Lane's Ramblings

So, what have I been up to this past week? Not a whole lot. On Thursday I drove out to Ferntree Gulley to do some running on the trails - I had hiked there a bit when I first got here and I thought it would be a nice place to do some hill running. I was a little late leaving work and agreed to give someone a ride home, which got me to the trail around 7:30 but I wasn't going to run far. From my hike a few months ago, I remembered one hill in particular right at the start, it was about a mile long and straight up so I headed up that and, man, it was tough. But at the same time it was great - living in MI for two years always had me dying for some elevation gain - these things aren't what I would call mountains but they're close and not bad. A few more times on these and I'll be ready for Mt. Washington '09.

But what would running in a new place be without getting lost in the bush with the dark coming oh so fast? So, my 4 tops run turned into a 9 with some road, big deal. In my defense, the last map that I saw had me hitting 5 different trails and I just forgot the name of one and headed off in the wrong direction. It was fun and I made it out alive and that's all that matters.

On to Friday. One thing that I learned in college was to close the bar. That doesn't easily translate to Australia since the bars close around the time that the sun comes up. So if you ever go to the Melbourne CBD you may run into these bars like I did that night: James Squire, Hard Rock Cafe, James Squire again (I got a t-shirt), get refused at the door at the Elephant and Wheelbarrow (someone was wearing sandals), Lounge (is that what it was called?), Exford Hotel, and Puggs Mahone. Add in a little walk down to St Kilda (4 miles) at 4am and that was my Friday night.

Saturday I went to the NGV (National Gallery of Victoria) to see the Juan Davila exhibit. He's a Chilean born, now Aussie, social and political commentary artist. It was quite good, I was very impressed although it was tough to catch all of the symolism, who some of the people were, and the history of some. Although I did think it would be funny if John Howard (the prime minister of Australia - come on people, pick up a newspaper) toured this exhibit and saw a caricature of himself as a dog being held on a leash by big business. I'm sure he's used to political cartoons but this is a 6ft by 6ft painting in the major art museum of the second biggest city in Australia.

Saturday night - a guy from work was playing in a band at a bar called the Barley Corn Hotel in Collingwood. He was concerned that the bar may be a bit rough for me but I thought it was kind of nice - I went to school in Flint, MI for the love of god. The band was awesome and I got to play some pool so it was a good night. We got a call from someone that had already left to tell us that the last tram from that stop was leaving at 12:38 - we checked the time and our beers and it was going to be close. What to do? Finish the beers and go to another bar. We walked up towards Brunswick St, found the Night Cat that had a band playing and was packed so we stayed there for a couple of hours. Luckily, I was able to get a cab home this time because it was a bit further and I got home around 3:30am.

Sunday - yeah, I didn't do too much.

This week? All work, man (that one was for you, Card). Oh, and this weekend is Australia Day (a fleet of ships landed near Sydney on 26 Jan 1788 - thank you wikipedia) so we get Friday off from work. I was invited to a barbecue with beer and cricket, which was very tempting, but I'm heading over to Adelaide instead, despite the criticism of some Aussies.