Larry Kesslin

A Day at the Australian Open

Posted on January 29, 2015 Updated on January 30, 2015

We woke up early this morning again and started the day with some breakfast and some writing. Ilise started writing a long blog post and somehow when she was almost done it disappeared. OMG, she was not happy. Having worked with technology for so long, this stuff just happens. Well, it was not fun for Ilise and she was ready to hurt someone or maybe just the computer. After doing some writing we headed to the gym for a workout, which has happened the past two days and hopefully will happen every day for the entire trip.

We made breakfast at the apartment, having purchased a bunch of groceries the day we arrived. As planned, we haven’t eaten a meal outside of the apartment since our first lunch until we headed to Chinatown for dinner tonight. But the day was focused on the Australian Open.

We left the apartment around 10 AM to walk down to the tennis facility. We arrived around 11 AM and didn’t leave the grounds until about 5:30 after the Serena Williams/Madison Keys match. We walked from our apartment to Flinders Station and took a free trolley right to the tennis center. There weren’t a lot of people there at the beginning of the day and much fewer people than I thought would be there. We were able to see both women’s semi-final matches and a few other fun events from the grounds while we listened to live music. Drew found a way to tweet her picture to the event and they kept posting it on the scoreboard next to the video feed of the match.

When we first arrived we got our bearings, purchased a day guide for who was playing when and where and started roaming around. It turns out that there was the finals for the men’s wheel chair event between an American and an Australian. I continue to appreciate how blessed we are as a family and this match made me realize how lucky we all are to just be healthy and have two healthy kids. We are having dinner tomorrow night with Kay and her son, Josh, who has a spinal cord injury and they have fought hard for over a decade for Josh to get back to a somewhat “normal” life, whatever that means. The world just continues to send you messages that help you learn the lessons you need to learn.

After the wheel chair match we went to watch Serena in her practice session. That was pretty amazing. Ilise and I saw Serena and Venus at a mall in FL about 3 or 4 years ago, and until you see her in person you don’t realize how big and powerful she really is. Serena was getting ready for her match with Madison Keys, which she won 7-6, 6-2. The first set was amazing and it looked like Madison had a real chance, and then the second set Serena was just dominant. Madison seemed to be the first woman I have seen in the past decade overpower Serena at certain points. At 19 years old it seems like she still has some mental work to do, but physically she seems to be getting close to being a top player in the world.

After watching the match we took the train back to downtown and jumped off to head back to Hosier Lane to see how far the painter had gotten on the consigned piece. We headed up to the 4th floor of the parking deck right across from the alley to get a better look. That was pretty cool. The painter has finished more than half of the painting and we will go back before we leave to see the final product. From Hosier Lane we headed to China Town and used Yelp! to find a really good local dive called Shanghai Street. The food was excellent and everyone ate well, including the kids. After dinner we headed back to the apartment, where everyone is crashing a bit while I watch Andy Murray play Berdych. I feel like tonight will be an early to bed night as tomorrow I have a meeting with a friend of a friend while the kids do their schoolwork. Then we are off to Fitzroy, a Bohemian section of town with much more street art. Looks like an opportunity for a lot more pictures 🙂

To a life well lived!

P.S. If you want to check out the pictures from today please click here.