We got up pretty early this morning and drove back to the airport. The drive went smoothly and we had plenty of time before our flight. We had an altercation with the rental car company trying to charge us $400 for a two inch scratch that was on the car before we checked it out. We argued for a while but finally said we disagree and the charge is not approved. I will just dispute it on our credit card statement and let them hash it out. We are on Holiday and we really don't have any desire to deal with negative ****. We can’t let this ruin our Tasmanian experience, after all this is annoying not life changing.

We made it into the terminal and had lunch and did a little duty free shopping. We have been flying around the country on Virgin Australia which has been quite pleasant. We boarded the plane and got our headphones on and started flipping through the tv channels. We found a Colorado Avalanche hockey game. We could not believe that on a flight from Tasmania to Melbourne we could actually watch our team play hockey. It was a short flight so we only got to see the second period but it was fun. It was the first time I wished for a longer flight. Av’s were winning 4-0 when we arrived.

We were all set to take the Metro from the airport to the Hilton we are booked into for two nights. We looked up the route on Google before we left the states. We picked up our bag and went to the information desk to ask where the train station was, only to learn that the metro system is not built yet. We laughed that we could see stations on the map and get a schedule for a train that did not exist. We ended up taking a shuttle service to the hotel.

Checking into the Hilton On The Park in Melbourne was an amazing experience. They were prepared for our arrival with a welcome card and room ready for us. We are diamond members due to Eric spending about 180 nights per year in hotels, mostly Hiltons and Holiday Inns. We used points to get free rooms for a couple of nights here. They immediately upgraded us to a corner suite and gave us a key to the VIP lounge on the top floor. The lounge serves free food and drinks at happy hour and breakfast in the morning. Usually free happy hour consists of wings or meatballs and a plate of veggies and some flat tap beer. Not here. They had a beautiful buffet set up and bottles of wine, beer and champagne. We sat up there for a couple of hours looking out over the city, sipping champagne and helping ourselves to the buffet. We decided we did not need to go out for dinner so we filled our wine glasses and went back to our room and watched a movie. We turned on our TV in our room to find it set on a channel that said "Welcome Eric Glazier." I want to move into this hotel. Tomorrow we will explore Melbourne and watch the cricket series final between Sri Lanka and Australia.