Nicholas Quirke was feeling slightly jaded on 1^st January 2018. Though his alcohol consumption was minimal it still seemed enough to make him feel listless and unable to get out of bed and he spent a good hour reading ‘The Hour I first Believed’. He was particularly struck by a paragraph relating to the nature of the Odyssey’s written about in the Greek Myths and ‘The Call to Adventure’ with the hero going forth of his own volition or being carried by malignant forces. Nicholas found amusing parallels in the voyage he had embarked on in the story of Theseus, who had a quest echoing with the purpose with which Nicholas drove across the USA and then with Odysseus, who was driven by the winds and caprices of the angered god, Poseidon which resonated with the chaos of Nicholas’s transition to the Antipodes. As he was ruminating on The Odyssey, he received a surprise, hilarious FaceTime call from his cousins Steve and Suzanne who were waiting to see 2018 usher in. This contact was the first of a host of messages from home including a call from Sister, Kate. Kim took Nicholas into the city to sort out the tech problems, which he hopes are now fully resolved. The heat was really starting to show itself today so instead of lots of walking Nicholas was given a tour in the car by Kim of Melbourne suburbs and areas, including seeing her sadly departed sister Lindis’s home in Toorak, Melbourne’s Hampstead Garden Suburb, Armadale, Brighton and East Brighton, The Buddhist Centre where Kim had lived for 17 years, Kim’s High School and ’16th Street’ Kim’s impressive acting school. They stopped for lunch in Brighton which was nice food but the waiter was not very gracious and Kim rightly identified that he was British. After Lunch they visited Kim’s friends Sandra, from Liverpool and Harry. This was a lovely experience for Nicholas who found them both warm, honest, engaging and really welcoming. Next on the agenda was a tour of the Bay and its glamorous homes and beach before they went back to Brighton for a Movie, ‘3  Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri’ a powerful, funny and moving tale of redemption with a towering central performance from Frances McDormand. Kim took Nicholas to Chapel Street where they had supper at the Oriental Teahouse. It was Nicholas’s turn to find the service wanting when he asked the waitress which of the ‘green teas; she recommended and there was not a straight answer forthcoming, The tofu was delicious but he wasn’t too keen on the gelatinous nature of the dumplings. Back at home they relaxed and did their own thing. Though when he looked at the photos from the day, he didn’t feel he had really captured the uniqueness of the buildings in the areas they traversed.