Christmas holidays 2017

One thing we have been good about during the holidays is making sure the step counter makes it up to 10,000 steps. It helps us get out of the house and into the summer.

On 24 December, we walked from the train station along the Gardiner Creek trail to a Christmas party at friends' house, then took the tram home. The tram stop in the city centre was crazy busy, all lit up for Christmas, with hundreds of people lined up at the cathedral for midnight mass. But we couldn't make it to midnight. Even so, 13,578 steps.

On 25 December, we woke up and opened presents (Christmas mess photo below).

We called family. And then decided to walk to the city centre to watch the new Star Wars movie. It was a lovely day, and there were a lot of people out. 12,439 steps.

On 26 December, we walked to the Melbourne Cricket Grounds to see the first day of the Boxing Day Test match against England.

Cricket is a very strange sport. A very strange sport indeed. The match lasts five days, about six hours per day. Apparently the Boxing Day Test Match is an important cricketing event, on many people's bucket lists. I can now tick it off of mine, because Tim had the foresight to buy our tickets many months in advance. As they were just general admission tickets, we had to arrive early to get good seats.

For about an hour before the game, they rolled a machine over the cricket pitch to get it just perfectly flattened.

When the game finally began, there were about 85,000 people in the stadium. Yes, honestly. They were there to watch the first six hours of five days of cricket and they all bought their tickets months in advance.

England versus Australia. Word on the street is that Australia had already won the five-game group of matches. But 85,000 people had purchased tickets, so the game would definitely go on.

Anyway, the game broke for lunch and afternoon tea, but we didn't make it to the end of the day. Around 3.30pm the sun crept up to our seats, and we decided we'd already gotten our money's worth and we'd rather not stay and get fried. We still spent about eight hours, including travel time, at the cricket. Was it that enthralling? Well honestly, I brought along a book. And read it start to finish. And it was lovely. Oh and cricket, too. 10,514 steps.

On 27 December, we went to the beach. It was a hot day. I'm glad we didn't opt for day two of cricket instead. The sand was hot, but the water was cool. Perfect for cooling off, then drying in the hot wind, then heading home on the tram. 10,381 steps.

On 28 December, we were supposed to drive to the tip of the peninsula, but we were tired. I asked if we could just hang around home instead. So we did. We read books, played games, and walked around the local parks. 10,423 steps.

On 29 December, we walked to the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV). Tim wanted to see the current art exhibit. And it was fun. Below are pictures of some of our family favourites.

Flower clock, just outside the NGV and across the street.

Exhibit that included smells. Kind of risky.

Room full of giant skulls stacked up to the ceiling.

The entrance said the room was full of European painting. I found the mislabeling as fun as the art.

And eastern sculpture meets western.

Total: 11,255 steps.

On the 30 December, we went shopping in the morning, then spent the afternoon at the Melbourne Museum.

The above photo is actually not the museum itself, but the Royal Exhibition Centre just across from the museum. It is photographical.

The Melbourne Museum is full of all sorts of things, mostly natural history. They have the most impressive collection of insects, spiders, and creepy crawlies I have ever seen. A lot of the specimens in the collection are dead and labeled.

They do have an impressive collection of live spiders, including venomous spiders. There is a tall glass cage crawling with stick insects (it is not hard to find the insects as they cover every inch of glass). Cockroaches. Ant colonies. Native bee hives. Giant millipedes.

I stared into the glass enclosures at the many crawling creeping wiggling things, and my mind knew that I was safe from the insects and they were on the other side of the glass and would not touch me. But my body saw all the creeping things and had a different reaction entirely. My scalp began to crawl. I got goosebumps all over my skin. The reaction became worse and worse the more insects we saw, until the end of the exhibit when I was twitching all over and swatting at puffs of air conditioning. No more insects!

Total: 12,567 steps.

For tomorrow, 31 December, the plan is to walk to the park across the river in the evening for the festivities there, including movie in the park and live music and family fireworks at 9.30pm. From there, we'll walk down the river to the city centre, and stay up for midnight fireworks. Then we'll walk home. Estimated total: 10,000 steps for Sunday plus 3000 for early morning Monday.

Good thing we like to walk!