I met Casey at the Queen Victoria Market on the north side of the city mid-day. It's a huge farmer's market/flea market with fresh produce, meat, and cheese as well as arts and crafts and other souvenir houpla. It's open every day but the biggest day is Saturday. It reminded me of some kind of mix of the French Market in New Orleans and the huge biweekly flea market in Honolulu. I had some kind of stuffed turkish bread for lunch overloaded with onions - no idea what exactly I ordered.
I was on a mission to buy bedding and towels and ever-patient Casey accompanied me to be the heavy lifter. We walked through the mall where I found my West Elm equivalent (Adairs), then onto Target (not affiliated with Target in the U.S. and a MAJOR disspointment - disgusting!), then Big W (like Walmart in many respects though not quite as great and my opinion of Walmart is nominal at best to start). I finally settled on buying a few things at Myer, a HUGE department store spanning multiple city blocks (so large in fact that there's a Melbournian saying that someone has "as much front as Myer"). I may have to buy my sheets in St Kilda from a cute little shop, "Holy Sheet".
Thankfully, Casey helped me haul my loot back to the apt, where I made dinner. Later, Anneli left for her 3 month trip to Broome and my new flatmate Phill arrived with his friend Cassie. We drank bubbly and white wine on the back-lit deck to break the place in, and already discussed plans for our first dinner party and housewarming. Phill left home (England) in January and traipsed throughout Asia before coming to Melbourne and is next headed on an adventure to Darwin (northern Australia) before making it to Sydney for Mardi Gras. It was a perfectly lovely day.
I start work tomorrow morning.
