Big day out

I am all tuckered out from a big, long day today. I was up early (for a Saturday) and it was another gorgeous sunshiney spring day, so I walked to my sewing class in North Melbourne.

As predicted, zips turned out to be a challenge for Anna and me. I would have been a bit crap at it had I been awake and alert, but as I was practically catatonic with fatigue, I struggled. I was like Dory from Finding Nemo. "Sorry, what do I have to do....What was I meant to do again? Um...what? What are zips? Where am I?".

Fortunately, the zip we found the simplest is the one we are going to have to sew into our A line skirt...although, it wasn't until my third attempt that I got it right and even then it was against the odds - the teacher said I'd done something wrong, but I still did a really good job of it. I took that as a compliment.  The zip was functional. If it were attached to a garment, it wouldn't fall down around my knees.  But clearly Anna and I need to log a few hours of zip practice before we proceed to module 3.

After that I wandered up the street to the Art House at the North Melbourne Town Hall to see Leonardo's Last Supper, which is a Melbourne Festival event (although it's on until 8 November). It features a "perfect sculptural three-dimensional clone" of Da Vinci's Last Supper as the centrepiece for a show that merges visual arts, cinema, music and cutting edge technology" (too tired to think up my own description).

I didn't realise it was a 3D replica to begin with - I thought it was a trick of light that gave it depth, but no (fatigued, I tells ya). I was probably more impressed with it when I thought that! It was still pleasing to the eye - almost like a biblical music video at times.

After that I wandered up Queensberry Street and happened across the old fashioned corner store Grigons & Orr, which I've read about lately. I only stuck my head in for a quick look since I can't stuff my face full of artificial colourings and flavourings at the moment. Regardless, I am pleased just to know there is a milk bar in Melbourne where you can buy mixed lollies  - your very own selection chosen from lollies stored in big jars, not a selection chosen by Allens. "I'll have 5 bananas...and 5 milk bottles and 5 teeth and..." Just like in the olden days.  I bet 20c doesn't buy you 10 or 20 lollies like it did when I was a young un.

I continued on to the Melbourne Museum to see A Day in Pompeii. I hadn't planned to leave my visit until the last weekend, but that's what happened. I had to queue for ages and then the earliest session I could get into was at 6.00 pm, three hours hence.

To fill time, I wandered through the rest of the museum, spending most of my time in the Mind & Body exhibition where I was fascinated and a tiny bit grossed out by the real body parts that are used to explain the various part of the human body - digestive tract, immune system, nervous system, reproductive systems and so on. Real human body bits, donated to science! If only those people who left their bodies to science could somehow know they ended up as a star attraction at the museum, not just cadavers sliced and diced by med students. I'm sure they'd be proud (except maybe for the guy whose penis ended up on display. It's grey and very skinny and icky).

Being juvenile, I wanted to take a photo of the poo (fake, I assume) that is the finale of the digestive tract display but I didn't want people to see me. The poo is popular. There's even a little button next to it that makes a farting noise. I bet it's the most pressed button in the museum.

I was also fascinated (in a grown-up way) by the information on the condition known as synesthesia. Although I had heard of it before, it just seems too weird to be true! In synthesthetes, the stimulation of one sense provokes an involuntary response from another sense - for example, they can "see" or even "taste" sounds or "hear" colours. Freaky, hey?

The exhibit features the story of one synesthete who didn't know until he was 14 that not everyone sees music in colour (cello music is dark red). Although it's "abnormal", most people with the condition find it's a blessing rather than a curse. Isn't the mind bizarre and wondrous?

Finally 6.00 arrived and I got into the Pompeii exhibition. It was fascinating and quite moving, particularly the casts of victims who were fleeing from the volcanic eruption or huddling together in their homes. Interesting also to see how petite they were compared to modern humans.

The exhibition reveals in some depth what life was like in Pompeii at the time of the catastrophic eruption of Mt Vesuvius in 79 AD - what they ate and wore, how they did their laundry, their entertainment, what their dwellings were like and their fondness for graffiti - as well as detailing the disaster and eventual re-discovery of the lost city. That's the kind of history I like - wars and political maneuverings leave me cold. 

After that, I walked back to Flinders Street and caught a tram home. Today's distance walked - 13.77 kms.  I'm rather weary. Sleep in tomorrow, methinks.

(I haven't inserted any links in this as yet...I need to go to bed now.)