365 Pink Feather Boas All in a Row - Day 283 (Sunday 10 October: Melbourne Day 3 - Fabulous Friends and Family

Today felt very slooooooooooooooow.....

After not getting to bed till 1 a.m. after our Hairspray big night out, waking up early to get to brunch with my lovely friends, Andrew & Monika, in Elsternwick, about a 1/2 hour tram ride from the City. Of course, even after we'd woken up, checked out, and stored our bags, getting the tram to their home turned out to be quite the challenge.

For a start, the Melbourne Marathon was on with streets closed, and the only way out of the City was on the train or trams. So far so easy as we reached the tram stop with no trouble. Then the fun of buying a fare began with our first encounter with the delightful Myki system. It is supposed to be like the Octopus system in Hong Kong (which I used when I was there in 2007 and which performed flawlessly, no mean feat in a city as crowded and frenetic as it is), but from what we learnt later from gorgeous guy's family, it has been flagged from the start by malfunction and misfortune. All we got out of it was a lovely information screen that resolutely refused to sell us a single ticket of any kind. A tram attendant told us we could buy the tickets onboard but the ticketing machine online insisted we provide exact money which he had for one ticket, but not the other. So either Steve or I were illegal travellers on the tram system of Melbourne!

Fortunately I doubt there will be any marks on my permanent record so sigh of relief there. We made it to Elsternwick without any further flagrantly illegal acts and after checking Andrew and Monika's lovely apartment, we headed to a fab cafe at the base of their building, called lb2, and the yummiest Middle Eastern flavoured eggs (let's hear it for dukkah! YUM) I have ever had. Actually the only ones I have had, upon reflection, but delish and swish. It was wonderful to catch up with Andrew & Monika after not seeing them for 2 years or so, and introduce them to my darling man, who naturally got on brilliantly well with them. Time flew by all too quickly and before I knew it, they were driving us back to the city and asking me to do a speech at their upcoming wedding in February 2011 which is such an honour.

Back at the hotel, we had just enough time to grab our bags and highlight it back to Collins Street, where my gorgeous guy's sister, carolyn picked us up and took us to her parents' place for a big family get together. As was the case last time, his family was warm, friendly and incredibly inclusive - it is so nice to be treated as an equal spouse to a sibling and for no distinction to be made about gay or straight. I am just my guy's partner.. end of story. I even made it into the family's Kris Kringle gift exchange this Christmas! The afternoon flew by in a blur of conversation, fabulous food and laughter, and all too soon we were piling back into Carolyn's car for the trip back to the airport where...

.... chaos waited. The scene (above) that greeted us made me wonder if the wheels had fallen off the good ship, Virgin - remarkable since ships generally don't have wheels but then lately nothing surpises me with Virgin - but thankfully it just turned out to be end of school holidays madness and we made it through the craziness and onto our flight home, where I barely farewelled my guy befor collapsing in an exhausted but very happy heap.

What a wonderful weekend!