So this is Melbourne

This rather blurry image is of the highlight of my first day in Melbourne, the highlight being that I dint quite see fireworks. William and I were out exploring after getting to the hostel, after getting ourselves kitted out with aussie phone numbers and dinner we began trying to contact the ticket company to find out why we couldnt print our tickets.

The tickets were bought through the official Formula 1 website back in November, or so I thought. Money had left the credit card and a confirmation email containing a link to the ticket vouchers. I didnt check the link because there was no way of printing the vouchers at the time so I waited until a day before the trip. No joy.

Five calls to different numbers later I got the bad news that the company on the other end of the line was a hotel reservations call centre and there was nothing they could do to help.

We wandered around the worlds most livable city, telling the beggars and homeless we had nothing for them, while we waited for business hours in europe. In the process we found a vigil for solidarity in Turkey and a ticket office that had weekend passes for sale, so if nothing else we could buy more tickets.

As we were walking down the street, there were many loud bangs and then flashes started to appear on the mirrored buildings and above trees and bridges. Naturally drawn to fireworks we continued in that direction, as we got closer we realised how far away we were and had no chance of seeing them, we carried on regardless and almost made it, but after about 10 mins of brisk walking the display had stopped. As we turned the corner to see what all the fuss was about we were greeted with an empty street, empty river and no signs anywhere. Three barges were coming back to shore and the smoke was clearing but so sign of a reason for the tens of thousands of dollars worth of fireworks on a wednesday night.

To cut a long story short, we tried calling a company in Monaco but the payphones we tried wouldn't let us call internationally! In the end, I email that company from the Formula 1 website with my details and feelings, I like talking about feelings and stuff.