Last night (Friday), we headed to the Coles grocery store to get some more things for dinner. The prices are much better at the larger stores, so we were much more relieved that we can actually eat well here! We made the chicken rice soup last night and ate out on our patio – it was really relaxing. We watched some more tennis then headed to bed. This morning, Zach and I got up and agreed to start our workout program. We walked down to the park and found a playground where we did pullups, pushups, and obstacle course stuff. That’s plenty for me on the first day, hopefully I can do more rigorous stuff as the weeks go by. Of course, Zach ran 2 miles yesterday and had no problem. The weather’s been great. Not too hot and always a nice breeze. Forecast said it might rain this weekend and possibly on Monday for the Opening Day of the Open. We’re hoping not, cause that’s the only time we can go. We pick our car up on Monday afternoon or Tuesday morning and then head to Canberra.
Today, we were mostly tourists. We took the tram again to downtown and walked around some different areas. We visited the Crown Casino, the largest casino in the Southern Hemisphere. It’s located right along the Yarra River and has a beautiful view of downtown. When we were walking into the casino, we saw Daniela Hantuchova walk out. She’s a pro tennis payer seeded 22 in the Open that starts on Monday. After we saw her, I kept trying to spot other tennis players, but couldn’t find any others. Zach and I walked around a small part of the casino and played a few slot machines. It is so beautiful with fountains and great architecture inside. We might go back there again some evening.
We then took a free bus tour that takes about an hour and a half and basically goes through downtown. After about an hour, we were over it, hopped off and caught the tram home after a stop at the gelato shop. This evening, we made stir-fry and rice and played about 4 hours of aggravation. Papa made a travel set of the game and it works great! I found out how very aggravating this game can be – the fourth game we played, I only got TWO going out cards the entire time!! Those of you who know the game probably have never had it quite that bad before!
Sunday, January 17, 2010
The weather is a lot cooler today with quite a bit of wind. We all wore pants and sweatshirts for the first time. We set out for the day around 9am and went straight to an Australian Open ticket kiosk to buy tickets for a Haiti charity exhibition that Roger Federer helped put together. We heard about it on the news last night and tickets cost only $10. We waited in line about 45 minutes to get tickets, but had no problem getting them. They were selling about 15,000 tickets and planned to pack out the Rod Laver Arena. We then took the tram around some different parts of town to kill some time. We went South towards the beach and saw St. Kilda. It wasn’t as nice as we all had thought it would be, and of course it was pretty cold, so we headed home real quick to grab a sandwich before we went to see the tennis match at 2pm. We arrived to the Melbourne tennis park right about 2pm and were stuck with nose-bleed seats, but it definitely didn’t matter. We had such a great time! The arena is fairly small and every seat has a great view. They first introduced all the players – Roger Federer, Rafal Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Andy Roddick, Lleyton Hewitt, Serena Williams, Kim Clijsters, and Sam Stosur. Jim Courier was the chair umpire and was hilarious trying to keep score and things in order. All the players had headset microphones on so we could hear them talking, laughing, joking and of course grunting! It was so fun and we saw all the player’s humorous sides. I think they ended up raising more than $200,000 for Haiti. It was really cool being at the Open early and a lot of the crew were still getting things ready. We can’t wait to go again tomorrow for opening day!
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