Well, we left New Zealand today.  I doubt that we will ever see a place again that is so naturally beautiful.  We truly loved our time there.

We flew Air New Zealand from Queenstown to Melbourne. The flight was about 3 hours long and uneventful.  Justin edited some pictures while I took a nap and watched The Office and Parks and Recreation.

In Melbourne, we are staying at The Park Hyatt.  Justin warned me that we may not get some of the “perks” that we got at the other Hyatt properties because his diamond status expired a couple of days ago, although he knew that we were booked for the base level suite.  Well……move over Tokyo and Sydney, we have a new hotel front runner! Somehow, we got upgraded several levels, and we are staying in the “ambassador suite!”  This place is crazy!  It is about 1800 square feet with a huge living room, giant bedroom, kitchen, guest bathroom, enormous walk-in closet, and ridiculous master bathroom.  I spent the first several minutes jumping on the bed.  I’m pretty sure that’s what most of the guests in this suite do, right?

We got another surprise when they told us that we had access to the club lounge and complimentary continental breakfast.  Again, we weren’t expecting those kind of things this time……although we were still keeping our fingers crossed!

After we got over the shock of the hotel room (and I stopped jumping on the bed), Justin took a video of me doing an MTV Cribs-style tour……something that I dread seeing in the future!

Then, we went up to the club lounge for a drink and canapés.  Everything was extremely nice, and I know that we will take advantage of it while we are here!

Today, we had breakfast then spent the afternoon walking around the city.  Melbourne has a different feeling than Sydney.  It is much less touristy and has a funky artsy vibe. There are tons of shopping “arcades” with little boutiques and cafes.  It is extremely different than New Zealand!  We are back in the big city rather than on the farms or vineyards!

For dinner, we ate at a restaurant called Movida.  It is a tapas/ small plates type of place.  We got to try several different dishes.  Some of our favorite were: the octopus dish, the air-dryed Wagyu beef dish, and the lamb neck.

the most exciting part of dinner,at least for me, was that we had our first celebrity siting!  Finally! Three very small tabes away from us was Curtis Stone, the host of Top Chef and Take Home Chef.  I’m not 100% sure that it was him, but he is from Melbourne.  I’m about 95% positive.  In my mind, it was him!

XOXO Alyce