Well I went down for a PEGS school reunion. I did not take any photos at the reunion, I was busy catching up with people, most of whom I had not seen for between 30 and 36 years. In the morning I had breakfast at the Marrickville Road Cafe, walked to the airport and flew down to Melbourne, met Jeremy and Elisse at the airport and went down into town to have lunch with them and mum.
I flew down on Jet Star. It was my first experience on this airline. I did this as the no-luggage flight was the cheapest. I had left my booking quite late. You have to pay for any drinks and food you have. I did this for a drink. At the far end I was hungry. After years of flying, sometimes quite regularly I have a pavlovian response to expect food and my body was bitterly complaining. Otherwise it was a quick check in. The seats were comfortable in a vinyl kind of way, very reminiscent of a bus in China. There were no hiccups and we arrived in Melbourne on time.
I met up with Jeremy and Elise at the airport and we drove down into Melbourne and parked in the Crown Casino car park. We had lunch at an outdoor cafe on the Yarra River. The food was ok, but I think that these places suffer form the same thing as the Sydney counterparts do. They have the market sown up, location, location, location and can charge excessive amounts. But as least in these places the food is actually good.
After lunch, I walked along the banks of the Yarra with mum. We visited the Leonardo De-Vinci exhibition. It was small, but very impressive. I loved the mock-ups of his machines. I am always impressed at how much the city changes between each visit. And I also like the things that they are doing to it. Federation Square is very cool. I used to be a Telecom Australia Telecommunications Engineer doing the planning for the Russel Street Telephone exchange, which included the areas like the tennis centre and the MCG. So I am happy to see that the endless plans for the preciscnt finally were implemented and that the result is good.
I was also pleased to see so many cyclists out on the roads. When I was a kid we would ride into town every now and then. There were never many cyclists, if any cyclists at all. We also went down to a bell sculpture. We had to wait about 20 minutes, but we were able to listen to the bells. It was very cool.
We hopped on the city circle tram. Mum caught it to Southern Cross Station to catch her train home. I did a loop to see the docklands developments and see what they had to say about the various bits of the city. I then had a wait for the start of the reunion. The reunions itself was a small affair with maybe 25 people there. It was great to catch up with so many people and I did not get a chance to talk to all of them. Some I recognised instantly, some I recognised their faces, some it too maybe a minute or two to recollect them and some I did nor recognise at all. But generally they were all older and wiser versions of the personalities that they were at school.
I headed back to my brothers place after the party.