Melbourne | lie ins, uncle Vince, Schmucks and Saints

So it was my turn to want an extra half hour or more in bed this morning, eventually though we made our way to the South Bank and the international conference centre to an immersive Van Gogh exhibit.

This was excellent, thought provoking, emotional and just really enthralling. It made me ponder on the importance of art and athletics especially through the eyes and words as one so talented yet tragic as Vincent, come on half of you are singing starry starry night in your heads as soon as you started reading this bit.

To emphasise our response to art there was a lad next to me that was high I would guess on the autism spectrum. He was livin* his best life transfixed by the exhibition, there were sounds of “so good”, whoops and even enthusiastic clapping. His dad was trying his best to keep him quiet all the while I was wishing we could all let go like that lad. I wondered also what Vincent would make of it, to see someone so lost in wonder of his creations.

We paid a bit extra for the VR experience, I loved this, me and Deb went as a pair, I have never done a VR thing before so it was a new and highly entertaining endeavour. Oh my goodness you are totally drawn into the make believe word , in this case a journey with Van Gogh’s younger brother Hugo, through the streets of Bohemian Monmatre to find Vincent. It was great although slightly alarming was Deb was represented by the floating head and shoulders of Vincent in front of me, also because she was in a wheelchair she was quite down low, which for Deb did means she couldn’t see some of the VR tricks like seeing your reflection (as Vincent) in the mirror, all was well until we got to a part where we were travelling on a horse, Debs felt sick through the motion sickness and for a second there was a very real possibility of the floating head of Vincent Van Gogh throwing up on me. Fortunately we were rescued by a staff member and the guys at the gallery were brilliant in looking after her, giving her water and a sick bag, I was able to complete the experience and realised that poor Deb was only about a minute away from the end. The other funny thing was once I took my headset off seeing everyone else wandering around an empty room like zombies with their headsets on.

We decided to skip the nationally gallery , the next port of call on our list and went back to the hotel to rest up till our evening appointment at Melbourne Cricket ground , affectionately known as the ‘G’, for a evening of Aussie rules football.

As Deb was sleeping I nipped out to a bagel place we had seen going past on the tram that Deb’s fancied, I ended up getting an Italian bagel (pepperoni and cheese) served in a polish bagel shop by two Chinese ladies, and that is multi cultural Melbourne in a nutshell.

Bagels devoured we made our way to the G to watch St Kilda against Carlton. We had decided to support the local guys St Kilda, especially as the doorman had told us they were his favourite team. Unfortunately despite a spirited opening 10 mins St Kilda were mainly second best, that said it was a great experience in a nearly full stadium and a fitting way to see out our last day in Melbourne CBD.