I made it!

All is good. Flights were non eventful, and that is what everyone should hope for when they fly. Saw Maiko Morotani (GC tennis player '04?) in LA airport. A planned meeting and a nice hour spent. The flight from LA to Melbourne was just shy of 15 hours. Qantas airlines was very accomodating. With the way airlines have been handling people these days, I was quite surprised. I had a delicious dinner, snack and then breakfast all in about 8 hours. I was able to watch a documentary on the East German swimmers training for the '72 Munich Olympics. The female athletes, 30 plus years a later, talking about the drugs they were given with out their knowledge. Pretty amazing doc.
Melbourne... landed about 8:50am, on Saturday... (left Des Moines about 5pm on Thursday). Pretty amazing city. Upon driving from the Airport to the Quest on Lonsdale (about a 20 minute drive), I went through areas that reminded me of Chicago ("little Italy, "China town", then other ethnic clusters such as turkish, indian, etc). Driving was a little challenging... Steering wheel on the left side of the car and driving always in the left lane. Can't tell you how many times I used the windshield wiper instead of the turn signal. The turn signal is on the right side of the steering wheel. It was raining and cool, but this did not stop people from shopping, and hussling about. It is the end of winter here, so about 40F. After checking in, the first thing on the list was getting a good cup of coffee. Not hard to find. That warmed me up and got me re-focused. Found a "Safeway" shopping center where it seems everyone goes to get groceries. Found these yummy little "pikelets", mini pancakes that are packaged like bagels. Got more food than that of course. Food, coffee, gas, parking, everything is quite expensive. Parking meters are $3.25 per hour. My cup of joe was $3.00. So much for small town prices.

Woke up at 4:40am today (went to bed last night at 7pm... all australia time). Was dying last night... sleep deprivation makes you see funny things.

Heading out to meet Natasha Vasey '97 and her daughter for lunch/brunch in a few minutes in St. Kilda beach. Will take public transportation for that. Hope to write more tonight with some pictures!