A very early start this morning. The alarms went off at 2:45m ?.
We got to the airport about 4am and it was heaving. We always seem to have issues flying international with Air NZ and the hyphen in my name but we managed to skip the queue and find a lovely lady to help us. Once upstairs there was a huge queue for customs as they clearly don’t open until a bit later (I do remember this from another early morning flight). But once they opened the queue moved pretty quickly and it was time for a wee bit of breakfast in Koru (no food on the flight for us much to the kids dismay) and before we knew it we were on the plane. The flight was delayed due to ground staff issues but not an issue for us. I managed to sleep most of the way ? although not sure anyone else got much sleep.
Once we arrived it was a pretty swift trip through immigration. They couldn’t seem to decide which carousel our bags were coming out on but eventually they did and we were out and picking up the car. We headed into town and to the hotel to drop the car and the bags. On the way in we passed a 7/11 much time Sophia’s delight and she let out a loud scream. Gave everyone a wee heart attack ?.
As the kids were about to die of starvation poor souls, we went for a wander and ended up at the Emporium and found a cafe for a quick bite. It was then off the MCG (or the “G” as the locals say). We had tickets for the Australian Sports Museum so had a look around that for a while before heading to our seats. It was Hawthorn Hawkes v West Coast Eagles. I’ve never watched a game of AFL before and from what I can tell it is basically a free for all. We had some rain but had been successful in avoiding it but the seats were wet … a few tissues took care of that though. The girls and I lasted until the end of the first quarter and then I took them to get some fries and a drink. Being the dutiful wife I also got Mark a beer and took it back to him ?, but we headed straight back to the bar. The boys came up at half time and we decided to head back.
It started raining on our walk back but fortunately we didn’t get too wet. Headed via Federation Square and picked up some water for the room. Everyone was pretty tired so we just settled into the room. We had intended to have room service but I changed my mind when I saw the prices and the kids all said they’d rather have McDonald’s ?. In the end we all walked down to Melbourne Central mall and got a bite to eat in the food hall (no McDonald’s though ?). We took the tram back to the hotel and once the roll away bed finally arrived we all went to bed.
