One of the QV team was having her last day before starting maternity leave so I joined the team for her farewell lunch. It was nice to see everyone celebrating with her, sharing in her happiness. I was quite surprised to see how much depth of variety there was in this almost hidden shopping centre. It has a nice little faux-laneway feel with open air areas. I had no idea it was even there until today! A hidden gem of Melbourne.
My fellow office administrator and I got through quite a lot but of course there is always more to be done! We certainly have more to do, but we at least know which way we're going with a few things now. It's a lot to learn, and she's anxious to know everything now and therefore being quite hard on herself. I'd be exactly the same in her position. I know she'll be fine though, she's a quick learner and it's always fun to teach those!
After work, I slipped out of the Little Lonsdale Street exit and headed to the front of the State Library to await Mr Smart. I scanned the tram stops and surrounds as I ascended to the stairs at the base of the giant stone columns but didn't see him. I turned and sat and as I did something soft landed on my head and I heard a laugh as Mr Smart sat down beside me. Apparently he had seen me from the tram stop and followed me up the steps, a Melbourne Victory scarf now adorned my shoulders.
It took us a while to decide on somewhere for dinner. We are notoriously slow to decide on things when we try to make a decision together. And our first choice looked too busy so we moved on, wandering around looking for somewhere likely to have us in and out quickly. Eventually we ended up in Chinatown on Little Bourke Street. We had a quick dinner, then caught the 86 tram down to Etihad Stadium for tonight's football match.
Tonight was my very first live football match! Now for those of you Australians up in arms saying 'But footy season is over!', I am of course referring to soccer but in the interests of harmony I am agreed that AFL is not the only game called football.It was a Melbourne Victory vs. Melbourne Hearts game. The stadium was pretty full, the crowd topped 42,000 people! Mr Smart's friend had got there early and was saving us seats on the halfway line on the third level. It was a great view!
It was funny and sometimes surprising to watch the activities of the official fan squads for both teams. Victory's fan squad had some hilarious co-ordinated chants and movements. They had a kettle drum or something which kept up an aggressive beat for the others to follow. I imagine it is quite intimidating to the players if they can't block it out. My favourite one was when they all pogo-jumped for a few minutes. The other funny moment was the arrival of a flock of seagulls halfway through the match. With all those white dots flying about it was sometimes hard to keep track of the white dot that was the ball! Though Mr Smart, wag that he is, did point out that the white dot I wanted was the one without wings!
I will admit, I found the game a lot more confusing without the TV commentary and Mr Smart had not yet explained the practice of 'avoiding the offside trap' so I was confused a few times when offside wasn't declared. Also, watching from the side gave me a perspective problem. Shots at goal that looked dead on, turned out to miss by miles! In the end it was a home game loss for Victory, 1-2. There were three brilliant shots at goal that fell short, the most heartbreaking one was when the ball hit the cross bar of the goal!
Overall, even though we lost, I had a good time. The atmosphere of a live match in any sport, is always much more fun than watching it on telly. That said, I still enjoy watching Liverpool's matches from the comfort of the couch with commentary! Perhaps next time I should take a small radio so that I can have the commentary in one ear.
We caught the tram back up to the car at QV and proceeded back to Mr Smart's place. We watched an episode of Red Dwarf and then curled up for sleep. Pizza Cat was again indignant that she'd been shut out of her bedroom.
Today's food was:
- Breakfast was yoghurt, berries, fibre toppers, slivered almonds and pumpkin seeds.
- Morning snack was four brazil nuts and one dried peach half.
- Lunch was at Squisito Bar at QV in Melbourne with almost the whole Centre Management team! I had a salad of tuna, a free-range soft boiled egg, cos lettuce and small cubes of roast sweet potato with balsamic and olive oil dressing. It was very light on dressing but quite scrumptious.
- Dinner was at Dragon Boat in Chinatown. Mr Smart and I shared an entree of scallops in ginger sauce and then a main course of deep fried calamari with spicy chilli salt. Nom nom nom!
Apologies for the late post for Friday folks. Mr Smart and I didn't get in until 11pm and it just seemed a teensy bit late to be staying up for blog writing! Have a wonderful weekend!
Jess
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