Melbourne actually started on the night of the seventh when we caught a flight from Auckland to Melbourne. For anyone planning international travel, we highly (really highly!) recommend Emirates Air. They run commercials with Jennifer Anniston dreaming about not have a personal shower or access to a bar – we didn’t fly first class with Jennifer and her friends, but it was one of the nicest flights ever!  First of all, it was the largest plane I’ve ever seen Airbus 300 with two full decks. There was lots of legroom (something I give extra points for) and they served a full dinner – with metal utensils- on a four hour flight.  I’m beginning to wonder if I am watching too many action oriented movies.  Holly and Heather watched frozen – they another Disney movie on the flight from Houston and I’ve been watching ‘The Infitrator’, ‘War Dogs’ and ‘Pulp Fiction’. Maybe I need something lighter….

Anyway, we moved two more time zones so we arrived at 9pm Melbourne time which is 11pm Auckland time. Heather rented another rental car and we only lost Ryan once when we made friends with the folks in another rental car office you helped him switch his phone from NZ to Australia. The temperature was still almost 90 degrees at 9pm – and muggy. We found a supermarket to stock up on breakfast food, etc and the friendly register person filled us in on the New Years Eve celebration downtown. We finally got to our AirBnB around 11:30 and were met on the front porch by Trumpet, our house cat. Really sweet cat – and it’s nice to have hem around while we are missing our cats.

Next morning we had a quick breakfast and headed out into the heat (almost 90 degrees).  We spent several hours at Queen Elizabeth Market, the largest open-air market in the Southern Hemisphere.  We bought some passion fruit, and insulted the man at the fruit stand who thought we were insinuating that this fruit wasn’t ripe.  Luckily his daughter interceded and saved the day.  Another very nice vendor gave us a small bag of apricots – really nice folks!

After snacking on a pide, a Turkish pita flatbread filled with halloumi cheese and spinach and drinking a lot (A LOT) of liquids, we heading for the Melbourne Museum for culture, air conditioning and a roof over our heads during the afternoon rainstorm. The primary exhibit was about the culture and the widespread mistreatment of the Austrailian indigenous people by the Europeans who settled Australia during the 19th and 20th centuries. The museum also had a huge indoor forest gallery, a display of historic Melbourne and a large number of dinosaurs.