Friday: Flight to Melbourne via Virgin Blue, ok except for the very bumpy landing. Met Pia at the airport and drank the first of my 8 coffees for the weekend. Caught up with all the SLUG and LA gossip in the cab on the way to the hotel - passed a protest on the freeway which prevented Stewart coming and getting us.

Met a bunch of LUV guys at the James Squire, and then onto a little SouthBank restaurant called BonBons for food. Talked with Mike, a RedHat contractor, on the likelihood of Fedora succeeding, about yum vs up2date vs apt, and why I should use his sources.list file. Also had a good chat with Andrew Chalmers - one of the other people who ran for committee membership this year. Got his take on a few issues which was pretty valuable.

Saturday: Up early, breakfast was more coffee and ham and cheese croissants. 1/2 hour walk uphill to Trinity College, next door to Melbourne Uni and met up with Daniel Stone who was our doorman / sysadmin for the day. Thanks DanielS for providing the great facility!

Talked all day with the committee, minutes soon to be available, achieved big things. Very positive atmosphere.

Met conz for lunch somewhere in North Carlton. Nice food, and a nice day to sit around and drink (yet more) coffee.

Back to Trinity College, and covered lots more. Everyone asymptotically approaching stuffed state. Did the committee keysigning and orkut thing :-) and then finished up 6-6:30pm. Took everyone back to the hotel, shower, and off to the pub. This time the Metropolitan. Pia foolishly stated she'd do the 7 pint thing, so I dutifully reminded her of this all night :-) She didn't like that :-)

Talked for ages, on everything from Linux to .Net to religious issues to OSS adoption to LUV/MLUG politics. Good night.

Back to bed late, needed the wake up call early on Sunday.

Sunday: Out the door before 8am, looking for shops that are open to do some shopping for my wonderfully supportive family back home. Nothing was open until 9am, and most shops didn't open until 10 or 11am. So much for a city that claims it never sleeps.

Did the touristy thing. Walked bits of the yarra river, the shopping district and around Crown casino. Afterall, what do you do when the shops aren't open, you've done the technology thing to death, and you have 2 hours to spare?

Introduced Pia to Haigh's chocolates - best in the world. It's always nice buying a great SA product interstate.

Cab back to the airport, just in time for my last coffee of the weekend. Hudson's Marble Mocha is pretty good. Completed Essential Python and the chocolate bullets I bought at Haigh's on the flight home. Really glad to see the family. I hate travelling without them. Once home, crashed on the sofa.