Friday, June 27, 2014

24 hours in Melbourne

Claire's work was selected for the Exploration 14 exhibition of emerging artists at the prestigious Flinders Lane Gallery. We were all in Melbourne last night for the official opening of the exhibition - so exciting!




Each year one of the emerging artists "wins" a solo exhibition at this beautiful gallery. Because Claire had prepared us we were fairly unsurprised to hear that Annika Romeyn (another ANU student and coincidentally a former student of Claire's at Lyneham High School in another lifetime) was announced the "winner" of this rather wonderful opportunity, as her work was a clear favourite of the gallery  director.



The night didn't end there. We celebrated Claire's amazing achievements with a wonderful Italian meal after at Yak on Flinders Lane - with flavours to die for!

We kidnapped the boys this morning and took them for a tram ride up Elizabeth Street to the lovely old Victoria Markets. Rob had promised them a brattwurst and sauerkraut, but they were in no hurry, and spent ages taking a keen interest in all the food stalls, even the old school seafood and butchers' stalls.



They were amazed by seeing rows of beautifully arranged pigs trotters, livers and pigs ears for sale.



Ollie enjoyed his brattwurst but Rob couldn't tempt Angus - he preferred the raspberry doughnuts from the Polish baker.



The Victoria Market has an area out the back devoted to the sale of cheap bling and ticky tack and the boys were looking forward to checking that out.  But they were easily distracted by these cages of gorgeous chickens (for sale).




The boys eventually chose wisely at the bling stalls - selecting Pokomon cards to build on their existing collections.  I watched them play a game with them as we tried to warm ourselves over a hot coffee - It was surprisingly mathematical!



The boys showed us their hotel afterwards - the Intercontinental on Collins Street.  I offered to swap them our room keys at the Melbourne Citigate (on Flinders Street) but they wouldn't agree!



We love Melbourne, especially in Winter. The laneways are full of convivial warmth and life, the shopping and food outlets are amazing and we love the surprises around every corner - like the old ANZ bank building on Collins Street - still trading to this day - and looking amazing!



We met up again tonight: drinks at the old Young and Jacksons Pub opposite Flinders Street Station and then the most wonderful Japanese meal at Kenzan on Flinders Lane.  Claire chose beautiful dishes for us - fresh, delicately balanced flavours - enhanced with Japanese plum wine and semi dry sake - unforgettable! The boys just adored the food too. They'd been looking forward to it all day. They knew what to expect as they'd been before!




1 comment:

davey said...

Can you imagine anyone building a bank like that these days?? X