Pots & Pints in Melbourne

Landing in Melbourne was so exciting; even though it was a gray, dreary day, I knew our true adventure was just beginning.  The best part of the trip was that we were staying with our friends Lauren and Tim.  Staying with locals (new locals albeit) when you travel is the best way to see the sights and still have some comforts of home.  Luckily for Jaclyn and I, our hostess is a down-home Southern girl that knows how to bring on the hospitality.  The O'Connor's house was adorable but spacious and in a very quaint, residential area outside of the main city in Middle Park.  After crossing the International Date Line - somewhere over the Pacific - we landed in Monday.  We were exhausted but wanted to grab some lunch before naps.  We headed to the Pagoda Cafe, small, they don't have a website (gasp) but the food was amazing.  Trying different food when I travel is really important to me, I don't want to feel like I am eating at a Cheesecake Factory in the mall (which I love too) - plus, it's just fun.  Thankfully for me, Australia is big on cafes and restaurants with individuality and low on chains.  At Pagoda Cafe I got a salad that was amazing with roasted pumpkin, red peppers, avocado and goat cheese.  Given I was seriously delirious from lack of sleep, I forgot to take a picture of my meal (I made up for it the rest of the trip though).  After our lunch and a cool walk down by the ocean, we crashed hard and took a nap for a few hours.

Pre-naps - hostess Lauren & travel companion/BFF Jaclyn

Poor Lauren had to drag Jac and I to get up.  It had never felt so good to sleep.  We had a lot of celebrating to do that night though.  It was not only Halloween but Lauren's 30th birthday!  We had a little get together at the house with some of their ex-Pat friends and of course "snakes alive" cupcakes.  After a great dinner of pulled pork, chili and corn bread we headed off to drink more at the Middle Park Hotel.  Thankfully Lauren had educated Jaclyn and I on some important language to survive the night and the trip.  Without which, I may have been drinking more calories and getting some strange stares from the locals.

Middle Park Hotel - that a Pot for me

1.  Light beer does not mean light on calories, it means light on alcohol

2.  If you want an "American" light beer, you order a "blonde" - lovely

3.  There are three different sizes of beer - pot, pint and a schooner (even within Australia they vary, for more details click BEER)

4.  Nuddy = nude

5.  Root = sex ----- so be careful when you say you root for the local sports team!

It was such a fun night, I loved walking around the neighborhood, quiet but so many little bars and pubs. A very comfortable and homey area!  

Erin, Lauren, Jaclyn & I before the Cup

The next day we were off to the Melbourne Cup!!  A huge day in Melbourne - it's their equivalent to the Kentucky Derby and it's actually a state holiday so most have it off from work.  A lot of people go to the race, but if not then most gather for parties hosted at local pubs to watch.  We were lucky enough to get tickets, which required us to get dressed up like fancy folks - facinators and all!  I didn't have a facinator but luckily Lauren's dear friend Erin, hooked me up with one... oddly (or cooly) enough they sell them at the local Target!  We had a wonderful brunch at Erin and Brian's house where I had my first ever Tim Tam. Amazing.  Australian legend.  Brought home a box and it wasn't enough.

We took the train to the races where we proceeded to drink tons of champagne... oh, and we squeezed in some races.  Sadly, but not surprisingly, I didn't win a single dollar... even after betting on "Drunken Sailor".  Dunaden ended up winning in the closest race ever.  That's actually a fact, we witnessed history.  he view from the track and the company alone made for a fabulous day.  Just being in the city and seeing literally every person dressed up, reminded me of being in a Harry Potter movie (wrong country, I know).  After the race we hit the town, our first time out in downtown Melbourne. We went to A LOT of bars and I loved ALL of them.  I had so much fun, I can't remember all the names.  Here are some snapshots!  Good for my memory and blogging.

Flemington Race Track - site of the Melbourne Cup

First stop - Ponyfish Island - right in the middle of the Yarra River

Menu at Ponyfish

Possibly 3rd bar stop? 1806 Bar - cool, dark and a lil' swanky

Mint Julep at 1806 - representing Kentucky, of course

Up next - more drinking in Melbourne!  Off to explore the city and headed out to the Yarra Valley for a wine tour.

Love, Lizzie

Australia - Getting There

I could probably write an entire post on just physically getting to Australia alone.  However, it's not all that entertaining unless you like hearing about bad luck, bad customer service and bad turbulence.  I will say this though - I was dreading the flight.  I am not an easy flier and I'm convinced every plane I am ever on is going to crash.  My least favorite thing to do when flying is to fly over the ocean.    Logical or not, I think that if you are flying over land and something goes wrong then you still have a chance to make an emergency landing.  If you are flying over nothing but water for hours and hours, then yeah, pretty sure you're just sh*t out of luck.  I didn't want my fear of flying to stop me from this trip though, so I booked my tickets quickly, i.e. without over-thinking it.  I learned that you can't avoid reality for ever and then proceeded to spend the two weeks prior to leaving consumed with thinking about the flight.  I had visions of going mentally insane somewhere over the Pacific Ocean and having to be restrained by an Air Marshall.  I also had visions of being sucked out of the plane - seat and all -only to land on a strange and invisible island a-la LOST.  So, I talked to my doctor and begged and begged for a miracle pill.  While, she wanted to help me, she also didn't want to be the next the Dr. Conrad Murray.  So, we settled on Valium.  I take Xanax to fly to Florida so I wasn't going to let it go at that.  Mama needs a little extra help mm-kay?                                                                                                                                                                            

Landing in Sydney after flying for 13 hours

So, off we went Boston - Denver - San Francisco - Sydney - Melbourne!  I will say, for whatever reason, the flight from San Fran to Sydney was the best one.  The planes are massive, they have low lighting and friendly flight attendants who treat you like you paid to be there.  Novel concept.  Also, the pilot gave us a lot of information up front, my favorite bits of info: there were FOUR (4) pilots in the cock pit (safety in numbers) and there were storms over Hawaii and Fiji so we would experience some turbulence but they would still be landing the plane around 8:30 AM (so confident).  Also, I enjoyed when he told us we were going to miss Sunday altogether and just arrive on Monday.  It's the little things apparently, but that made me feel like a time traveler.  Finally, after a few Valiums, a few mini-bottles of wine and one too many carbs we began our descent into Sydney 13 hours after leaving CA.  Maybe I was high on my meds/drinks/lack-of-real-air but when we broke through the clouds and saw Australia I was literally in awe.  Just dumb-struck by it's beauty.  Even from the plane you could see these huge cliffs, rolling beaches and flowing inlets of water.  I've never been so sappy in my life, but it was love at first sight.

Welcome Basket from our hostess

We had one more short flight from Sydney to Melbourne but I didn't even care because we found out that Sarah Jessica Parker was on our flight to Melbourne.  Holy idol time.  It was like no one in the Sydney airport had ever seen a celebrity before, literally every employee there told us about SJP being on our plane.  These wild Aussies were winning me over quickly!  I did get to see her a couple of times - boarding, on the plane, and getting our luggage.  She was headed to Melbourne to promote her movie "I Don't Know How She Does It" and well, I can tell you... she does it with 5 Louis Vuitton suitcases and 3 assistants!  She was predictably adorable though and teeny-tiny.  Like the teeniest-tiniest woman ever.  She waved and said hello and then was hurried out of the dingy airport.  SJP does not do dingy airports, don't kid yourself.  The rest of us peons waited 20 minutes for our bags, but I digress.  Thankfully our hostess for the week, the beautiful and hospitable Lauren Keibler O'Connor picked us up because I was starting to feel delirious.  She was even more adorbs than SJP and she was carrying a Coca-Cola classic.  Thanks girl.

Coming up next - our adventure in Melbourne begins with some sleep, some pints, pots and lots of laughs!

Love, Lizzie

Time to Share

With all my travels and my overly obsessive picturing taking, I thought documenting my adventures made sense.  I guess at this point, I have traveled quite a bit.  I didn't necessarily set out to do that, but I do really love going away!  I find myself saying "yes" any time anyone ever asks me to go somewhere.  I never really thought to say, no.  I love seeing different places, even middle of nowhere places.  I just like it if someone mentions Middle-of-Nowhere, Minnesota - I can say, Oh, yeah, I've been there.  I'm a visual person so when I go to a new place, I take it all in and love every minute of it.

My goal here is to share all of the places I've been including my local hood - New England - plus further and father away in the United States, Europe and Australia.  The two places I haven't been but I plan to one day are South America and Asia.  I still have time, right?  I hope to share some of my favorite places in the world, literally - hotels, restaurants and more.  Since I live in Boston, I will share a lot of local travels too.

I hope you follow me on my adventures and it inspires you to go explore a new corner of the world!

Safe travels!

Love, Lizzie

Melbourne, Australia