Sunday, August 9, 2009

I'm sorry, my nose is tilted so high in the air I can't see you properly down there...

So, this week my fabulous sister Tammy was in Melbourne for a business trip. She stayed an extra night, flew me down to stay with her an extra night, and take me to see 'Wicked', for my combined Birthday and Christmas presents this year!!!
Our ritzy weekend began as soon as I got on my Qantas flight. I have flown budget airlines for so long, it was shocking to be offered food, headsets, pillows, blankets, and anything else for my comfort, for free! Lol... my nose raised itself a little in the air. I also have huge amounts of faith in Qantas pilots - I get the brand name thing from my dad always buying Kraft peanut butter and Kellogs and Colgate, but I legitimately think the pilots must be better.

Upon my arrival at Melbourne airport, I saw a man standing by the baggage carousel holding a little sign with my name on it! I picked up my suitcase and he led me to a big, fancy, black car. I got in the back seat, to find a bunch of roses for me, and magazines and water for my convenience. I rode with my little nose pointing upward at a 45 degree angle all the way to our hotel.

When I got to the hotel and my chauffer pulled my suitcase out of the car, I began to lift it up the front steps but a man in a little hotel uniform suit ran out the door to assist me. I asked him to take it to the room where Tammy and I were staying, and found Tammy reading and waiting for me in the foyer. I had to lower my nose for our little 'Oh my goodness the chauffer was sooooo funny - were the roses you? Qantas food is free! This hotel looks awesome!!' reunion and catch-up.

That afternoon we were both tired, but I felt a little too 'wired' to have a nap! Mum had warned Tammy though to make me have a nap so I didn't fall asleep in 'Wicked' (my usual bedtime being curtains up for the first act), so we (also being starving) ordered a room service lunch and put on a movie. The room service was adorable! A cute older man wearing coat tails brought it up, and the silver domes just make food taste better! We got some gourmet sandwhich bites and salad, I had a club sandwich and Tammy had a steak and egg sandwhich, and everything was absolutely divine! :) This is me, excited about our lunch delivery. (Please note the tall bottle that looks like it contains alcohol. That's how they served my spring water - I actually had to figure out how to use a bottle opener to get it open!) And below, is the gorgeous Caesar salad, the sandwhich bites (photo for you mum! lol :)), and my club sandwhich (just so you can feel like you were there with us! :)):
After our scrumptious meal, and a bit of 'Fools Gold', we were both ready for a nap/half asleep, but room service came a knocking and we never say 'no' to people who want to clean up after us, so Tammy said "Oh yes we were just leaving", while I struggled to open my eyes and put my coat on, and we left to let them clean. We decided to explore the hotel for 20 minutes, then go back and have the naps we were both now ready for. Our hotel was awesome. It was adorable 5-Star service, but had last been redecorated probably in the 50's was Tammy's guess, and it has a lot of cool things which make it charming. Some of the ones we found on our sleepy afternoon are the original elevator shaft, old stained glass doors on the really big rooms with people's names on them (we're sure this must've been a relative), the hallways, and the original staircase with tiles on the floor that Tammy loved, because of the way they added to the atmostphere.


We thankfully retired to our room (which looked lovely! - Here's a shot of my favourite part (curtains! Chair!) and a part Tammy thought was hilarious (what a creepy way to hang two tiny pictures on a big wall!) Oh no! - Just realised I didn't get a good photo of the wall pictures. Imagine a huge wall, with two tiny photos hung right next to each other, right in the middle of the wall. It was pretty funny.

So we had a good nap, then got up to go to our show!!! We took a taxi to the theatre (a couple of blocks away), and thought we'd get some sort of little snack before the show (lunch was basically going to cover dinner). We found a Starbucks and got hot chocolates and one piece of raisin toast to share, then got in trouble cause Tammy made me sit at the next door restaurant's outdoor seating right in front of their doorway when Starbucks was full and they didn't have any customers themselves, so we sat at in a pretty little (slightly freezing) outdoor area to eat, and discuss the greater things in life. We then went back around the corner to the theatre.

I wish I could've filmed the show, so you could all see how fabulous it was, but after I got in trouble in the theatre for puting my drink on a wooden ledge, I got in trouble for taking photos, so I put my camera slightly grudgingly away and I can't show you anything at all. But it was awesome!! :) The first act was the storyline I knew more about, but everything in the second act was a surprise which made it fun. There were also heaps of pretty hilarious bits, and I loved the dancing! Tammy loved the singing! I also loved the singing, but Tammy says she loved it in a way that makes me think she might have loved it a tiny bit more than me. She wants to be reborn one day (totally not what is going to happen, according to our beliefs lol) with a broadway voice. I have no desire to be reborn with a broadway voice. But the girls in the show were amazing and hilarious. I loved it! I think it's a bit criminal that they won't let you take photos or record, but totally understandable, but I hope they record it sometime and sell the DVD's, because it was awesome and I wish I could watch it again and again!!! Hopefully they make a movie of it sometime, but it wouldn't be the same as the show! We enjoyed it immensly, along with the red drinks and green pringles (very witch-y snacks ;) If you ever get the chance, it was amazing! (Thankyou soooooo much Tammy!!!! :) xoxox)

We made our way back to our hotel, after a few long detours to look for taxi ranks, as my wraparound skirt undid itself and started to fall down underneath my long coat and my blisters from my lovely new shoes (thanks Mum!) burst and regrew. We were both blissfully exhausted, and went straight to sleep.

The next morning we did some more internet research on what to do in Melbourne, but we didn't really find anything different, and I was convinced we should just ask the concierge at the front desk, so we got ready to leave the hotel, packed our bags, and then called to ask if the hotel could keep our bags after we checked out, before we went to the airport. A bellboy came to our room to collect them, and we again expressed to each other our love for 5-star service.

We went downstairs to the hotel breakfast buffet, which of course, was fabulous. (Thanks Mum and Dad for shouting us breakfast!!). We had a course of hot food and a course of fruit, and I went back for another one of their mini sausages and bacon because they were so good! One of the cute things they had on their buffet all round the fruit section, were little shot glasses of strawberry smoothies!!! Cute!!! And yummy! :)

Then we saw the concierge, who gave us a map of Melbourne and suggested we take the 'City Circle' tram around the city, to get to see the whole city (about an hour round trip), and showed us a few places were it would be interesting to get off and look around. I have never taken a tram anywhere before, so this was a little bit exciting. We got on the first City Circle of the day, right outside our hotel, and enjoyed the speakers in the tram (it's a tourist tram) telling us what we were seeing and passing, and recommending cool tourist-y things to do. So many of them sounded interesting, but time consuming, and we only had a few hours. By around a quarter of the way into the journey, the tram was absolutely packed. Tammy and I had squished together on a small seat, and there were people sitting and standing everywhere. I had issues with their smells, and became convinced they all had the swine flu, which seems to kill pregnant women, so became a bit uncomfortable. We passed at one point a new Harbour Town outlet, which looked comfortable (secretly we both would've been happy getting lunch and watching a movie, but we were trying not to take the Melbourne thing for granted), and interesting places like the immigration museum and the original prison, where Ned Kelly was executed and you could 'walk the gallows' or be 'arrested' and put in a modern cell. We decided to take the whole round trip, then come back and go to the Harbour Town. When we got back to the starting point, the tram was so gross and crammed that we pushed our way off and caught a taxi back to Harbour Town. Taxis are lovely and uncrowded, and they take 8 minutes instead of 45 minutes to get to the same place.

Tammy bought some cute shoes I wanted, and I bought a cute maternity dress, and we had an extended lunch and chat at the Coffee Club - perfect for us :) We braved the tram back to the hotel, and decided that if we ever came back to Melbourne, we'd go to the Ned Kelly prison, because it sounds awesome :)

Here is our over-crowded tram just after we escaped the second time, our hotel from the outside, and me and Tammy (just to prove Tammy was there!) out the front of our hotel. You can see Parliament House behind us.





All in all it was a fabulous trip and we loved it. I've since had plastic surgery/James mocking me surgery to get my nose back into place, but whenever I start remembering the chauffered car, the 5-Star service, the amazing show, taking taxis, Qantas not charging me for their food, lol., it starts to raise itself again just a little bit.

Thankyou Tammy for the awesome trip! When I'm rich, we'll go again sometime ;) Love you! xox

7 comments:

Sandy M. said...

Loved reading about your trip Abby! I know you told most of it to some of us when you got back, but having it written down in your own inimitably hilarious style is like having a photo rather than just a memory! :) Thank you!

Why were the two poorly-hung photos 'creepy'? (Perhaps from being hung... and poorly too..)

I didn't know that your skirt had unwrapped itself! (You didn't tell us what happened with that - did you leave it on the dark sidewalks of Melbourne?) All power to you that you could describe yourself as 'blissful' after recounting the skirt thing and the blisters thing :) That's our girl!

I think that you have captured the essence not only of your trip but also of its 'blissful' participants exceptionally well in your entry, Abs. I think you are a fine writer!

I loved the photos! Thank you for putting them up. I too wish that they would allow photos in the theatre, (while understanding why they don't). It was wonderful though, wasn't it!

(By the way, your baby is a turnip this week... :)
xoxo

Tammy Lorna said...

Hey Flabby!

Very cool recitation of the trip! You make me want to do it all over again. It was heaps of fun to spend some time with you. You didn't put in enough detail of our 'getting back to the hotel after the show' ordeal, but I suspect it's just because it was too painful a memory for you :) Took me an hour and ten minutes to get back to the office from the city after a late client meeting the other night - I'll have to tell you about it sometime, but it made our Melbourne ordeal seem like a little happy skip through meddows of green :)

Thanks for coming with me! Thanks for writing about it on your blog (I'm just going to send my readers to your blogsite I think!). And thanks for not screaming on the flight home - all much appreciated :) I've decided I like Melbourne.

Now we just need to plan our trip to see Jersey Boys!

xo Tammy

Jess said...

What an awesome trip! I think I would be too shy to order food service and have the bell boy take my bags. I would feel bad - or maybe not, I guess Jonny is kinda my own personal bell boy :)

I hope you always remember this holiday. All I know is that it is a LOT harder to do things once you have a bubby around. But hey, thats why you have heaps of babysitters to choose from :)

Love ya heaps!

charrette said...

This is beyond fabulous! Boy, does Tammy know how to spoil her sister...in the best possible way! Glad you two had so much fun.

I'm off to spoil my little sister...

(and the word verification letters are THEAT!) (as in theater...)

Steph said...

Wow, what a great trip. % star is heaps fun. On our honeymon we stayed in Brunei in a 6-star hotel, it was amazing. But in Paris we stayed in a 3 star, not as nice, haha but heaps fun. Good girls trip before bubs comes. But even when baby comes, you can soo ttavel with kids, just preparation but the younger the easier and then the older the easier. so in general just do it, kids get use to it. By the time I was 14 I had been on over 15 planes trips including from Europe to Aussie twice. But fun to read your blog, you are a great story teller and have a bvery nice sister!!

Kaili Ittensohn said...

Wow, what an awesome sister you have. Its so nice that you two got to spend some quality time together :D Sounds like a fabulous time!

Beth and Robbie said...

So like mum, i loved reading about your trip. Unlike mum, however, YOU DID NOT TELL ME ABOUT ANY OF THIS!!
i didn't know you had been picked up from the airport by a guy with a sign!
i didn't know you had had bellhops and room servies and the like!
MAAAD tell your sister about your trip!
..
I am glad, however, that it sounded so good :) Like jessima, i dont think i would have taken advantage of the bellhop people etc as much cos i'd feel bad, but sounds like it was perfect for you!
(that came out wrong. it sounds bad..it's not meant like that :))
Anywyas, love you. i'll grill you bout it when i see you later.
much loving xoxoxox
ps. yes, tammy is SUCH a spoiler :P...again, that sounds wrong. again, it's not meant like that :)