Melbourne: Christmas & Ashes

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I spent the week over Christmas staying in St Kilda, which is the beach suburb of Melbourne. Melbourne was absolutely rammed full of English people over Christmas in the run up to the Fourth Ashes test starting on Boxing Day despite the fact that we had already lost the series! When first got to Melbourne the weather was pretty good and was nice and hot but on the second night was there I met up with Andrew, who use to work with and there was massive thunder storm while we were in the pub afterwhich the temperature dropped to around the 14 degrees mark for the next couple of days so was unseasonally cold! So much for Xmas on the Beach!! As got to Melbourne a couple of days before Chrismas was able to have a bit of time sightseeing around the city. Was very impressed by Melbourne, is a really nice city and really easy to get around as well as it had a compact city centre unlike Sydney's. Also met up with Kellie, who I met in LA who took me out for lunch and showed me some of the shops as had a very nice boss who let her have an extended lunch! In anticipation of the test also did a tour of the MCG which was pretty cool, saw Shane Warne up pretty close and the England team practising in the nets.

Me and Andrew at the MCG
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Had a nice Christmas day anyway despite the weather! Big thanks have to go to Ally , she somehow managed to rustle up a impressive christmas dinner in a hostel kitchen!! We spent most of the day with other people in the hostel watching movies so felt pretty much like Christmas at home watched Bridget Jones etc! We went out for a bit and surprisingly quite a lot was open in St Kilda, obviously they had realised good time to cash in with all the Brits about! When downpour started we sought refuge in nearest cafe and got ourselves some coffee to warm up! Obviously not just England that gets dodgy summers!! In the afternoon we did venture down to the beach for a walk but nearly got blown into the Sea by the gale force winds, but saw lots of other English stoically heading down there with crates of Beer not letting the weather put them off! Was a nice day albeit slightly hard to believe it was actually Christmas Day! We had lots of wine, played cards and ate a very impressive amount of the most delicious chocolate mud cake, in addition to getting through about 4 movies!!!

Christmas dinner courtesy of Ally...Wine courtesy of me!!
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Boxing Day meant one thing, the start of the Ashes Test at the MCG. Something I had originally been looking forward to for months and even been up in the middle of the night in June trying to wrangle tickets! Despite having lost the other 3 tests i was still looking forward to it as thought it should be a good atmosphere and hoped somewhat naively that England might put in a better performance! Watched the first day with Andrew and it was pretty dire all round, sitting out in the cold made it all the worse. I can only liken the experience the watching Crystal Palace lose 4-0 to someone like Crewe on a Cold January night...and then imagine that lasting 7 hours! As much as have always disliked Warne for being smug & arrogant I have to admit that his 700th wicket was one of the few higlights of the day! The Barmy Army were amazing in their support as ever and could be heard all around the ground, not hard though as Aussies never sing any songs! I had tickets for the second and third days as well. I went to the 2nd day but that was so soul destroying that couldn't put myself through it for a third day so went shopping in the morning, met up with Amber from the Contiki trip at Lunch and then met up with Ally in the afternoon and as the sun finally came out we went to Federation Square to watch the remainder of the test on the big screen which was much better as could sunbathe at same time! Went out for few drinks in St Kilda for last night in Melbourne which was good fun and we able to drown the cricket sorrows!