A Saturday

Yesterday I caught the train in to town. I was off to Footscray to have a look at a bicycle. The public transport is great here, but I'd much rather zip around on my own. I had a bit of time to kill, and found an all-you-can-eat vegetarian restaurant (called 'Om'. It was om nom nom), and walked around the CBD. I headed to Flinders St station, and was asked if I'd like a Free Stress Test. I said Yes, and was tested by Helen. The test consisted of me holding two cylinders which was attached to a machine with dials. The machine sat on the table next to a large pile of books by L. Ron Hubbard. I asked how the test worked, and she said 'it could detect if I was feeling stressed', which seemed a little tautological. Despite an initial spike when she asked about people I knew, I was one cool customer. She seemed vexed that nothing in my life (no job, moving to Aus, family, social problems etc.) was causing me stress, and really struggled to find a line of questions to get me worked up. I smugly asked if I'd passed the test, and she said yes, but I took some information about Dianetics anyway.
I jumped on the train, and waited for the person with the bike to arrive at Middle Footscray. It turned out to be the guy's grandmother, and though it was a nice bike (and I did want to say Yes), I decided not to take it . Which was a shame, as I was really looking forward to cycling home. With an afternoon to kill, I went to the museum. On the tram there, my friend Annie hopped on! It was really cool to see her (and felt right - she has a blog about trams), and we chatted until my stop.
The museum was great, but I wish I'd had more time. There was a pretty amazing dinosaur exhibition, and the stuff on geology was incredible. There were some imperative displays: 'touch these teeth, imagine it biting a branch'; 'touch this rock' (which was more than four billion years old. I teared up a little, it was all very overwhelming). I then headed to Brunswick to meet Riki for a beer.
While I waited to him, I explored some alleys off Brunswick St, and was absolutely amazed by the quality and size of some of the wheat pasting. It was a little off-putting but also really inspiring, and it's something I'd really love to do more of. It was great (as always) hanging with Riki, and after I while, I caught the tram home