Up, Up and Away ...

19 March 2008

And we are away! Well, that's a bit of an exaggeration. It would probably be fair to say that today was one of those days where we seemed, in the old military adage, rushing to "hurry up and wait."

Last year when we caught a taxi to the airport we were convinced that the driver was out to establish the truth of the statement that you are more likely to be killed on the way to the airport than on your flight. Fortunately, this year, we arrived at the airport after a very smooth ride and a driver who seemed to prefer the music of ABC-FM to other stations. After such a good start, what could possibly go wrong?

Even the late departure of the plane to Melbourne delayed us by only about fifteen minutes and in this day and age; an age of computers, ADSL, mobile phones and speed, speed, speed, what's a delay of fifteen minutes?

Melbourne was as comfortable as an old shoe. We wandered around, did a but of shopping and had a bit to eat. Do you know SUGA? Well, its a Victorian "candy" outlet and well worth a visit to their website.I'm not certain, it is probably http://www.suga.com.au. Because of Virginia's background in confectionary sales she was very interested in the shop where they manufacture their wares. One of our students at Jane Franklin Hall had told her about it and we watched in absolute amazement as they hand threw the "rock" candy. They do a particularly interesting (albeit expensive) line with names actually imbedded in the "rock" candy. It is not too difficult to do something like "Dan and Amy," but "Alexander and Valentina" would be one hell of a challenge. I wish I had taken a picture or two but was so interested in what they were doing I forgot I had my camera in my pocket.

We then tried to get a taxi back to our hotel. After standing in the queue at Flinders Street Station for more than three quarters of an hour without a single cab arriving (and by the way, it was from 3.30 to 4.15)the only positive thing we could say was that we had advanced from twelfth in the queue to second as a result of the people in front of us giving up in disgust. Finally, taking a page from their book we gave up too and used the Airport bus to take us to the airport from where we called our hotel which mounted a rescue mission, coming to get us.

The weather remains kind and tomorrow morning we are off to Singapore.