The heat is on

Hello from Sydney! I got back into the city yesterday afternoon and checked into my place in residence. I will post pictures and more information after I am settled in there. For now I will give you a bit of an update on my last few days in Melbourne.

As you can probably guess from the review I wrote on Big Day Out, the day was awesome. I don't consider myself a die hard Neil Young fan but his set definitely ranks in the top five concerts I have ever seen. Neil Young playing Heart of Gold was probably one of the coolest things ever and it is for moments like this that I will continue to dish out hundreds of dollars on concerts.

The Australian Open on the 27th was also amazing. I got to the grounds at around noon and was able to catch the Williams sisters in doubles action on one of the smaller courts. They absolutely dominated their opponents which was not a surprise considering they are two of the top ranked women's players in the world.

Venus Williams in action

The afternoon quarterfinal men's match was between Andy Roddick and Novak Djokovic. The crowd was mostly behind Andy Roddick which was a bit of a surprise considering Roddick is American, and Djokovic won the tournament last year. Either way Roddick's serve is absolutely ridiculous and he went on to win the match after Djokovic was forced to retire due to heat exhaustion (the temperature was about 41°C on the court).

The night session turned out to be the hottest ticket in town. The women's match featured Dinara Safina the third ranked player in the world against Australian Jelena Dokic. Dokic was a bit of a fairy tale story as she came into the tournament as a wild card ranked 600th in the world and made her way to the quarter finals. As the last Aussie in the tournament the crowd was absolutely insane and alot of fun to be a part of. She lost in three sets unfortunately.

Roger Federer serving

The final quarter final of the night kicked off just after 10:00 p.m. and featured Roger Federer vs. Juan Martin del Potro. Federer was absolutely brilliant. He dominated the match winning 6-3, 6-0, 6-0 in one hour and twenty minutes which is incredibly short for a men's match at this level. The argument could be made that del Potro wasn't at his best, which might be true but I think the reality was that Roger was playing his best. He dominated in every aspect of the game and it was really cool to see. A big thank you to Roger Federer for finishing the game off so quickly and allowing me to get on the last tram of the night and hence saving me lot's of money on a cab!

Rod Laver Arena during Federer vs. del Potro

The next day we were set to leave Melbourne at 7:55 p.m. The temperature hovered around 50°C for most of the day so we ended up staying inside and checking out a movie for most of the day. When we got to Southern Cross station we checked out bags and waited on the platform, the train was delayed and it was incredibly hot. We kept on being informed that the train was delayed and to stay on the platform until further notice, finally after 3.5 hours we were told to go to the bus terminal. It turns out that due to the heat the tracks had buckled and the train could no longer run to Melbourne. We boarded a bus that took us to Albury where we got a connecting train to Sydney, not a huge deal as I had no where to be when I got to Sydney but a nuisance none the less!

That's about it for now. I will post more pictures and info on the huge chunk of the trip that is still missing one of these days!

Take care and stay warm.

kc