Marlys & Nita - Not Quite Thelma & Louise

While Matt was in the US Marlys has a visit from our sister-in-law, Nita. Nita is “the runner”. She’s run a marathon in all 50 states, every Canadian province (however many those are), and all 7 continents. Nita is now going to honor our time in Australia by running a marathon in all 8 Australian states. She's already ticked off Queensland and came to run in our home state of Victoria and the ACT (Australian Capitol Territory, aka Canberra).

Marlys and Nita hit the town while she was here. One trip was to the Crown Casino, the big Vegas style casino (complete with light and fire shows, cabarets, and swank restaurants) in the middle of Melbourne and right on the Yarra River. Nita and Marlys have gambled before – during a girl’s long weekend with Marlys' Grandma Impi in Vegas in the early 90’s and once when they used the woman's bathroom at the Great Wall in China (a story not really fit for these blog pages!).

The Melbourne casino doesn’t have video poker but it does have blackjack. Nita under-budgeted and over-lost. Marlys had not played blackjack since the Vegas trip with Nita years ago - she plays 3 card poker these days. Fortunately it all came back to her and she went up $75. At which point Nita pounced and announced Marlys was buying dinner. While at the table they met a few blokes, started "the wave", and had people betting on their hands. Marlys earned 5 pairs with one hand, paying out at 25 to one. There was one crazy hand where the dealer almost ran out of table for his cards. He dealt himself 4 - 3 - 2 - 3 - ace - 2 - ace - 8 and he kept counting his cards until Marlys yelled out, "Dude, you got like...an 89!!" which cracked up the whole table. Then someone chimed, "you can keep counting but you lost...pay us!!!".

Many of Melbourne’s city highlights are centered around the CBD (Central Business District – Melbourne’s ‘downtown’). Nita soon became very familiar with the CBD and all it had to offer. But there was one perplexing traffic move – the hook turn. Ahhhh, hook turns. Melbourne has instituted this unique driving phenomenon because of the trams running down the middle of the road in the CBD. Since you drive on the left in Australia, when you want to turn right you would block the tram tracks if you waited in the middle of the road to make your turn. So instead, you turn on your right indicator and proceed to the far LEFT lane, wait for the green light to turn to RED and THEN cross 6 lanes of traffic and two tram lines to complete your right turn. Nita's new favorite pastime became waiting for the subsequent crash which she expected to happen any moment. Her second favorite thing was when multiple cars and a motorcycle are all waiting to turn right. Hook turns are only found in Melbourne so you're just going to have to come here to see one for yourself!!!