve works at Intrepid where I used to work. Steve is in town working on a deal, and Quimby moved here a while back from San Francisco. When I left the hotel, the guy at the front desk said that the room rate for calling cell phones was really high and I would be better off if I called from a pay phone instead. The thing about pay phones in Australia is that they operate on charge cards made just for pay phones, which meant if I wanted to say my coins, which I did, I would have to go find a place to buy one of these pay cards. At this point I was realizing how much easier it would be just to have a cell phone.
I managed to get a hold of Quimby (who by the way I had contacted before to let her know I would be here) and she said barring a concert that she may have to go to, she would be able to meet me for drinks later tonight. She also didn't think that she was going to be able to get tickets to the concert anyway, so we planned on meeting later that night. I called Steve and arranged to meet with him the following night.
I then set out to see as much of Melbourne as I could on foot in the next three hours. At this point let me just tell you that I just loved the look and feel of the city. Sydney is a very posh modern city with very hip people. To me Melbourne is more stylish city with more of an old world British influence going on. The diversity seems to be more evenly balanced, while Sydney just seems like a suburb of Beijing. Melbourne has beautiful old buildings tucked away between modern buildings. Also Melbourne is a huge F1 town. There are posters of F1 drivers everywhere, there are t-shirts to be bought, their a billboards with F1 cars and drivers, this place loves it F1. (Of course that is because they have an F1 race here in town.)
Anyway, I walked around the city streets and shops and made my way out to a beautiful building that turned out to be old Melbourne Museum. Right next door to it is the new Melbourne Museum which is a perfect example of the dichotomy of styles in this town. Judge for yourself.
Anyway, to keep this journal short, all I really did for the rest of the afternoon was walk around the streets and shops of Melbourne. I also ended up finding a coffee shop with wirelss email access so I was able to update the site.
I returned back the Duxton later that afternoon about an hour after Quimby said she would come by. Not sure if I was getting dinner with her or just drinks I ordered room service and had a burger for dinner. I watched the simpsons and took a shower. Quimby actually ended up coming about 20 minutes early but that was ok. I ran down, and met her for the first time. I was expecting an Australian, because Michelle said she moved to the states from here but Quimby told me she has lived all over the world but just when to school here. So here is my good luck story. Quimby told me that she ended up getting tickets to this concert she thought she was going to go to, and she had an extra one for me. She said she didn't think I had ever heard of this artist because she was Australian. He name was Kasey Chambers. Ok to the average joe in America you probably have never heard of her, but not only have I heard of her, but I would probably say that she is in my top four favorite artist... period! In fact I have already seen her in the states twice. So this was a huge huge deal to me. It really didn't sink in at first, but the more I thought about the odds of being across the globe not even knowing she was in town, only know one person in town, and that one person just happened to have one extra ticket to one of my all time favorite musicians... come on I think that it more than just good luck.
Quimby and I went a grabbed a couple glasses of wine before we met up with her friends.
I have to run... but need less to say the show was amazing, the music was incredible, and I had a real night to remember. Of course I forget to bring my camera though, but I was able to find this picture of the concert online.
Posted: Tue - September 2, 2003 at 12:30 AM
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Published On: Aug 01, 2004 11:37 PM
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Published On: Aug 01, 2004 11:37 PM