Advertisement
Published: January 30th 2008
We arrived in Melbourne on an over night train that was uneventful except for the conductor who asked us where we were from in England and proceded to tell us we had the best taverns in the world and he loved England loads! We certainly weren't expecting that as most people don't seem to care much when you say you're from London, so this was a refreshingly different response.
At around 9am, we left Melbournes Southern Cross station and puzzled, tried to find our way to our hostel (Urban Central). After finally finding a tram (the city is full of them!), we made our way across the river and end up walking down a street which has little other than a massive Casino. Classy area, we thought... As our hostel finally came into view, we understand their advertisement of 'local amenities' on the website merely refers to a petrol garage and a McDonalds twinned with a McCafe! No worries though, we find out later that this is hardly important at all...
The hostel is massive. However, we can't get a good look until 2pm when check in begins so we set off to discover some more about our area.
For a while, all we find is car dealerships but thankfully we find an interesting little market and strangely- a Safeways! Being now extinct in the UK, it was fun to see so we popped in and bought some food to make fajitas later. Finding more interesting shops along this way, we stopped off for a lovely pie. The only thing that nearly spoilt it was the offer of ketchup on top! Are you crazy???
Urban Central turns out to be pretty good, if a bit anonymous. We don't meet anyone here but we have some people to meet up with anyway and our room is massive!!!! We have an ensuite and high ceilings, along with a good view over the city. We also have a crazy swipe card that never seems to work in our door (unless you do it around 15 times) and also operates the lift. The kitchen is pretty odd as there's always a man in there watching people to see if they do their dishes! It was like a jail or something. The bar had the sports channels so Joe was happy and they had good deals for food- like all you can eat
pizza for $5! Bargain!
Our 2nd day in Melbourne, we discovered our hostel was amazingly close to the centre. After about 5 or 7 minutes walk we were by the river and admiring the cool sculptures. Then we found the shopping district which was as boring as ever and then stumbled upon Federation Square- the cultural hearrt of Melbourne. Here there were many free events, a few museums, bars and free screens to watch the sport in the sun. And there was plenty of sun! The weather topped out at about 37 degrees so we were exhausted after a few hours in the sun. We did have a great walk though which we seem to be good at and it also saves on transport costs!
Melbourne grows on us. At first it seems almost boring in comparison to Sydney as the street are emptier and things seem less busy. However, we start to love the chilled out vibe and the amount of space people have. You can understand why people are so mad in London sometimes! We have no space! There is also so much culture in Melbourne and the residents seem to appreciate it just as
much as the visitors.
The next day we decided to get in a bit of sight seeing on the way to the twenty20. Yes, my 2nd cricket match in my life in about one week! Not bad eh... We took a walk through the botanical gardens (everywhere seems to have them!) and had a look at the shrine of rememberence which was interesting as ever and brought up lots of thoughts about war etc. We fianlly made it to the cricket and we were told if we had a tram or metro ticket we could get in for free! So we went up to the station and got a $3.00 ticket and didn't have to pay a thing. What a great scheme we thought and something England should do more often. As if... The cricket was good, if a bit one-sided. We watched some womens cricket and then the men's, both times with the home side winning amazingly easy. Twenty20 was very energetic and the home fans were a lot nastier to the away team, whereas at the test match everyone clapped both sides if they did something great.
After the cricket, we headed back to Federation Square
Joe and I outside Carpenters mechanics
Neighbours fans will know! (Though I don't think many will be reading this blog...)and met Pritti and Ellen (our friends from earlier who appeared in the Sydney blog) and had a nice drink. This led on well to watching the Arsenal match which started at around 1am. With my eyes half-closed, I watched Arsenal win (although it was a terrible game). Then it was definitely time for bed!
Long anticipated- the next day was the Neighbours night! We were very excited, especially as availability was rather low and we weren't sure we'd get in. Pritti decided to join us for a night of fun and frolics. Firstly, we stopped by St Kilda nearby where there were lots of alternative shops and best of all- the best cake shops in the world! After long deliberation, I just went for a cheesecake and Joe and Pritti went for other sugary and tasty treats. All fired up, we arrived at the British pub where all the Neighbours fans were waiting for the night to begin! We ended up on a table with about 5 others, none who were particularly interesting (no offence) and got ready to greet the 'stars'.
Our stars if anyone watches the show or has in the past were Janelle, Dylan,
Rachel Kinsky, a new character called Steve and Mal Kennedy. I felt sorry for them all as they had to walk around in a roomful of nutty fans and especially for Rachel who is only 16 or 17. We also had a quiz and a good dance as the night went on. All in all, it was kind of a terrible and tacky night with far too many drunk English people. Yet at the same time, Joe, Pritti and I had fun together and thats all that counts really.
Even more Neighbours...
We went on the Neighbours tour! After a very long drive (as Melbourne seems to sprawl out endlessly) and a dose of 'Classic Neighbours' episodes on the bus, we arrived at Erinsborough High. Well, rather a small school that they only shoot a few outside scenes at and it looks completely different in real life. Even more funny was Ramsay St. It was tiny! And not called Ramsay St- it's actually called 'Pin Oak Court' and people are so mad about the show that there's a 24 hour security guard! Even funnier were other facts such as the characters never actually enter the houses, they only
I'm Batman!
And there's a Dudley Street here too! Great taste Australia... walk up the path and the rest is shot in the studio. Also, because 'Ramsay St' is so small, when people walk down the street, they use slow motion to make it loook longer than it is! We also went to the studios and saw how crazily small it all is too and found out how they used the front of it for the jail scenes as it looks so drab!
Well, enough of the Neighbours chat... It was all quite funny though and I'm sure visiting any set would make all shows seem ridiculous.
So, you'll never believe it but there's a Dudley Street in Melbourne too! After the tour, we managed to get tickets to see Kings of Leon that evening and it was in Dudley Street! What good taste these Australians have... Anyway, back to the gig. It was really enjoyable. The band were great and also we were in a non-alcohol section (as this was just where we ended up getting tickets) and it was a really relaxed atmosphere and more spacious. No one pushed at all like in London. What a refreshing change!
Another interesting feature in Federation Square was the ACMI,
the moving image museum. In here, we got caught up for a few hours playing video games developed by University students. Some of them were frustratingly hard and others were just good fun. It was nice to play something in a different format and with fresh ideas. Later, we headed to Brunswick St where we heard there were a few different restaurants and we thought it'd be good for a change. In the end, we went for an Afghan! Pritti and Ellen joined us once again and we had a nice meal. I've never had Afghan before so that made a change at least. We said goodbye to Ellen as she was heading back to the Netherlands and arranged to meet Pritti the next day.
Our final day in Melbourne involved a trip to the museum. We met Pritti outside and spent hours going through an exhibition about personality and the mind. It was all very interesting, especially how peoples attitudes have changed towards mental illness etc. The treatments are also a bit more humane these days! So many people would be institutionalised (and maybe permanently) now if perceptions hadn't changed eg: those with post-natal depression, people who are
bipolar and even more serious conditions can be treated far better like Schizophrenia etc. It was also interesting to read and we spent so long there the museum was closing!
Outside, the heat wouldn't let up so we decided to go to one of the only cheap air conditioned places we could think of- the cinema! With an ice cream in hand, we settled down for a few hours and watched 'I am Legend'. Not my choice of film but not bad nonetheless and sometimes it's good to just zone out and watch something for a while. To top this all off, we headed back to Federation Square, in time to catch a glass percussion show. The setting was amazing. There was a glass structure where the artists sat inside and played all types of glass pieces, like plates/cups/large bottles and so on. It was pretty interesting and not something you see every day! However, tiredness was setting in and Joe and I had a date with the alarm clock at 4am the next day......
We said our farewells to Pritti as she was staying on in Melbourne and that was that. It was quite strange saying goodbye
to Pritti as we'd spenta lot of time with her and her cousin, Alaka. We'd met them weeks before and it almost felt like we had a friend around for a bit. New Zealand really was a completely new start! We knew no one so that could be either good or bad. And we would soon find out.
4am and we fell out of bed. Dragging our bags down the street and ignoring a few drunks who hadn't been to bed yet, we finally reached the station. Here, there were more drunks (especially one who kept throwing his shoe and trying to annoy everyone) and a wait for a the shuttle that had changed from the timetable we had. Thankfully, it didn't take long and we left the drunk behind. At 7am, we took off and it was goodbye Australia, hello New Zealand.
Lot of love to everyone. More soon, love Nikki xxx
Advertisement
Tot: 0.078s; Tpl: 0.021s; cc: 16; qc: 46; dbt: 0.0384s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
