Game, Set, Match

Over my three stays in Australia so far, I have found that the city of Melbourne is one of my favorites. I'm still trying to figure out how to pronounce it without the 'r' however. Anyway, when the opportunity was presented to me back in December to get on board for a weekend in Melbourne to check out the Australian Open, I was all in! I arrived in the city first as Filo and Sharon had this thing called 'work' that they were tied up with, but once we joined forces on Saturday morning and headed to the tennis, we had a great time. We even got to meet up with our friend, Adam, in the beer garden inside of Melbourne Park beforehand for a few delicious Heinekens (and hats).

Hats earned the hard way - Heineken trivia

Sharon and I sport our new hats

Relaxing in the beer garden

Still can't believe we met Federer!

Making our way to Rod Laver Arena

Andy Murray schools his (slightly better looking) opponent

Kim Clijsters on the return

Sharon snapped this shot after a micro-nap in the stands

Melbourne Park

After enjoying the Andy Murray and Kim Clijsters matches (third round, I believe), we headed out for the night, met up with some of Sharon and Filo's friends, and made a long day of it! Please take note in the photos below that Filo has some difficulty taking a picture without including part of his finger in the top left. This led to jokes for days to come...

Finger shot #1

Finger shot #2

My finger obscuring a shot of Filo's finger...trippy

Night one at the Night Cat

And in case you were wondering, we stayed in the most quaint of rooms while in Melbourne. Only second to the room that Jaime and I stayed in this time last year, when we could literally reach out and hold hands! This time, a high five was sufficient.

Self portrait