The Rest of Melbourne...

After spending all day Saturday at the tennis, we considered going back Sunday for more, but thought we should go with the original plan -> go walking and see all of downtown Melbourne.

We got started early and probably walked 10 miles.  Melbourne is very "European" and could be transplanted to the Continent and no one would notice.  The best part was Federation Square which is composed of many new "modern" buildings surrounding an open-air square.  One of the buildings has a giant television screen built into the side and all afternoon/evening people gathered to dine al fresco and watch the tennis.  We sat there Sunday evening to watch Aussie Jelena Jokic (yes, she is an Aussie with that name) play some of the best tennis of her life.

 

Most of downtown Melbourne crosses the Yarra river just before the river reaches Bass Straight and the ocean.

 

On the left is the main train station in Melbourne (sorry no trains, Ethan).  On the right is one of the funky buildings of Federation Square.

 

More of the funky buildings in Federation Square

 

The "slots" on the building on the left are scrolling message boards at night!

 

After spending most of the morning walking around, doing some shopping and getting a bite to eat, we decided to see if there were tickets available to that afternoon's performance of Wicked the musical.  Everyone who has ever seen it raves about how wonderful it is and to see Oz in Aus was kind of a unique idea.  We actually got very good seats even though we were in the balcony, and the show was every bit as good as every claims.

 

After the show we walked around some more and it felt like the guys from Top Gear were in town as we seemed to pass a lot of very expensive and exotic cars.

 

Audi R8 and a nice Ferrari

My personal fav - Lamborghini Murcielago

Lastly we grabbed a quick bite to eat and watched tennis at Federation Square until the wee hours of the morning.  Lots of fun!  I'd go back to Melbourne, especially for sporting events.  They have lots of nice hotels, great shopping, awesome modern stadiums and arenas... but I don't think we will have time.  Stink!

Melbourne and the Australian Open (Tennis)...

Well, first the tennis.  I hope to get a plethora ("Would you say I have a 'plethora' of presents?") of posts up in the next week before we head home for a "break" and come back to Aus for the rest of 2009.

The 3rd week of January saw us finally hitting Melbourne for an event that Clarice had marked out since they day we agreed to come to Australia -> the Australian Tennis Open.  We made a long weekend of it, planning on spending all day Saturday at the tennis, Sunday and Monday morning exploring Melbourne before we went back to Sydney.  Looking back, we could have happily spent more time at the tennis.  Not that Melbourne was bad, the tennis was just that good of an experience.

Neither of us had ever been to a professional tennis event, so we thought we would take it easy in the morning with ground passes that let you into every court but the 2 main ones, and then got night passes to the big stage - Rod Laver Arena.  Still, because it was 1/2 way through the tournament, we had no idea who we would be seeing until the day before.  When we got to the grounds, saw that James Blake was playing in HiSense (the #2 court) in the morning, we decided to upgrade our ground passes to HiSense and cheer for an AMERICAN!

Blake was the 3rd match on HiSense so we decided to catch some doubles first (after hitting the souvenir stands, natch).  We got good seats (at the smaller courts there are no "bad" seats) to see 2 Aussies, Paul Hanley and Jason Kerr, take on a seeded team.  Not having watched much doubles on TV, I kept forgetting that the alleys were "good", but the action is so much faster paced than singles.  I'd definitely hit more doubles next time.  The other great part of the match was this group of teenagers calling themselves "The Bogan Army".  At first I was afraid they would be rowdy and eventually be asked to leave, but I was VERY impressed.  They knew when to cheer and when not to cheer, were loud and together, brought cheer/song sheets so everyone knew the words, NEVER repeated a cheer in the 90 minutes the match lasted, got other parts of the crowd into the cheering, and generally made the entire experience more memorable.  Good on ya' Bogan Army!

 

Hanley/Kerr easily beat the seeded pair with the outstanding support of "The Bogan Army"

 

"The Bogan Army"

Clarice after getting Hanley and Kerr to sign her program

After Hanley and Kerr won easily, we worked our way over to HiSense not wanting to miss Blake, but knowing he hadn't started yet.  We saw the scoreboard for Lisa Fernandez's women's doubles match and stopped by to cheer on another AMERICAN before getting into HiSense.

Being the #2 court, and having a retractable roof, HiSense is a multi-purpose facility that also hosts concerts as well as sports outside of tennis.  Lot of seats with almost everyone in the shade, HiSense is a nice, modern arena.  We got inside just as the first set of women's singles between Svetlana Kuznetsova and Alona Bondarenko (a Russian and a Ukrainian, respectively).  Both were seeded and I knew about Kuznetsova since she was a top ten player at one point (currently #8).  Let me say this about the ladies:  A couple of BRATS!  Especially Bondarenko.  They complained the entire match, used up all of their challenges, took forever to serve, played crappy tennis... and then Bondarenko lost the third set tie-break by double faulting and then storming off the court in a huff.  Prima Donnas.  Nice to look at, but HIGH MAINTENANCE.

 

 

I was more impressed by my telephoto lens than I was by the quality of play...

Then it was time for the boys to take over.  James Blake v. Igor Andreev (insert "yes, master!" joke here).  Both guys played well, but James was definitely on his game and won in straight sets.  Clarice managed to worm her way through what seemed like hundreds of people to get an autograph.  Blake stayed and signed for quite a long time - good on him for that!

 

 

I got a kick out of watching the ball persons (gotta be PC) line up and walk on and off the court when they changed.  Just made me laugh for some reason - probably the hats.

We found some dinner in the hour between the morning and evening sessions, and with Clarice this can sometimes be an adventure.  Unlike the majority of sporting events I've been to (and I've been to quite a few) there was not food stands everywhere you turned.  They were all centered around the main square (which was really a circle), so we ended up walking around for 20 minutes just finding food.  Ah well, what else do you want to do in the heat and sun?

Rod Laver Arena, the main court, obviously has the biggest names and is always sold out.  We got our tickets months in advance not knowing who we would be watching.  Turns out we were in luck - #1 in the world, Rafael Nadal.  First we had to get through a women's singles match that pitted #4 in the world Elena Dementieva against Aussie Girl of the moment Samantha Stoser.  There was a trio of women next to us who lived and died with every point, even making noises of angst if Stoser faulted on her first serve.  Though she really played well, and looks to have a bright future, Dementieva played out of here mind and was just too experienced.  Straight Sets.

 

Until Dementieva took off her white jacket to reveal an orange dress, I was worried I was only going to be able to tell them apart by their visors.

 

And can someone tell them it is night?  What's with the visors?  The lights were all from the sides so don't blame them!

 

Obligatory shot of the lovely couple.  I only had my Socceroos jersey, but I wanted to show I was supporting Sam.  I wore my USA jersey during Blake's match!

Last was Rafael Nadal v Tommy Haas.  Haas is old and washed up, Nadal is in his prime and #1 in the world.  STILL, the German fellow behind us, well into his cups, was convinced that "Tommy can do it!"  Err... not so much.  Every point we heard, "You can do it, Tommy!"  When someone cheered Rafa, he would reply, "Tommy!"  It was actually kind of funny.  Nadal is a horse (look at him!) and won easily in straight sets.

 

 

We had a great time and would be going back if we were here next January.  We've decided that we must get to Wimbledon, Flushing Meadows and Paris for the other majors.  We don't really follow tennis, but the majors (and good players) make it a lot of fun to watch in person.

Parkes, Australia. Elvis and The Dish...

Alright, I'm back to trying to catch up again. This trip was taken in January and it is March. So I'm a little behind...

Paul and Amber invited us to join them on a trip to visit Paul's Uncle Warren in Parkes. It was the first weekend of the new year and Parkes is "famous" for its Elvis Festival. We had been meaning to head out that way to see "The Dish", and free lodging is always welcome -> so we joined them. (Just kidding, guys!! We LOVE hanging with the Brenners!)

I drove the first half, getting us out of Sydney proper. Then, since he knew where he was going and I didn't, Paul took over. Thankfully, being another employee of the company, he is insured on our car as well. He trekked us all over the planet, making a quick stop in Bathurst, home of the Bathurst 1000 auto race. It is the most famous auto race in Australia, like a mini-Indy 500, only obviously much longer and using "stock" cars. What I didn't know, until we pulled onto the track (you read that right) is that a good portion of the track is used as normal roads the other 364 days of the year. People's driveways come out onto the track! We did a lap (stupid speed limits) and the kept on treckkin'.

We then stopped in Forbes, the other large-ish town in that part of New South Wales. It has a couple of really cool looking older churches and some interesting "old-timey" architecture. Actually, it resembled any small town in the Midwest (being built around the same time).

From there, we finally made it to Parkes. If we had gone straight, the drive would have been around 4.5 hours, but it took us most of the day with the side trips. Still, we made it right on time to welcome in the "Elvis Train". Every year the festival has a special train that comes out from Sydney (with regular passengers as well) loaded with people coming out for the festival... and lots of people dressed like the king and Priscilla. What a strange sight! 1000s of miles from Graceland, in another country altogether, and off the train walk a bunch of people straight out of Memphis during the heyday of Elvis! Little did I know. Wait until tomorrow, Jon!

Warren and his wife have a beautiful house at the top of the hill overlooking Parkes. They were very gracious hosts and told us a lot about the history of the area. Paul took us by some of his old family homes that they lived in before moving to Sydney.

Saturday morning we headed out early to get a good spot for the parade. Warren comes through again! They are part owners of the building that Warren's auto parts store is located in, and the building has a second floor balcony overlooking the main street for the parade. If I had been forced down on the street with the masses I might have gone insane. Instead we had a bird's eye view for the fun.

After the parade Paul, Amber and the two of us got back in the car and drove 30 minutes out to The Dish - a radio telescope that searches the heavens for unusual activity. It has been in use for over 50 years and is so sought after by scientists studying the cosmos a special commission has to delegate time and tell others they will have to wait. The Dish was also used to receive transmissions back from the Apollo moon missions and relay those transmissions back to mission control in Houston. When the moon was on the other side of the Earth, Houston could not receive transmissions because the Earth was in the way! We saw a couple of movies about The Dish, astronomy and a cool 3-D "mars mission". We had lunch in their little cafeteria (good food) all the while watching the dish rotate and move towards whatever celestial object they were supposed to be observing.

Next Paul, Clarice and I joined Warren for 9 holes of golf. Clarice and I had not played in about 10 months and boy did it show! For every good shot we hit a dozen junky ones. Warren, however, was lights out playing what he told us was his best 9 ever. Yeah, right! Ringer!!!

After dinner, Paul, Amber, Clarice and I decided to head back into town and see what Elvis was up to that night. A lot. Every pup we walked into (or even just outside of) was blasting Elvis with people packed in like sardines. At one place they had karaoke and Amber and Clarice just HAD to sing. They picked Sweet Home Alabama even though they only really knew the chorus. Still, people sang along and no one booed. They did pretty good!

Sunday we got up early again (so much for resting on vacations...) and attended the Elvis Gospel Celebration for Sunday morning church. It was hilarious while at the same time quite an interesting was to worship God. Elvis recorded a lot of gospel music - I never knew how much. A professional Elvis impersonator performed, a local preacher spoke, local groups sang other Elvis tracks, and over 2000 people packed the undercover Big W (like Wal-Mart) parking lot. Scratch "Giant Elvis Church Service" off my list of things to do before I die!

The drive home was long, but we took a scenic route through the Blue Mountains and got to see some beautiful views. We may never make it back to Parkes, but if we were only going to go once, we picked the perfect weekend!