I’m gonna hug them and kiss them and love them forever…
A skeptic by nature, I was not sure the St Kilda Penguins would live up to the hype, but they sure did. Jon and I braved the gale force winds and chill to head out on the pier and were rewarded with numerous penguin sightings. Woohoo!
(Bonus points for anyone who can identify the cartoon character who I’m channeling in my intro line)
Now that Sara is down under with me, I figured I should take her out on a proper date! Imagine my surprise when I saw that the Palais Theatre in St Kilda was bringing none other than the Counting Crows to town on her third night here. Shockingly it wasn’t sold out, so I scooped up some tickets a few days before the show and started listening to all the Counting Crows albums I have so I could be ready. August and Everything After really brings back those Acalanes high school memories, while Recovering the Satellites came out during my UVA years.
After tailgating a bit at home, we got all dolled up and headed out to dinner. Sadly, I did not bring a (LEGAL) “to-go” beer with me for the short walk, as I was trying to keep it classy for once. After walking into the wrong restaurant first, we went to a small middle-eastern restaurant called 40 Thieves & Co – and it was quite good. We split a few plates and a bottle of Australian wine. Not only are we getting a solid discount on our spending with the *very* favorable USD/AUD exchange rate right now, it is always a nice surprise to get a restaurant bill and realize that’s the total – no adding sales tax and tip. Apparently people here only tip for super exceptional service – and then only about 10% or so. I believe minimum wage here is about $22/hour.
So we head over to the theatre and Sara is quite excited to see that Bobby Brown and Naughty by Nature will be there in late May. We are then alarmed to see a long line of people waiting to buy concert souvenirs. We bought some beers and proceeded to people watch until the concert started. We spotted a nice mullet (sorry no photo) and quite a bit of folks wearing Counting Crows t-shirts from previous Australia tours.
The concert was entertaining, though sadly they did not play Mr. Jones. The Australian crowd was pretty tame and remained seated the entire time.
Afterwards we headed out into the St Kilda night to see the “Blood Moon” – a total lunar eclipse that turned the moon red. Quite a sight. After treating my beautiful date to her favorite dessert of a McDonald’s ice cream cone, we headed home before we turned into pumpkins.
