We slept in, due to the late night yesterday, and had a leisurely morning. We got up around 9:45 AM and immediately went down to breakfast at the hotel. If you have been following the travelogue, do you want to hazard a guess as to what I ordered? If you guessed the vegan tofu scramble, you'd be right. There are no trick questions on this travelogue. Deborah went off the proscribed free menu again and got the vegan pancakes.
After breakfast, Deborah abluted and we prepped for our day. Deborah made the mistake of updating her Apple Watch, which delayed us by about 15 minutes or so. Normally, that would have stressed me out, but again...we were in no big hurry today. Deborah's foot was bothering her, but not her bad foot. She had actually gotten a blister (possibly two) on her good foot, and they were causing her pain. She medicated accordingly and appropriately, then we headed out.
We took the Sandringham line train out to Middle Brighton. Exiting the train station, there was a small coffee cafe, and we scored beverages and some vegan chocolate chip cookies to go there. We walked through the eastern suburb or Brighton and Deborah actually ended up buying some nice jeans there. Our next stop was #5 Robyn Court, a small flat down a small lane, where I lived for a year and a half with my family as a teen in the 1980s, attending school at St. Leonard's College (an Australian private high school). I have some fond and some traumatic memories from that period of my adolescence, but those are tales for another time. We took a few pictures at Robyn Court, for nostalgia purposes, and then continued on to the beach...specifically Brighton Beach, with its iconic (and costly) bathing boxes.
Despite it being summer in Australia, it was a fairly mild day, with temparatures only in the upper 60s and low 70s Fahrenheit. This, and the fact that the Australian school year had begun the day prior, may have explained the dearth of people - especially kids - on the beach. We easily found a comfortable and quiet patch of sand to lay out our beach towels, absorb some UV rays (boosting our vitamin D levels significantly), and eat the aforementioned chocolate chip cookies. I did the "rotisserie chicken" sunbathing strategy, exposing my un-sunscreened front to the Aussie summer sun for five minutes, then flipping and exposing my back to the sun for five minutes. I repeated this cycle thrice, before putting my tee shirt back on and behaving normally.
After what felt like a reasonable amount of beach time, Deborah and I gathered up our things and wandered back to the train, at the Brighton Beach station, by way of the Dendy Street Beach and Were Street. We got to the station with a couple minutes to spare before a train came and transported us back to the hotel, where we chillaxed and decompressed for a bit.
After that, we walked a few blocks to the aptly named pub and restaurant, Leonard's House of Love, to meet a long lost friend, from when I lived in Melbourne in the 80s, one Paul Reese-Jones. It had been 40 years since we had seen each other in person, but it was like no time had passed, except for our advanced middle age appearances. We reminisced for a spell over drinks and bar food, then parted ways, promising to continue to stay in touch, which I am sure we will.
We returned to the hotel and I ordered some delicious vegan dumplings from room service. We watched a bit of TV on Deborah's tablet, then slumbered.
Fin.
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