We arrived in our great St. Kilda luxury apartment on Thursday.

Sven really has friends with great taste. We are in a big apartment building on one of the main streets in St. Kilda, 20 minutes walk from the beach and the main areas of St. Kilda with its shops, restaurants and bakeries.

Down in the basement is a gym and a swimming pool! We did some quick shopping for the basics and then had a quiet night in.

The next day we went downtown to a cool brunch place, to meet up with my friend Murray. He’s from Newcastle, but lived in Melbourne for years.

Unfortunately for me, he moved to Basel for a job last year, so we can’t hang out, but he’s here for his Xmas holidays.

The place, called the 1000 £ bend, is a great alternative restaurant in a former motorbike repair garage with a great brunch selection.

Even though we were just too late for brunch… Self-made furniture, friendly staff, yummy juices… I might have found a home base right away.

From there we went on to explore downtown, a nice compact area full of shops, restaurants, little alleys, high risers, warehouses and shopping galleries.

All in all a very European feel to it, with its trams and trees…

Sven needed some shorts and I also made two purchases, despite my vows not to buy anything. I got green shorts at FCUK and a great blue jacket, down from 200 AU$ to 95 AU$ and on to 57 AU$. Who can say no?

Then we walked over to Fitzroy, which is the neighborhood where I’ll live with Kate from next week on.

Totally different style, the houses are made of brick, low and older, no high risers or fancy apartment buildings. It’s the coolest place in town. Little book shops, restaurants, bars…

After nearly raiding a fantastic stationary store, we went to Little creatures, a bar/restaurant serving a number of beers, installed in what seems to have been a former warehouse.

The beers were great and the French fries excellent. Belgium beware, Australia seems to be the place for fries!

After all the walking, we were quite tired, so we went home and Sven made great salad, and we started zapping the Aussie channels.

We stumbled over a Sex and the city re-run and watched at least 6 or 7 episodes before we fell asleep…