Anyone For Tennis?

For the second year running, we returned to the Aussy tennis Open this week. Plenty of hot days (40° on the Tues), lots of walking, lots of tennis and lots of food. Qantas, on the other hand, left much to be desired!

We booked awhile back on a direct flight from Wellington to Melbourne and thought nothing more of it, until a mate mentioned to check our flights as Qantas had changed some flights. Sure enough, they tried to put us off from the morning flight to a night flight and when Ann requested a refund to go elsewhere, they compromised to have us fly via Sydney and get there a few hours later. That would have been OK except for their crap system (or lack of one) in Sydney which meant we missed our connection due to the volume of transferring passengers, then the next one and finally left Sydney after we should have already arrived in Melbourne.....bastards!!
 
It wasn't a very good start to the week but we were soon in our apartment, fetched some supplies for the week and relaxed for the rest of the day.

On Saturday we went to the market and did a bit of shopping, then Sunday we took a stroll through the Botanical Gardens and visited the War Memorial. On the way there, we passed a festival which turned out to be some kind of gay celebration and most appeared to be enjoying themselves but as always with any large group, a few of them were a bit over the top and I didn't appreciate the way they flaunted their sexuality to ensure all and sundry knew exactly how bent they were. The War memorial was worth the effort to visit though.

The next four days were full on tennis days and with record temperatures and record crowds in attendance, we appreciated having seats in the shade in the Rod Laver arena. That meant we could look around but if things got too hectic, or hot, we could retreat back to our seats in the shade and we got to see a good range of players and games, including Roddick, Serena Williams, Rafa, Safin, Jankovitch, Hewitt, Wosniaki, the Bryan Brothers and lots more.

In the evenings we dined out (but missed our booking on the Tramcar Restaurant), went to Draculas, ate Gelato from Lygon Street and generally had a great time and the week seemed much more relaxing than last year.