Planes, Trams, and Automobile

28.5 hours.  31, if you count from the time we left our house in Edina - that's how long it took to get to Melbourne, Australia.

This is Jeff.  It's 5am Saturday morning - which means two things: 1. It's Noon yesterday in Minneapolis (still don't really understand that), and 2. Team Northrup has done a pretty good job of getting on Aussie time already.

Janna has been adamant about us taking these little pills she got at AAA called No Jet Lag.  I am impressed.  Every two hours since we got on the first plane, she placed a pill in the palm of our hand and we chewed them until they dissolved.  I have no idea what is in them.  Maybe Janna is a drug dealer and has gotten us all addicted to some kind of narcotic?  I don't know.  But I never really felt all-nighter tired like I have on other overseas trips.

So here is the Edina to Melbourne trip in spark-notes style: SUV to MSP (Thanks Stu), Plane to LAX, Shuttle to different terminal, shuttle to plane, Plane to Sydney, Customs, Shuttle to different terminal, Plane to Melbourne, Bus to transfer station, Bus to Quay West hotel.

We left Minneapolis at 5:15pm and arrived in Melbourne at 11:45am.  Apparently, and even tho I we didn't see a sunrise and sunset during that time, we lost an entire day of our life.  We fought, we cried, we ran, we slept, we hugged, we laughed.  A normal Northrup day.

Once at the hotel, we did one of the most glorious things a human being can do: bathe.  Janna drew a hot bath.  I showered.  I am telling you, when you have lost an entire day of your life over the Pacific Ocean, a hot shower never felt so good.

But enough about that - Melbourne.

Sandridge Bridge

Our hotel is close to the center or Melbourne.  Like most cities in the world, it is on a river that quickly leads to the ocean.  We haven't seen the ocean yet, but the river is nice.  The city has a modern, European feel to it.  Kind of like some of the Swiss cites we visited - but without the cathedrals or centuries-old architecture/hot spots.  More like Toronto.

We started walking the city as soon as we were cleaned up.  And knowing full well that our sleep cycles were likely still thinking it was 7 hours later in a (the) day, we wanted to get out an walk the city - in 70 degree sunshine.  Friday afternoon in Melbourne has a cool vibe to it.  Not sure it is always like this here, but it feels European.  The people are less fat than in the US.  There are a lot of Asians here and fewer blacks.  The white people are mostly fit.  The men were predominantly sporting Euro-cut suits with no ties, black wing-tips, and and nice dress shirt with two buttons undone.  The women often wearing little dresses that, if you asked me - a guy - appeared to be dinner party casual, but I think most of the women we saw were working.  There are more people smoking than in the US, but not quite as much as Paris.

+39 Pizzeria

There seem to be an oddly high percentage of restaurants here.  Maybe we just walked the perfect storm of places to eat, but maybe Aussies in Melbourne are like Parisians - they appreciate food and prefer to have someone else make it for them?  Not sure, but we saw hundreds of clubs, cafes, diners, restaurants, pubs, bars.  The sharp looking, business professionals all taking in beer or wine.  Long lunches.  Late lunches.  People were eating inside, outside on the sidewalk, upstairs on roof-tops or mezzanines, open air cafe's, basement walk-down restaurants.  I mean, it just seems like everywhere you turn there is a restaurant.



We found a Punch-style pizza place with real Italians working the floor.  Everything was delicious.  We  love food, and Janna's simple rule has never failed us - find a place where lots of other people are eating.  It seemed like weeks since we had had something that tasted like it was real - not packaged or cooked up in a plane microwave.  Yum.

Federation Square

We walked a good percentage of the river near our hotel, the City Centre, and Chinatown before we ended up on some lawn chairs that were set up in a modern-archticture place called Federation Square.  Weird but kinda cool, the chairs were set up on the brick ground all facing a stage with a huge jumbo-tron screen above it that had trippy lava-lamp-style images flowing thru it while a red-bearded, Euro-suited, could-date-my-sister-looking hipster was spinning vinyl records.  The images on the screen were run by a woman seated at a table next to the DJ with three Mac laptops and a big monitor facing her.  I can only guess that she is some kind of "artist" and that is her medium.  Quinn and I were mesmerized.  The music was like jazz, soul, nina-simone, deep-track-ray-charles, smooth rap, lounge, mo-town, all wrapped up into a soothing, psychedelic, sound bath that washed over us while we sat in these chairs that faced the sun and the stage.  I don't have any idea why someone would stop and sit in those chairs, but we did.  I don't know what kind of visual and sound art they were offering, but we were all locked in.

I knew we had to leave when I started to feel tired - sitting there in lava-lamp heaven listening to vinyls that are sold in only the hippest of retro music shops.

We went back to the hotel.  Aubrey, Shelby and Gillian wanted to swim in the hotel's indoor pool.  I brought my kindle, but found myself dozing off.  The clock said 6:30pm.  No dinner for us tonight due to the late lunch.  My sleep-fighting got worse.  I tried to text Janna back at the room, but got no response.  She was a victim for sure.  Quinn was up there too - a goner.  I was so envious - my body wanted to sleep.  I sat there following a simple patter: watch girls in the pool, thoughts drift off, head bobs up, watch girls in the pool, etc.

Finally at 7, I told them we should go.

By 8 we were all asleep.  Day 1 (or is it Day 2?) in the books.