Melbourne, or never buy your tickets from Expedia:

Melbourne was pretty fantastic. We got in Saturday about noon, went to St. Kilda beach first thing since the weather was amazing. We found a sort of Mexican restaurant (they had margaritas, but it was definitely high-concept, walked along the water, and slept on the grass for awhile since we didn't have a towel to sleep on the beach. For dinner, we walked down to Southbank and had tapas-y things (well, I just had gazpacho since I had a LOT of lunch).

Sunday, we went to the Victoria market, which is truly amazing. Huge, and the stuff is generally pretty nice and reasonably priced. I got some stuff to decorate my bland apartment and a suitcase to replace the $10 Target one that I've been lugging around with me. Then we went on a cruise on the Yarra (not all that cool, I wish we'd done the ferry to Williamstown on the bay instead... especially since we could only understand about every other word that the captain said) and saw a surprisingly good performance of The Plague (yes the Camus novel. I don't know) in our hotel (also a pub. Still weird). And ate Italian food, insanely fresh fish and squash... And I forget what I had for breakfast and lunch, but I'm sure it was delicious and fattening.

M. had to leave Monday morning, so I went to the University district to walk around, go to the used book stores and generally be a bum until my flight at 4:00. At about 10:15, I get a call from my friend and they can't find her booking. After some back and forth, we figure out that, when she changed the booking on the phone with Expedia, they changed mine instead. Uh-oh. So I'm supposed to be on a plane in 45 minutes and she can't get back to work Monday afternoon. Umm. I call Qantas, and they say that since we booked through Expedia they can't help us. I call Expedia, and the supervisor there says that someone at the airport should help us. Umm. Then my mobile phone dies. Battery is dead. So basically I'm tethered to one pay phone, at which 50 cents seems to buy me approximately 22 seconds of phone time. Finally, I give up and go to the airport. By the time I get there, M. has managed to get it straightened out, she's on a 1545 flight and I'm on the 1615 that I'd wanted to begin with. Expedia is even refunding some of the money. Of course, it ruined my morning in Melbourne, and I definitely took advantage of the free alcohol on domestic Qantas flights on the way back.

Pictures:
Me on the beach in St. Kilda. Did I mention that it was about 85 degrees? Yeah, didn't think so.