Continental Drifting

Monday afternoon before 4.00pm is cheap movie day at Carlton's alternative Cinema Nova. “Hoorah and lashings of ginger beer!” I whoop as clutching my six dollar ticket to the splendid French farcical fancy 'Welcome to the Sticks', I prepare to spend a rainy start to the week a la Continent aka Lygon Street. Yes this is the first real rainy day as opposed to short bursts of violent showers that we have had. Ha, listen to me saying 'we' like I am a bona fide Melburnian after just five weeks here. I will admit though to having adjusted my lifestyle to suit the surroundings so that I no longer look like a bumpkin Kiwi tourist. I have me a Melbourne vintage hat to remove the sore thumb from my general sticking out appearance but cannot understand why a town so plagued by frequent gusts of fierce vents should be so enamoured of the chapeau as it is. In fact my demeanor these days is so little like an import that I have been known to stop and give map-clutching genuine tourists a hand to find their bearings. I rode the free City Circle tourist tram yesterday which I hardly ever do as it is full of sightseers, and gave an Aussie visitor from Cairns a bit of a run down on the passing landmarks.

“Look at that quirky place,” I pointed to a little crooked shop on the corner of La Trobe and Russel Streets. “It was built in 1853 and is one of the oldest remaining settler buildings to pre-date the Victorian gold rushes. It has subsided so much that the front door no longer closes properly but the same family has run it as a general store for over a hundred years.”

She was suitably impressed by my vast guiding knowledge as seconds later the loud speaker on the tram echoed my history lesson. I have to admit that I cheated a bit. I had walked this road earlier that day and read the sign on the outside but I was able to puff myself up like a peacock for the sake of the tourist. That's definitely one on the board for the Kiwi Warrior versus the Kangaroo home team!

Anyway if the attraction is not free or cheap or irresistibly worth the money, I am pretty much giving it a miss as I do 'Melbourne on a Shoestring'. A six dollar movie was like a little luxury reminder of my previous wage earning life. 'Welcome to the Sticks' sold out in the Auckland Film Festival so I missed it and was delighted to get a second chance to see why it was so popular. The thing I particularly like about French humour over that of other nationalities, is that they take the build up to an obvious joke and stretch it to an extreme. Minutes before the punch line you will be holding your aching sides pleading with them to stop, not to go any further and then be stunned as the obvious and unthinkable pans out. 'Sticks' was brilliant French comedy at its best, with star and producer Dany Boon playing the romantic lead with his usual hillbilly charm. Go and see it if it you can, you will laugh yourself sick just as I did.

Of course being in Lygon Street was a good excuse to cash in on the discounted caffe and cake that my movie ticket bought me around the corner at Brunettis. Two bargains for the price of one, what a day! I think that I am successfully addicted to the Rum Baba cremes at Brunettis. O.m.g. and phew, talk about laced with real rum, whooee!

It's still raining, incessantly and I don't have an umbrella although I do have a coat. It was windy but dry when I left the hostel this morning but alas no longer. Four seasons in one day, is the saying applied to this town and it i.s truer than it is of Auckland. So my options are hmmm, get drenched and bedraggled walking the two blocks back to Nicholson Street, not so appealing, or...er..stay at Brunettis where it is warm and dry and open till 11.00pm with an unlimited supply of rum baba crème. I have no reason to stay sober so there's not much competition really eh? Maybe there might be a break in the weather before eleven but if not...Signor, un'altro perfecto rum baaaaba per favore, con molto rrrrrum, grazie. I love days of Continental drifting.