Melbourne

I've been in Melbourne a week now. (I haven't written about it because I thought I would give you time to digest the last flurry of posts. Plus I've been busy being a tourist-- and hanging out with my new bogan friends in their cool green utes.) My cousin who lives here said I could stay with her (when I invited myself, she kindly accepted), but she and her family were on holiday my first day in Melbourne, so she recommended a backpackers' place called The Nunnery. Yes, as in "Get thee to a..." So I got myself there. (Really, it was only a matter of time, wasn't it?) The Nunnery (an old, Victorian house which had been a convent at one point, and still had lots of religious art around, but all done tongue-in-cheek...I think) was actually great. High ceilings, wooden floors, and a bed (bunk bed, with a Japanese girl above me) that was actually comfortable. Plus, there were free pancakes (really crepes) for breakfast on Sunday morning. Yum.  (By the way, I just found out that prostitution is legal here, and there's actually a brothel around the corner from the Nunnery.  Oh, the irony...)

I had the day to kill before my cousin would be collecting me, so I wandered around the suburb of Fitzroy (Melbourne's oldest suburb). It was really nice. Not nice in a swanky sense, but nice in a lots of character (and characters) sense.  They seem fans of what the NY Times once referred to as "elegant distress".  (Translation:  bare plaster is in.) Brunswick Street is the main strip, which is filled with lots of restaurants and bars and shops. Melbourne seems to really be into the hip and cool look to their shops, which alas extends to the signage. At many places, I couldn't decipher what exactly the name of the shop was. Looking in the window helped sometimes, but not always. I did go into a paper store that was beautiful. I popped into one "luxury items" (scarves and necklaces) shop. I gave all the boutiques a miss. (Neither to my taste nor my budget.) Somehow I managed to walk past all the bakeries and the chocolate shop without being lured in. (Having extended the Christmas bingeing for the whole three weeks that I was in Perth, I thought I would take a little break from sweets while I was in Melbourne, at least for one day.)

So along I walked on my sugarless way when I saw people sitting on very colorful seats outside a shop. The name of the shop was displayed as just a jumble of colorful letters, so that didn't help me in figuring out what they sold. I looked through the window into the shop, and I swear to god my brain was still decoding "Oh, it's a gelateria" when my feet had already turned into the store. I had absolutely nothing to do with it!  But since I was already in there, I did get some gelato... one scoop of sesame, which was fantastic, and one of spiced chocolate, which actually had a bit of a kick to it.

Back at the Nunnery, I pored through all of the tourist information that I had collected, sad to see that I would be missing various cool looking events (like the Victorian Hot Rod Show, which is a week after I leave... your guess is as good as mine as to what a Victorian hot rod is!), but I was THRILLED to see that the Metropolitan Opera (in New York) HD broadcasts were going on here (not live, clearly), and I would be able to see Tommy's wigs for Thais! I nipped right off to the theater, shelled out insane amounts of money (actually cheaper than it costs at home, but still four times the cost of a normal movie ticket), explained to the guy behind me in line that when the box office sign read "Thais opera" it meant that the movie was the opera Thais, and in I went. The time difference for once was working in my favor, and I called mom and dad during the first intermission (yes, the movie had intermissions, just like the real opera) and happily told them where I was. (Kind of like the time that I was in Vienna and I called home from a subway station at 3 a.m. to tell them that I was spending the night in line on the sidewalk to buy standing room tickets to see Placido Domingo sing in Carmen at opening night of the Statsoper.)

Once the opera ended (the wigs were indeed fantastic, as I knew they would be... and the singing was pretty good too), my cousin came and collected me. I haven't seen her in AGES, so it's been nice to catch up with her, see her husband again (the first time I got to be a bridesmaid, at the old age of 15. Loved that periwinkle dress), and meet her kids.

My friend in Perth unhappily told me that Perth, unlike Melbourne, had removed all of its old architecture. I hadn't really registered this until I got here and started to walk around. Melbourne really is lovely. It is in the state of Victoria, so therefor everything is referred to as Victorian, but much actually is from that period.  Sometimes it feels like I am walking around parts of St. Louis (which also had its heyday at the turn of the last century). Melbourne is small and totally walkable. I did cave today and take the tram, but that's because I had to get home for my cousin's child's third birthday party. (There was cake. Enough said.) I've walked around neighborhoods, through downtown, to museums and through parks. It is all great. Many of the museums and public buildings seem to have been built in the last 10 years, and the architecture is what I would call "funky". And graffiti seems to be an art form here.  I've really enjoyed everything... and I haven't even frequented the restaurants, for which Melbourne is famous.

I'll try to put up some photos that I've taken from around town. (But I'm on mac, which is being a bit confusing to me. "User-friendly" my @$$.)