Eating, drinking, and frocking

Melbourne rocks.  After a chilly start last week, this week has been full of sunny gorgeousness.  In fact, I'm wishing I had packed more summer clothes and a more practical, walk-around-town pair of sandals than the LA skyscrapers that I brought.  Not that I haven't had occasion to trot them out, but they're not really for walking in.  Today I found myself trying on a lovely pair of Filippo Raphael flat sandals in a favourite shoe store in Toorak Village.  Oooh, I really want them... but it's craziness to buy shoes in Australia (this pair are a cool $250) when they are so cheap in the US.  Italian brand, but they don't seem to be sold in the US.  In fact, even in Australia they seem to be retailed exclusively through Edward Meller stores.  Sigh.

There has been LOTS of catching up with friends over food and wine; damn, the food is good here.  OK, generally it is cheaper to eat out in LA but frankly most of the time you get quantity over quality.  It's so lovely to be on holiday in my favourite city.  Aside from eating and drinking, talking and laughing, frocking up (main event frocking to happen tomorrow - the wedding!), I've been working out at my old gym (Nada and Dr Soph are two of the best Step instructors in the world, bloody awesome routines), getting thoroughly massaged, and have lined up a facial next week, the day before I get on the plane home.  The idea of LA as my home is still a little alien (as am I, legally speaking); I guess I have two homes.

Last night I saw Electronic City, the new show by local theatre group Hoy Polloy.  It was preview night, and I'm so glad I happened to be in town to catch it.  Directed by Wayne Pearn (with assistance from Bridgette Burton), the show is in very good shape.  It's a challenging piece for actors, with a lot of chorus work creating vocal soundscapes of frenetic, madness-inducing chatter, robotic instructions, alarms and electronic white noise.  The effect is quite thrilling, even as it spins your head around and reminds you what you hate about travelling, and how paranoidly (is that a word?) reliant we are on electronic devices such as phones and computers, and the panic that can set in if we forget the charger, can't get online, or find ourselves in an interminable line at airport security.  The show officially opens tonight.  If you're in Melbourne, check it out.

Right, gotta dash.  Another lunch date.  Time to get out of this t-shirt and into a frock!