Vikings and a bit more feasting

It was a lovely morning on Sunday.  Jim and I set off to stroll across to Carlton, through the Exhibition Gardens to the Melbourne Museum.  The museum is another relatively new building.  It was opened in 2000 and was another building that I have walked past many times but have never been in.  This is partly because I was living overseas when it opened and almost entirely because I have been walking past on my way to Lygon Street or other parts of Carlton.  Every time I walked past I marked it as somewhere I should go. Recently I noticed that there was a Viking Exhibition on.

Wendy and I have been trying to arrange to get together for lunch or for coffee since December! We have seen each other at various family gatherings but finding a time and, more specifically, a location that suited for lunch or a drink was quite difficult. I suggested to her that we should do it this weekend when Jim and I would be in Melbourne. She juggled her diary. I bought tickets for the three of us to the Viking Exhibition.

We enjoyed the exhibition. Not so much Jorvik as British Museum in style. Lots of things to look at. Lots and Lots of panels to read. A few things to play with.  Then we went out to look at the rest of the museum. It has a forest in the middle of it.  No, really it does:

It has dinosaurs:

It has a hippo:

It has fishes and seals:

We did about half of the museum, I think.  The natural history side of it. Next time we'll have to look at the other half.

We walked across to Lygon Street and had lunch in Toto's. Then Wendy wandered off back home and Jim and I walked back to the flat, picked up the car and drove back to Mount Helen where Rupert and Hugo were very pleased to see us.  It was a good weekend.

And now you find me back in East Melbourne.  I am working Monday to Thursday this week and I had to be at work yesterday by 9:00.  I left Mount Helen just after 6:30 yesterday morning and will base myself in the flat until I finish work on Thursday.  I seem to have spent an awful lot of time on the Western Freeway over the past couple of weeks!