Melbourne

[LCHIEN]

Well, the Australian Open Grand Slam tennis tournament event is halfway thru its two weeks now.

Most of the live coverage (on my cable channels) is at 11PM at night and 2:30 AM in the morning.
It's summertime. Lots of action as the women's side is full of upsets - Serena Williams making a comeback and Sharapova still on track. The men are awesome and so far no surprises as Federer, Nadal, Roddick and Blake are still in.

The city of Melbourne is beautiful. At least the images shown during breaks in action are. They said that Aussies love tennis and they expect by the time the tournament ends next Sunday that there will have been over 500,000 attendance and I couldn't help but think
Rod won't be there, despite it's being in his backyard! He said he hates all sports!

How are you doing, Rod?
Any tennis fans out there is BT3 Land?

[Mrs. Wallnut]

I am a tennis fan but haven't followed for years. I used to play tennis in my school years, Jr. High and some High school. I miss playing and I am trying to follow it more because I like watching the Williams sisters play.

Wish I had the money because one of these years I would like to go and watchi it down in Australia, plus I have always wanted to go to Australia and see the sights.

[jackellis]

I don't care much about tennis but Melbourne is a beautiful place. Last time I was there I spent a couple of hours at St. Kilda, which had (has?) an old-fashioned amusement park. Just outside Melbourne, there's a Jamestown-like settlement called Ballarat that's also worth seeing

Gotta take the wife back there.

[RodKirby]

Hi Loring,

"Rod won't be there, despite it's being in his backyard! He said he hates all sports!"

I don't so much "hate" them, but I'm way past queueing for hours to get a ticket - or fighting herds of people to get to see them.

Melbourne is (like most of the rest of Oz), in drought conditions - been so for 5 years.

The tennis players have had to deal with 105° heat - and then - rain for 2 days Wonderful, wonderful rain

Of course Melbourne is beautiful - that's why we live here

[skipwill]

Rod,

We cant wait to visit there (hopefully in a couple of years)! We spent the month of November in Sydney, Perth, Margaret River, Albany, the Clare Valley and Adalaide. You have a wonderful countyr!...with a lot of great winerys I might add<g>

Skip

[RodKirby]

Great to hear you had a good time!

I was born and raised in Perth

Been living in Melbourne for the last 38 years. I miss the Perth weather but it's just too far from "everywhere"