I kept the rental car through the weekend to do a little extra exploring. I got a later start than expected to this day (see House Party #2), so initial plans were changed a little. It was an overcast day, so not the best for sightseeing. I left my place at 12:45 PM, arrived at Casey's "mansion" apartment at 1:30 PM, and we were driving back by my place at 2:45 PM. I live about 5 km south of the city and Casey lives about 3-4 km north of the city, so we're really not that far apart, but traffic was no fun, even on a Saturday. While I enjoyed the freedom and greater range afforded by the car, I am thankful for public transport, saving me from driving every day in this huge city (it's very spread out) with millions of other people.
We only had about 2-3 hours of daylight since it starts to get dark around 5 PM - I am already anxious for longer days in summer. We started driving towards Mornington Peninsula, but never quite made it. We stopped to see the colorful beach houses in Brighton, a suburb neighboring St Kilda. I've seen lots of pictures of these beach houses at Vic Market and on postcards. They are not actually houses, rather huts for storing beach furniture/toys and other various uses (I'm told some have hammocks hanging inside them, people sometimes eat in them, etc) while on the beach. We saw several sailboats out, along with some larger barges, despite the overcast weather and low winds. We continued on toward Mornington but stopped again at a shopping centre in Frankston (Casey's idea!). I saw a K-mart and Target in this shopping centre that began to restore my faith in the large chain stores. They were a huge step up from the Target and Big W I saw in the CBD. It was dark by the time we finished there (shops closed at 5 PM), so we decided to head back to Melbourne (we were about 40 km away).
We went to Kent Hotel (a restaurant not hotel) on Rathdowne St in Carlton for dinner. We both ordered one of the specials - South Australian Kangaroo fillets with baked beet vegetables in a red wine sauce, with horseradish yogurt. The server informed me the kangaroo comes medium rare and asked if that would be okay. I requested medium-well, to which I got a slightly disgusted look and an "are you sure?". Casey took his as served (medium-rare). It was excellent! It tasted a lot like a filet mignon steak. It was very lean. Mine was a bit tough, a little tougher than beef cooked the same way. Casey's kangaroo actually looked good and not at all bloody. I think I would take it as served next time, to get the more tender meat. I'll definitely order it again. Yum!
