Lunch With a View

After I had done a few of the twenty hundred* things on my to-do list today, I wandered down Brunswick St in Fitzroy (the rather charming part of Melbourne where I'm staying) to find some lunch and a post office.

I had a late lunch at Madame Sousou, which offers a reasonable Prix Fixe: two courses and a glass of wine for $32. It is a very French establishment and almost everybody except me was talking in French.

Lunch (a beetroot and goat curd salad, followed by biftek and onion rings) was excellent. But even better was the show.

I was sitting in a corner, at the front, with a view out of two of the full length windows.

Brunswick St is full of interesting shops, cafes and people and I passed a very pleasant time watching them all. I can tell you that extreme tights are in at the moment. I spotted a pair that were flesh coloured at the front and black at the back; a pair that had one leg black and the other white; and a pair that had cut outs over the knees.

And the sun was shining.

Restored, refreshed, I set out for the Post Office and discovered that sending things out of Australia is no simple task. Here’s a Hint to Travellers Sending Parcels from Australia: fill in the green customs declaration first. Otherwise you will be letting yourself in for a world of pain. Oh, and don’t forget to bring ID.

A bientot, HTLT xxx

*Twenty hundred is a phrase coined by my sister Róisín to represent a number that is so much bigger than twenty it is almost unimaginable. She came up with it in Australia about twenty hundred years ago, so it seems fitting to use it here.