Day 13

What a difference a day makes. A cold front blew through, and it was still warm-ish, but not nearly as hot. It was literally 16C cooler this morning, and that made it nice. Play started this morning at 10, so I had to be at work at 9. With James crashed on my couch, I did as much tip-toeing around as I could, but he did want me to wake him up at some point anyway, and he was going to borrow my shower since Andy was still sleeping from the night shift.

The walk in was awesome. The breeze and cooler temps really made it worthwhile. I popped in for a quick bite and then headed in. I got to the office in time to find that the Tasmania Travel Authority had held my room reservation for me at the hotel I thought was the best price performer in Hobart. Too awesome! That just means I need to figure out the storage of my extra bag here in Melbourne, and book a single night at the Medina Grand Melbournethe night before we fly back home. I decided it would be easiest to just stay there and then I can ask them to hold onto the extra bag for the two weeks and I can pick it up when I check back in. I think they'll be more ammenable to that. Besides, Colleen liked the Medina, and she seemed glad I had chosen that as our option. I am getting anxious now. Colleen will be here in 4 days, and I have almost everything booked for the trip.

So, I discovered there's a Botti playing tennis at the Open after all. Kevin Botti from France was entered in the Boys singles draw. I say was only because about the time I learned that, he lost. It wasn't even close. Still, I will have to post a comment to the Botti web site to see if they have heard of this particular Botti. Always a novelty to see my last name, since it is fairly rare, though I suppose the older I get the less rare it really is. If I could just get a visit to Agropoli (which is where our family name is supposed to be originally from) I might be able to find out my real family tree, instead of just piecing together bits and pieces.

Tonight we have made reservations (bookings) for the Belgian Beer Cafe:  Bluestone. It should be a tasty treat. I am considering the grilled mussels. Not much of a shellfish on the shell kind of guy (I never cared much for raw oysters, or steamed mussels) I have had citrus cooked mussels (basically, the acid in lime and lemon sears the meat) and grilled should also be done enough for me to get past the slimy look and feel. No $26 AUD bottle of beer this time, however. I am going to keep it reasonable. I really should not drink at all. It would be a welcome change to be honest. However, I will mention that I had my first dessert beer. It was raspberry flavored, which was quite interesting. They had two, one cherry (available in draft or bottle) and one raspberry (just bottled.) I got the raspberry, while one of my co-workers had the cherry. Both were delicious. I'll have to do some digging as to what actually qualifies as "beer" since neither really had what I would have considered a beer consistency. And, of course, we had a decadent Belgian chocolate waffle and chocolate mousse. I am drooling on the keyboard just thinking about them. :)

So, I noticed that I am spending a lot of time adding links to my blog posts. I also noticed they had gotten quite long winded. Not sure what either means really, but if it is annoying anyone out there, feel free to share. I probably won't do anything about it, but I'd still be interested in hearing. I like that google conversion feature, so I will likely not stop linking to those for the US readership. :-)

Another evening of laundry. Woo-hoo! I did watch the last three sets of the Federer-Haas match, which ended up being quite a good match. It was good to see Federer pushed as hard as he was. I don't know if anyone else has the game to do so remaining in the draw, but it does show he is mortal.

Cheers!