Changed for the better

Who can say if I've been changed for the better?

Who can say if I've been changed for the better?

Downtown Melbourne from St Kilda

As predicted I woke the following morning with a bit of a hangover. Triumph in the pub quiz had come at a price. It was still fairly early and grey & drizzly outside so I decided I would have a bit of a snooze before heading to the Melbourne suburbs to pay a visit to Pin Oak Court, better know by its screen name of Ramsay Street. I hadn’t watched Neighbours for years (I was of the Charlene & Scott/Kylie & Jason era) but I still wanted to go and see it. My planned snooze ended up being 4 hours of sleep and it was nearly lunchtime by the time I woke. I decided to give Ramsay Street a miss in order to head to the beach as the weather had improved. I headed down to the beach at St Kilda, a good walk from Dale’s but it helped get rid of the last bit of the hangover. I found a café near the beach for some lunch, opting for a table in the corner out of the way. It was a great place to do some people watching from. There was a couple on the table next to me who ate their entire lunch in complete silence. I think I probably spoke more than they did and I was sat alone.

Luna Park

The beach was fairly busy and I enjoyed a nice stroll along it, seeing what the local talent looked like. I guessed a lot of people were winding down in the run up to Christmas, which was only a few days away. After an afternoon on the beach and paying a brief visit to Luna Park (which closed) I headed back to Dale’s, getting back to his just before he returned from work. We asked each other how our respective days had been. I commended him for being able to get up that early and go to work after the previous nights drinking. He admitted that his morning had not been the most productive morning ever. Dale asked if I wanted to go out or stay in for dinner. I said I was happy to stay in as a quiet night was probably best if I wanted a productive day sightseeing the following day. Dale cooked us both some dinner and we did crack open a bottle of wine, but just the one.

The next morning I was up early and caught the tram into downtown Melbourne. I had a ride on the free tourist tram that does a loop of downtown Melbourne. It helped me put everything into place in terms of the local geography. I made my way to the building that housed the Eureka skydeck, an observation deck on the 88th floor. I opted to do “The Edge” as well, which despite the name does not involve sleeping with a member of the band U2. The Edge is a glass box that you stand in while it slowly moves out 10 feet from the building, allowing you to look 984 feet straight down to the pavement below. It is a rather unsettling feeling and I noticed the other people in the box with me tending to stay close to the edge where the metal frame was. I was tempted to stand in the centre of the glass floor and jump but I didn’t think my fellow Edgers or the staff watching on the CCTV screen would be too impressed. There was the obligatory photo opportunity, everyone in the box having to huddle against one wall to be out of the shot while groups and couples took it in turn for their photo. I declined to have my photo taken as I wouldn’t be buying it anyway given my natural tendency to look like a dick in photos (a phenomenon I call “being photogenital”) and didn’t want to have to stand there on my own while everyone else looked at me.

I met up with Other Dale for lunch. In the run up to Christmas he said that he would be able to take a slightly longer lunch break from work. He asked if I had experienced a Chicken Parma since I had arrived in Melbourne. I avoided making the obvious gay joke about not really being into chicken and said that I hadn’t. He suggested we find somewhere to go have it. It seemed like everyone else in Melbourne had had the same idea, the places along Hardware Lane were all packed with diners. We made our way to The Carlton and managed find a table. As luck would have it they had a lunchtime special – Parma & a Pot for $15. We ordered two, both opting for a pot of Blonde. I was tempted to put on my bad Irish accent and ask for a “Pot of Gold” but they didn’t seem to serve it and I wasn’t sure the barman would appreciate it.

  

View from the Eureka Skydeck

While we waited for our Parma we got to have a proper chat without the distraction of quiz questions or other people. We chatted about mutual friends from back in London, Other Dale asking how they were doing and what the gossip was since his return to Oz. Despite it being very easy to keep in touch with people who are far away these days with email, Facebook and Skype we had both noticed that other things seemed to get in the way. I told Other Dale that once I had finished my travels I would make more of an effort to stay in touch with people, a big undertaking given the number of new friends I was making on the trip. Other Dale really surprised me at the end of our lunch, telling me that he thought I had changed a lot, for the better, from the me he had known back in London. He said I was a lot more relaxed, easy going and seemed happier. I suppose it would take some doing to be less happy after quitting work to go on a year long round the world adventure but I knew what he meant. It was the first time that someone who knew me quite well had said that they could see a difference in me. I felt a lot happier in myself and that the trip had changed me but it was nice to have an external opinion.

I spent a bit of the afternoon trying to find a secret Santa present. Dave and Brian, my next hosts had told me that we would be spending Christmas Day with some friends of theirs and we were all doing a secret Santa. Luckily I had picked Dave’s name out of the hat so I didn’t have to try and buy something for a complete stranger. I was assured that the draw hadn’t been rigged. My forensic accountant side suspected otherwise but given I was no longer employed in that line of work I didn’t feel the need to investigate to see if there was some voting scandal to be uncovered. We had a $20 limit for the present which helped narrow it down a lot. Given that I was unversed in Australian shops I hit the main shopping street, wandering in to a number of department stores and other shops to see if inspiration suddenly hit me. Inspiration didn’t hit but during my wander round the shops I was hit by two prams, countless shopping bags and a bauble that one rather badly behaved toddler was throwing around while his mother studiously ignored him. I finally found something, made my purchases and left the busy shops. I was not a fan of Christmas shopping and I silently thanked my sister for all the years she had sorted out the Christmas presents, my only task being to transfer her the cash for my half.

“Who can say if I've been changed for the better?” 
Lyrics from For Good from the musical Wicked