Chris arrived on the morning of June 16--he and his travelling companion, Paul, met us at our flat that afternoon.

Here's a view of their entrance from our balcony...

As is now our tradition, we had a bottle of Australian champers (well, "sparkling" so as not to offend the French)--Seppelt Great Western--to toast Chris's arrival in Melbourne, Australia.

After the champers, we had a nice lunch at Luciano's--the cafe where Mike and I first ate in Melbourne--and then we broke off with Paul, planning to take Chris to see the flying foxes in the Royal Botanical Gardens (see link to Our First Aussie Home), but on second thought he appeared pretty beat...so we let him nap while we ran a few errands...

Around 5 o'clock, with some effort we awakened Chris--if the rest did him good, waking to darkness in U.S. summertime nearly put him back at square one--and went to dinner at a very nice (and inexepensive!) Lebanese restaurant in the nearby suburb of Carlton. After dinner, we met back up with Paul at our favorite pub, "The Charles Dickens," to drink a few beers and watch the cricket. Here, Mike tries to explain the game of Cricket to an ignorant American while Paul, a bloody POME bastard, laughs at the prospect of a yank explaining cricket to another yank--like the blind leading the blind...???