Another Hot Day

So as I was getting dressed this morning, I noticed that my belly button hurt. What the...? Looking at myself in the mirror, I was more than a little surprised to discover that I have quite the lovely bruise/rash right in my navel! I'm pretty sure this is a result of yesterday's body boarding, but I really don't know exactly how I managed to do that. I mean really - what sort of person goes around bruising their belly button?

Many of you who read my blog regularly will not appreciate me harping on the fact that it was hot today. Too bad! This is, after all, MY blog. :-) So yes. It was definitelty hot. I believe the mercury peaked this afternoon at 34C around 3pm, right about the time that we were all down at the beach at St. Kilda.

Today was Jen's mom (Janet)'s first full day with us in Melbourne. Jen, Janet and I enjoyed a leisurely breakfast this morning and then collected Jen C. and Oksana (aka the entire Canadian contingent from our house) and caught the tram out to St. Kilda. We had three objectives. First - eat gourmet burgers at this great little restaurant Jen and I found earlier this year. Second - go for a swim. And third - do some shopping at the St. Kilda craft market, which is only open on Sundays.

It took us longer than expected to make it out to St. Kilda... once again, Metlink conspired against us. Apparently they're doing major track work along the St. Kilda waterfront, so the tram stopped at the very edge of the neighbourhood and we had to walk the rest of the way. This was about a 2-3km hike, but it's not like we had any choice. We wandered out to the end of the St. Kilda pier, where I'd earlier discovered that there is a fairy penguin colony. No penguin sightings today (they're only really active at dawn and dusk) but there were tons and tons of big jellyfish in the water, so that kept me amused for a good while! One of our local grocery store chains, Coles, was handing out free cans of chilled lemonade, so we all enjoyed a nice refreshing drink as we strolled along the pier.

The hamburger joint (Grill'd) was, of course, WAAAAY on the far side of St. Kilda from where the tram let us off, which meant we had to walk past all the market stalls on the way there. Try as we might, we weren't quite able to walk all the way down the line without stopping to do some browsing. (We had promised ourselves that we would do our shopping at the end of the afternoon.) It was really, really hot at this point, and I think all of us were glad to finally make it to the restaurant.

The restaurant was very crowded and also hot (many of the little cafes here are not air conditioned), and we ended up stuffed into the very back of the shop. Suffice it to say that by the time our food arrived, some of our group weren't feeling all that well any more. So we ate and got out of there as quickly as we could. It was a bit of a shame, really... in other circumstances I would have liked to linger; their fries are excellent and I ended up having to pack mine home and eat them cold.

Next stop was the beach, where all of us basically dropped our stuff on the sand and waded straight out into the water. The water in Port Phillip Bay is significantly warmer than the ocean down at Torquay, plus of course there's no surf, so getting into the water wasn't nearly as painful as it was yesterday. However each time I visit the beach at St. Kilda I find myself liking it less and less. It was extremely busy and full of people; there were all sorts of unpleasant sharp objects in the sand (including quite a lot of glass, you should have seen the handfuls Jen took off to the garbage can!), and the water was full of slimy algae. I think I've been spoiled by the pristine beaches I've been able to swim at this last little while. I don't know that I'll choose to swim at St. Kilda again.

Once we'd all decided we'd had enough of the water, we faced a bit of a challenge - getting changed out of our bathing suits before going shopping! Jen and I didn't want to keep our board shorts on (we've discovered they're not all that comfy to wear wet on land). Since as far as we knew there was no changing station down at our end of the beach, we ended up using our towels to shield each other as we quickly stripped and changed on the beach! Yikes! I'm pretty sure I didn't moon anyone, but if I did, my friends were too polite to say. And then of course as we left the beach, we walked right past a changing station. GAH!

The shopping was, of course, divine, and I know that everyone found at least a little something to buy for family and friends back home. I found a PERFECT gift for my mom, but she's gonna have to wait until she arrives here in OZ to find out what it is. Hee hee hee!

By this time the heat was really taking its toll. I'm pretty sure that our newest house mates, Jen C. and Oksana, were feeling the heat more than Jen and myself. After all, we've been in the country for a good long time now and have had time to adjust to the climate here - even though that adjustment was a painful process. I am now really glad that I arrived here in OZ's spring... it meant that the temperatures I left behind in Canada were pretty similar to those I first experienced here. But Jen C. and Oksana have both only arrived here in the past few weeks, so they went from Canadian winter (and what a miserable winter it's been!) to Australian summer - and I know they're having a harder time adjusting. Suffice it to say that there were many showers and much napping once we finally made it back to the house!