Melbourne Pre-Race

Yesterday, I ran the Melbourne half marathon.  I flew down on Friday afternoon and did some more New Things in Melbourne.

Friday:  I met Jeannie at Flinders St station, where they now have storage facilities (until 9:45pm).  We had dinner at ... um... a pub nearby with a fancy restaurant bit attached, but I can't remember the name.  Although it was a Friday, I didn't have fish and chips but the Atlantic salmon salad instead.  Then we were going to go to a Melbourne Fringe Festival show in which a friend of mine was acting.  The venue was in South Melbourne.  We put it into Apple maps.  There was a station nearby, named North Melbourne Station.  We got there and discovered we were on the wrong side of Melbourne.  We went home.

Saturday:  Breakfast at Las Chicas on Chapel St.  Wow.  One of those super feel-good places, as organic and local and sustainable as possible.  I felt really bad for not being able to finish.  Admittedly, my breakfast included a whole crop of spinach...  Very friendly service, too - we were wished a great day by about 4 staff as we left.

Chapel St shopping.  Flying down and back with only carry-on meant I was not inclined to shop.  But some of those stores were so tempting!  I did try on a dress but I resisted buying anything.  Except undies from the Bonds outlet store but that was more a necessity than anything else.  We also passed (and then went in) San Churro's Chocolateria.  This was on my list of things to do. 

I had my first Spanish hot chocolate (like an Italian hot chocolate but not as thick) - I went Azteca, with added chilli.  I love chilli in my chocolate, have been doing hot chocolate that way for years, and at Easter I make a chilli chocolate cashew mousse, but this was the first Spanish hot chocolate with chilli.  So good!  I thought about buying chocolates.  I did not.  A new thing (for this year, anyway) - not taking photos of all meals and coffees while eating out.  I hope you appreciate the absence of 'oh look, another coffee photo' photos.

Tram to Lygon St - with the trees all decked out in their fresh new leaves, this was so pretty!  I didn't get a photo though.  We had a late lunch (still not all that hungry after the very filling breakfast) at Papa Gino's, then had a few hours before the next thing on my list, so we went to the movies.  Cinema Nova was showing Searching for Sugar Man within about 15 minutes, and it was described as 'heartwarming' so we went for that.  After the second sentence we turned to each other and said, "This isn't heartwarming" - but it turned out to be true.  A documentary rather than a movie, it was the tale of Rodriguez - an amazing story.  I won't be able to do it justice here, so find it and watch it!

The next thing on my list was to see the sunset at St Kilda.  After the movie, we were both pretty tired...and my legs were starting to feel it... and it was overcast and rainy... and I could see us getting home close to 9 after dinner... As the primary purpose of this visit was the half marathon, I decided to abort the sunset/penguins mission.  We walked along South Bank (the Melbourne version) and back to Flinders St.

Rice pasta for dinner - a new experience for me - I'm tempted to buy some as it was rather yummy.  Another new experience was feeling like I could fall asleep at 8pm daylight saving time.  I held out until about 9:30, but still!