Australia

I have not seen any immediate family members since July – the longest stretch in my life without being with them. That stretch ended on Saturday afternoon when I arrived in Melbourne, Australia to join my niece, Molly, who will be doing a semester of study abroad in Australia. I began non-stop smiling a few days before the trip just thinking about being able to see Molly and we have had a great first two days together. Yesterday after I arrived to the house where we are staying in Caulfield (30 km from downtown Melbourne), we went for a walk to a wonderful park just a few blocks from the house. It was after 6:00 when we left for the park, but there is still sunlight until about 9:00, which is both really welcome and also very confusing as you can forget to eat dinner at a reasonable time and you feel like such a wimp to be tired when the sun is only just beginning to set. Molly and I hit tennis balls against a practice wall and Molly broke the strings on my racquet; she hits the ball so hard. So we took the tram to downtown Melbourne. The tram service in Melbourne is wonderful. We walk one block from the house and it takes us right to downtown Melbourne. Once downtown we got wonderful sushi, chicken skewers, and scallop skewers from a Japanese take out shop across the street from Federation Square. Molly and I were able to get enough for both of us for just a little over $10, which is a fantastic deal considering that everything else in Australia is super expensive: two apples ($3), bottle of coke (which we haven’t purchased) is $3.50, two single scoop ice cream cones ($9), and the cab fares for Molly and I from the airport were $90 and $70 respectively. Federation Square sits just above the river bank and boasts a beautiful courtyard and huge television screen that plays the Australian Open live. Molly and I watched a couple of tennis matches while enjoyed eating our delicious dinner in the courtyard and then walked for at least 4 miles to the famous tennis shop called “Prelli’s”. They string for a lot of the pros at the Australian Open and they also strung for me. We arrived there after 9:00 and as we tiredly pulled up to the shop we both said that we probably should have called first because there would be no way that they would be open this late on a weekend. We were right. They were closed. But as we peered in to the dark shop a man emerged from the car parked outside the shop and asked if he could help us. We said that my racquet had a broken string and we were just hoping to get it restrung before the match that we had the next day at 1:30. It turns out that the man is Mr. Smelrelli, the owner of Prelli’s and he opened up for us and agreed to have the racquet ready the next day. Not only did he do this kindness, but he also offered to give us a ride back downtown.

Today (Sunday) was Molly’s and my first full day together. We had an incredible day. We went downtown to pick up the racquet and then met KK, the brother of a friend of my aunt. He is an avid tennis player who lives in Melbourne. He took us to his tennis club and we played a couple of hours of tennis. Then Molly and I went to St. Kilda and walked along the beach, had a wonderful pizza dinner, strolled past the eclectic mix of shops in St. Kilda and then took the tram back toward Caulfield, stopping at a really fun area along Carlisle Street in the Balaclava neighborhood. This is a super cool area with great shops and restaurants. We stopped for frozen yogurt at “Yo-Chi” and I am sure we will make a point to return to this area several more times this week.  

 

A Full Day of Tennis

Today (Monday) Molly and I boarded the tram a little before 9:00, we went to downtown Melbourne and got a little breakfast, and then we were at the tennis venue before 10:00. We went to Margaret Court Arena where we saw a good women’s doubles match between two Czech women (Sofarova and Hlavackova) and two American women (Keys and Riske); we stayed in Margaret Court Arena for the next match, which we had front row, center court seats for. It was an amazing match between Dimitrov and Agut. Earlier in the tournament Agut beat Del Potro, but Dimitrov proved too much for Agut to handle. He was consistently hitting first serves over 200 KMH and his ground strokes were crisp and well-placed. He also had amazing speed and great gets. Molly and I stayed in those same seats for 5 hours and we baked! We also had internet connection in the arena and so we were following the Seahawks victory in the championship game against the 49ers. We were in sports heaven.

This guy, Dimitrov, is playing great tennis!

12th "man" down-under

Following the Seahawks victory and the two wonderful tennis matches in Margaret Court Arena we went to the Oval Garden for some lunch, where I heard my 20 year old niece say for the first time, “I am going to go get a beer”. I had to smile and tell her, “I never thought I would hear you say those words.” After lunch (beer) we headed to the practice and outer courts where we saw a couple of women athletes in wheelchairs practicing and some of the juniors matches. All of these were also terrific quality tennis. I think that some of the juniors serve close to as hard as the pros. From there we walked over to another stadium and watched a couple of mixed doubles matches. We periodically checked in on the Nadal v Nishikori match and were pleased to see how well Nishikori played and matched up against the world’s #1 player – although losing in straight sets stretching Nadal out to two tie-breakers and a 7-5 set. Once the sun set it really started to get cold and so we headed back to downtown Melbourne and got some dinner – watched the Federer v Tsonga match on the big screen in Federation Square and then walked to get some hot chocolate. 

I am really having fun vacationing with my niece. I am not sure when or how it happened, but it seems to me like overnight she has turned into a young adult. I am not talking about ordering beer, but about her maturity, her poise, and values. She makes her uncle proud. 

More Tennis

After enjoying a delicious waffle breakfast Molly and I returned to the tennis venue for a second full day in a row of great tennis. We began by watching a junior boy's match between the top seed from Germany and an unseeded player from Japan. It was a great match that went to tie-breaks in the first two sets and then ended 8-6 in the third. These are two great young talents. Molly and I went to a tent where the speed of your serve is measured and we discovered that our serves are about as fast the second serves of the pros; thus sealing our decisions not to try to make a career in professional tennis. There were a lot of great doubles matches that we watched, but for me the tennis highlight of the day was watching a Legends doubles match on a show court between Noah/Santoro v Woodbridge/Woodforde. While all of these players are great in their own right, Yannick Noah totally stole the show with his humor and engagement of the crowd - facing the crowd from the service line and hitting the serve backwards over his head, "hitting" volleys with this head and feet, taunting the ball boys and linesmen, hitting shots while laying on the court, and stopping mid-play to talk with people in the stands. He had the packed arena in stitches with laughter non-stop; from toddlers to seniors we were all thoroughly enjoying his antics. What a great ambassador this former #3 in the world player is for having fun in the sport of tennis.  

 

 

 



Oh, waffle shop how I love thee and wish at the same time that you were in Cambodia and am so glad that you are not!

 

 

Noah taunting a ball boy