Melbourne

We arrived in Melbourne after five flights (CUE-UIO-MIA-LAX-SYD-MEL) and two days.  I won't rant about how much the airlines in US really suck, but US domestic flights are an abomination.  I mean, we were treated so much better on the four hour flight from Quito to Miami than we were on the six hour flight from Miami to LA.  We were given food and blankets on the international flight, but on the domestic one we were starved and frozen.  The 15 hour flight from LA to Sydney was a pleasure compared to all the others, even though it was the longest.  It had the best food and service, but probably because it was Quantas rather than American Airlines (even though there was a code share).

When we arrived in Melbourne on Monday afternoon (we left Ecuador on Saturday morning) my legs had swollen up so much that it was almost painful to walk (apparently a "side effect" of pregnancy), so we took a taxi to the hotel and tried to stay awake until 6PM (there is a 16 hour time difference).  There was a mall across the street to feed us and help us stretch our legs, but we were both on the verge of collapse from not sleeping much on the flights (Quantas had lots of good movies, and I was advised to walk around for a few minutes every hour, which is not conducive to sleeping, though neither is drinking lots of water).

On Tuesday we were picked up at the hotel by my aunt Sharon and cousin Grace.  This aunt, my mom's sister, I had not seen since my brother's bar mitzvah (which was in 1998) and my cousin (her daughter), who was about 23, I last saw in South Africa when she was less than a year old and I was probably about 8.  Though this is going to sound completely obvious when I write it, Australia is really far away.

We spent the morning with them on a cruise down the Yarra River.  At this point, I discovered that my aunt is alot like my mom.  Even though in hindsight I'm not entirely surprised, this came as a complete shock to me at the time, just because I expected that my mom and her sister to be about as similar as I am to my sister.  And it wasn't just the mannerisms or reverence for how brilliant their father was, what surprised me the most was their taste in clothing (for dinner my aunt wore a chocolate brown linen dress that was hit a bit below the knees and had buttons down the front, what I would refer to as a safari dress, which, of course you need to be on safari or South African to get away with...my mom's is in khaki and reaches her ankles but only because she's about six inches shorter than her sister).

After the boat ride, Carlos and I were dropped off at the Botanical Gardens to explore with an explanation how to get back to our hotel and an appointment to meet for dinner.  It was getting to be lunch time, so we decided to eat before we ventured into the gardens.  This is when we discovered how expensive Australia is.  Lunch cost us A$30 (which is about $30).  We each had a sandwich and we split some fries.  Just the fries were A$7.50.  Seven bucks for fries.  But they were really good fries.

The gardens were beautiful, but unfortunately, just moments after we finished lunch, it started to rain.  And then to pour.  We found the awning of a building to duck under, but we probably spent about 25 minutes waiting out the rain.  And though I usually carry an umbrella or wear a raincoat, I had neither.  Carlos had an umbrella, but it barely fit us both, so we got a bit damp walking around the gardens.  The gardens were lovely, but they were big.  We must have spent about three hours walking around and we still felt like we missed a bit, but by that time my feet were aching and we still had a bit of a walk to catch the bus back to our hotel.

Dinner was lovely.  Not only were my aunt, uncle, and their two daughters (and one boyfriend) there, but also another cousin, Hayley, (mom's brother's daughter) who migrated from South Africa to Australia five years ago.  The last time I had seen here was at my sister's wedding (also about five years ago...yeah, my family is a bit spread out).

 

We spent the next morning with her at the Immigration Museum before we headed back to the airport for a flight to Sydney.