It was Friday the 13th, so I was expecting bad things to happen somewhere in the vicinity of the airport. Nothing drastic, but maybe sitting next to a fat guy or a delayed flight. The closest things I could decipher is the inability to catch a stand-by flight, sitting next to a fat guy and not having any money for the one shuttle bus into Melbourne. But good luck prevailed, as the kindly skydiving instructor Chris fronted me the $20 for my ride. Yes, my life is at a point where I need the help of skydiving instructors to pay for my shuttle bus because I don't know my Wells Fargo pin.
Finally getting into Melbourne around 11pm and grabbing a quick dinner, I snoozed away on my rollaway cot in room 121 of the Rendevous. Three things struck me from the Melbourne city tour the next morning: the guide spoke way too softly for 8am, Melbourne has a gaggle of sports venues and Captain Cook grew up in a house the size of an outhouse. Oh, and Yarra means 'everflowing' in Aboriginal. Why do we end up tired after just sitting in a bus most of the morn? Well, we needed our rest for a trip to Phillip Island and the Penguin Parade.
In short, the penguin tour took us two hours (in part through a town with one of my fave Aussie names, Koo Wee Rup) to Phillip Island, a scenic spot that's host to what else: an F1 and Moto GP racetrack. At sundown every night, hundreds of little penguins leave their daytime home in the ocean to head home to their burrows. On the marathon trip, I was wondering what all the fuss was about hanging out in the cold to watch penguins walking around...until I saw the little guys waddling out of the Pacific in droves, at exactly the time they promised. We even got something called the 'penguin premier' tickets, which was like box seats for the show. It was pretty cool to see these identical black and white birds rush out of the water and take to the penguin highway, coming home from work. There was even a Wallaby sighting to complete the night of nature.
They forbid us to take pictures, so here's a generic shot of the parade:
Sunday was looking like a hot one, so I made it over to the Australian Centre for the Museum Image to check out a exhibit of Dennis Hopper's films, photos and art collection. All I can say is the dude had it together, and still rolling along strong at 76. After Easy Rider, Colors and Andy Warhol paintings, I met up with friends Nirali and Martin right in the middle of a Polish festival. Seemed like a perfect time to grab a polish sausage for lunch.
Later on, mom, Aunt E and I cruised down Lygon Street, which seemed to have as many Italian restaurants as Phillip Island has penguins. We decided on the one that offered free wine and garlic bread, better deal than any others. Although it was 12 days after mom's birthday, I arranged the whole 'make a big deal' birthday dessert thing, and sure enough, they brought out tiramisu with the entire restaurant singing happy bday.
Back to the Rendevous for a whopping four hours of sleep before saying g'day to mom and Aunt Eileen (they were headed for a week in NZ) and a 6am flight, then straight to work on Monday. This time I had the $20 for the shuttle bus.
Oh, and Tiger won the golf tourney, which took over the country's attention for a week. Speaking of blue blood sports, thinking of heading back down to Victoria for the Australian Open in January. Maybe I'll run into Andy Roddick at one of the alleyway bars.
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