Melbourne Cup

The day after the wedding I was thinking about flying back to Sydney for a few days, and then home, but was convinced by everyone to use my Sunshine Coast- Melbourne ticket instead, and attend the cup. So,... I am in Australia anyway, what's a few hundred more miles?

My flight is at 6pm, but check out is at noon. My alarm went off at 11:50 am... "who am I? Where am I? Oh no, 10 minutes til check out". I called down to the front desk inquiring about a reasonable check out considering it's low season, and staff did realize we all attended the Cleary/ McDowell wedding the night before. No such luck. Apparently no extensions were being given. So, 8 miutes later I have thrown the contents of my mobile home (travelpro) back into my suitcase, and I relocated to my temporary homeless shelter, a lounge chair by the pool. Could be worse I guess. I slathered myself in sunscreen as I did not want to wake up 3 hours later with 3rd degree burns, put on my sunglasses and earplugs, in case God forbid, screaming, splashing children should decide to enjoy the pool, set my alarm and went to sleep.

I am not ashamed, this is just part of being a skilled road warrior... use of resources, scouting of beds/ slash loungers and constant supply of pills, earplugs, and i pod accesories are just what you learn in Professional Gypsy 101.

Two of the Canadian guys woke me before my alarm went off and we went to the airport together. We were all quite silent on the flight, as we tried to recharge for what would be more debachery at the cup.

I stayed at my friend Jane's house (she works for Virgin Blue). She was like a child on Christmas morning, and had a pre-cup dinner, and cup breakfast planned, and her house was covered with "Cup dress options and accesories". Even though I was not a horse racing enthusiast (this has changed since the morning of the cup).. the excitment was contagious. The city seemed to shut down.. Surgeons putting down their scalpels, and plumbers their plungers in order to place bets and find fancy dress hats.

I quickly got into it, and danced around excitedly while drinking Belinis with my breakfast. Before we knew it, we were off to the races. Jane had a hook-up to the members only bar, which was wonderful, as it was surprisingly cold and nasty outside. Despite there being 120,000 spectators that day, we quickly found the wedding tour guests, and we drank Moet and placed bets together. My psychic tendancies failed me, and my horse didn't place. Jane's did, but we didn't realize this until the next day (too much excitment and too many cute boys around). It was too late as Jane's winning ticket was in a garbage bin we believe somewhere.

Anyway, all in all a great day, and a good end to my Australian vacation. I flew back to Sydney and on to LAX the next day, and began what was a 3 day jetlag/ travel recovery period.