Daily Archives: October 19, 2005

After months of discussion, Riscy and I bought an new digital camera on the weekend. Canon 30D Digital SLR. I immediately took many brilliant photos of my leg:

I’m not an educated photographer, having a good camera lets me get away with a lot. Our old Nikon Coolpix 995 is still wonderful, but it was time to update to more MPix. We’ll have to invest in some lenses; I prefer a macro lense and Riscy wants a wide angle. It’s times like this I really appreciate being a DINK.

Anyway, back to the weekend review. Friday Night we went out to dinner to celebrate Riscy’s pay rise 🙂 Discovered that very expensive champagne isn’t worth the expense, but caviar and oysters are heaven.

Saturday we spent exploring some more exhibitions at the NGV at Federation Square, buying the camera, eating seafood in the David Jones Food Hall…

Saturday night we saw a contemporary dance performance by the Shen Wei Dance Company. The two peices contrasted beautifully with the frantic ‘Rite of Spring’, dancers zipping around in a – traffic in the city – type movement and ‘Folding’, a slow, meditative dance, very beautiful.

Afterwards we went along to the Artist’s Bar, it was part of the First Timers package. We were the only first timers there I’m afraid but we had good conversation with another couple and a few glasses of chardonnay to help the awkwardness.

We took advantage of our passes to the Famous Speigeltent afterwards and danced the night away, well to 2am anyway, the latest I’ve stayed up for a very long time.

The next day we headed out to Newport to catch up with my friend Lynne and her partner Roger. A lovely brunch in Wiliiamstown and a stroll along the beach really finished our weekend off on a fantastic note.

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Our weekend in Melbourne was heaps of fun only marred by Riscy having to work on Thursday night so he missed the performance of Theatre du Soleil – Le Dernier Caravanserail (Odyssees) at the Royal Exhibition Building. It was a very powerful experience, having grown from stories told by refugees, snippits of story of their journeys.

It was amazing that I was allowed in. I was rushing out of the hotel room when I realised that I’d left my tickets behind in Traralgon. I quickly rang the ticketing office and explained my situation, they were VERY understanding and ensured I got my seat. I purchased the tickets as part of the First Timers Package, so they had a way of verifying who I was. The performance was sold out with a rather long queue for non existant tickets.

I was very chuffed with the hotel I found on www.wotif.com. We had a refurbished one bedroom suite with full kitchen for very cheap. It’s on the CBD fringe, so very close to everything.

The next day I had a fantastic time visiting the National Gallery of Victoria at Federation Square. I particularly enjoyed the contemporary drawing exhibition, check it out if you have a chance.

I indulged in quick manicure at David Jones, a little ritual I have, and tried on hats, a big feature of Melbourne shopping at this time of year due to the spring horse racing carnival.

Met up with Riscy then headed to the Australian Centre for the Moving Image to see White Noise.
An exhibition of abstraction in audio visual art. ACMI always delivers. I wished I lived in Melbourne for that alone.

More in my next update.

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