Anto's birthday

We won't talk about how old young Anto turned this birthday, but Astrid told him he wasn't old, so that is all that matters!

For days Astrid had been talking about how she was going to wake Dad up for presents and drink her milk in the bed while he opened them. Sure enough she was wide awake early and chattering about presents!  Anto got to open an array of presents with Astrid help.  Despite having helped me wrap them all up just a couple of days earlier she was excited to see what each present contained. She was also very proud of the handmade card she had made for Daddy, complete with hand prints.

Since Anto's parents were flying out to the UK mid-morning we had to head for an early breakfast to celebrate the occasion. This meant being out the door at 7.30ish but luckily Astrid was raring to go. I asked her to go and pick a 'pretty outfit' for dad's birthday. Here is what she chose:

I was saving this dress for some events later in the year, but at least I know she likes it!

The cafe we had planned to go to (which we have been to before many a time) wasn't opening til 9am, which would have been a little rushed with getting the intrepid travellers to the airport on time so we looked for somewhere new and interesting. Clearly I'm not on the ball with the hipster breakfast scene since after about 2 minutes of googling during the week I found a host of cafes with great reviews that I hadn't heard of. We chose the Elk & Pea. It turns out it was indeed very hipster, and very busy!  We got there right on opening and the place was quickly full.  We had a booking though and an excellent table. The decor was amazing, the wait staff very hip but friendly, the food very, very good and the coffee excellent!  We will definitely be going back!  I didn't take photos of my food since I was busy catching Miss very grown up drinking her babycino and eating her own poached eggs and bacon.......

When did she get so grown up that we have to order her own 'proper' meals?  As you can see she ate and drank well.  Anyway, back to my meal. I had the Quinoa, Feta and Zuchini hash browns with roasted tomato and a poached egg. It was cooked to perfection and delcious.  Anto and Trevor had the Huevos Rancheros, Michael the Grande breakfast and Lorraine the scrambled eggs on toast. All the meals were lovely..... two coffees later we figured it was time to escape to make the most of the day and get the travellers on their way.

After a last play at home with her grandparents Astrid gave them their goodbye cuddles. She was excited they were going on a plane and 'to England' but several days later she is still asking when they are coming over to visit, so I'm not sure she entirely gets that they will be gone for a long time!

The rest of the day was spent enjoying the sunshine and getting jobs done around the house. Once Astrid had awoken from her afternoon nap she helped with the birthday cake making (which involved chocolate and a lot of mess). I have a separate post on the cake disaster coming up......

After suitably covering herself in chocolate (and consuming quite a bit) we managed to get her bathed and handed over to Uncle Mikl, who was in charge for the evening while we acted like civilized adults and went out to dinner and a movie.

Escaping the house all to efficiently we headed back into the city for dinner. We had hoped to go somewhere nice but there isn't much open on a Sunday night that interested us so we opted for some quick and easy Mexican. Anto's was apparently quite acceptable, mine was lack lustre and both of us finished our dinner in about 20 minutes so we headed out for coffee and cake.  Even Koko Black was closed early on a Sunday so we settled for good old cafe Essen and shared some pear and sticky date cake and coffees.  Unusually Essen were also very efficient and despite wasting as much time as possible it was still 45 minutes before our movie!

We wandered around for a bit but nothing was open and it was very quickly getting cold so we then attempted to have a drink at the very deserted cinemas (well Anto did, I just read the cocktail list with envy) but apparently Sunday night is not the night to go out as most of the drink ingredients were not available so he scored a free glass of red in lieu of the interesting cocktail and we settled in with the other 4 patrons to see Now You See Me which was surprisingly entertaining.

Of course the concept of a relaxing dinner and late movie is good, but in hindsight we are too old for that kind of caper and it was midnight before we were home and ready for bed! Next year I think we will try for something earlier......

29 April, breaky, shopping and the long trip home!

We had a good sleep on our last night and Melbourne and woke up with a plan to try a nice cafe for breaky. I had gotten some cafe recommendations off the lovely Louisa and had been dying to try some out.  We figured this morning was a good opportunity.

Louisa had recommended a few places that were kid friendly and had great food and coffee.  The one we decided on was St Ali North, so we caught the tram to North Carlton and had a pleasant stroll to the cafe on a cool but sunny morning.

I can tell you the way to make you feel really old, sitting on a tram full of uni students (who incidentally looked about 14) chatting about their lives, while you wrangle a hungry toddler! My uni days felt very far away.  Nevertheless, we had a lovely morning ahead while they were off to further their educations. I think I had the better deal.

Once at the cafe we ordered our coffees, including a babycino for Astrid. This place seemed to take their coffee seriously and we weren't disappointed.  The coffee was excellent and Astrid enjoyed the real melted chocolate in her babycino.  Feeling slightly warmer and more caffeinated we started on breaky. I had the super granola and it was extremely good! Anto had the 'Big English' and said it was excellent. I can attest to the fact that the mushrooms were awesome as I stole most of them!  Astrid had the spiced fruit toast and wouldn't eat the labna but thought it tasted pretty good with butter.  It was damn good fruit toast. I sadly didn't take any photos, but check out their website if you are interested in the food or coffee.

After another coffee for Anto we all headed outside so Astrid could have a play on the equipment.  She thought the park was just the right size for her and was having a ball despite it still being a little bit cool.  I grabbed a couple of quick photos on the point and shoot to at least document our adventure!

We eventually dragged her away from the park with the promise of another tram ride.  We definitely enjoyed our visit to St Ali North and will happily return next time we are in Melbourne! After a short tram ride we were back in our hotel in time to pack up and check out.  Our apartment had been a good place to reside for the past few days and we could easily have stayed longer.

After leaving our bags at the hotel we headed back towards the city and decided to get on the city circle tram for bit of sightseeing. Both Anto and I had done this previously but we thought Astrid might enjoy it and we planned to get on and off and show her the sights and take some photos. Sadly though every tram was packed. Not with tourists (of which there were a few) but mostly with students and business people who took advantage of the free service, but made it impossible to actually do any sightseeing.

After about 20 minutes and not seeing much we jumped off near a cake decorating/supply store we wanted to check out.  The store was extremely toddler unfriendly but full of great things. We grabbed a few things we could use for Astrid's upcoming birthday party and headed back to the tram. Seeing yet another over full tram we decided to walk across the road to Flinders street station and catch the train back to Central.  In the meanwhile Astrid devoured a cheese sandwich as an early lunch.

Having given up on our sight seeing and having an hour or so until our bus pick up from the hotel we decided to wander Melbourne Central shopping centre and grab some refreshments.  We had walked through the shopping centre a few times over the weekend and still didn't have time to check it out thoroughly.  We did stop for milkshakes/iced chocolates that Astrid was happy to participate in and then headed out on a nice walk back to the hotel.

Back at the IBIS we only had a short wait until our skybus turned up. It was now well into Astrid's normal sleep time but she was not keen on napping on me during our bus transfers back to the airport. Of course the transfers were all too efficient and we made it to the airport in plenty of time for our flight but it gave us time to grab some late lunch in Qantas club and try and convince the toddler of the virtues of having a rest on the couches there before boarding the plane.

Sadly she didn't take us up on our suggestions and instead sampled all the food on offer and chatted to everyone nearby.  Anto's brother, Mikl, was meant to be collecting us from the airport at home but had been sent on an impromptu trip to Adelaide to work for the day. He was finishing early and we had been playing phone tag trying to figure out what flights he was on to see if we would end up being back around the same time.  We had figured out he was coming back through Melbourne but he didn't appear before we had to board our plane. He only missed us by a matter of 20 minutes though it seems.

The flight back was much more full than the way up and we didn't get a spare seat. Astrid was getting rapidly grumpy from not having slept but we did manage to distract her with food, magazines and general chatting.  Luckily our flight was extremely quick and we even landed early.  We then figured out that Mikl was likely on the flight behind ours so figured we had better wait for him to stop another cross town drive to pick him up only 40 minutes later.

Astrid was well and truly ready to go home but was distracted by her Grandpa who had come to pick us up and riding on Anto's shoulders around the airport.  Just after 5pm Mikl had arrived and we headed home, not a quick trip in peak hour and with road work, but it is Canberra and nothing every really takes that long.

Once home Astrid was keen for some dinner and a bath as she was exhausted after a few really long days. She did tell everyone how much she enjoyed 'Melb' and was looking forward to going back. For the last week all we have heard is 'go back to the hotel now'........  We are trying to convince her that we will be going to another hotel in a few weeks, but the next one will be in Fiji!!

....... and no I didn't forget to add the photos from the days adventures. I was obviously photoed out as I only took the few from the playground that day! Still plenty of good ones from the trip though.