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Published: December 24th 2009
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jeffs flat... my comfy sofa bed for 3 weeks!The time came for me to board that plane again... on the 9th of Nov 2009 I headed out of the UK again... for the next unpredictable amount of time, with unpredictable adventures and unforseeable futures!
And it wasn't until 24hrs and a short 3hr stop in hong kong later that I rocked up in the worlds 3rd most liveable city, on the other side of the world, and at 35 degrees at 10pm the heat wave was on!
Destination: Melbourne, Australia.
Population 3.7mil and the 2nd largest city in Aus, Melbourne is, as the guide book so aptly describes it 'Sophisticated and slick, edgy and rough'. It is everything one could want encapsulated in a small easily manageable area. Separated by the yarra river which meanders smooth and cleanly through the city centre, melbourne is split into East and West, locals seemly sticking loyally to their chosen side. The city centre itself is a compact and neat cbd where you'll find the likes of the financial districts Collins St with its Parisian section up the top running alongside china town and the greek precinct (largest greek population outside greece) and the shopping frenzy of bourke st. Federation
Square is located opposite the train station, the cities meeting point and is an explosion of glass buildings, including the ACMI (australias centre of moving images).
But its the surrounding suburbs that is where the magic happens... The Italian quater of Carlton where you can sit back with a parmiganno and real coffee and watch the mafia do their thing, the bohemian north that is fitzroy and Carlton, much like brighton, quirky shops and cool pubs... not to mention the odd spanish festival that one frequently stumbles across. Prahran holds the likes of chaple st, excellent for a night out. And last but not least, Melbournes own favorite seaside burb of St Kilda, a melting pot of backpackers and the young, hip and cool, entrepreneurs, mainstream and alternative... you'll find it all here with the added help of st kilda beach and luna park thrown in for good measure.
So after going back to Jeffs flat, adjusting to the heat and accepting that jet lag was inevitable (the 5am wake up concluded that one!) I headed out for my first week of sight seeing.. first stop Brighton beach. Named after old blightly the beach is even complete with
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night out in geelong... with tuscan mules! tuaca is here! its multicoloured beach huts.. and high priced housing! Unfortunately swimming was out as the unseasonably warm weather had brought an influx of jellies to the shallow waters... not the dangerous box kind, but the bigger variety, in their hoards. Nice. We roamed all over the city and had a mosey round all the suburbs soaking up the atmosphere... the thing that Melbourne is best for. Other sight seeing involves the fitzroy and treasurey gardens... home to captin cooks original home in england.. a friend and I had yet to realise this meaning and spent a large part of the walk loudly voicing our concern that Mr Cook had made a very bad error coming all the way to Aus only to build the smallest house ever to be seen...and made of brick! in a land where houses are usually made of wood, surely this was poor planning! a read of the blurb later told us that the house had in fact been brought by some rich Aussie who's had it shipped to melbourne and plonked in the gardens. Oh, no wonder we were getting funny looks.
The Botanical gardens are also worth the 20min walk down the river, stunning
little path ways, a large lake and a wealth of wildlife such as parrots, kukaburrahs and frogs fill the otherwise peaceful ambiance.
Other attractions of Melbourne are the MCG (cricket ground), Luna Park - St Kildas famous old school fair ground, Albert Park.. Home to the F1 track, Queen Victoria markets.. best enjoyed on a wednesday evening when it doubles in size and bands play throughout the night. and who could forget the chocolate and cake cafes that spread through the city giving it its name of the chocolate snowball, a chocolate lovers heaven, you can even do a tour! and, for the TV fans, there's the infamous Ramsay Street, for your viewing pleasure and if you're that keen you can pay $40 and head to the elephant and wheelbarrow every monday night to 'meet the stars' usually involving the institution that is Dr Karl Kennedy and his band. the girl in my room went last monday for the christmas special... she never made it to her bed coz she had drunkenly passed out on our bedroom floor. nice.
Couple of day's later and we were off to Jeffs stomping ground in Geelong, 1.5hrs out of the city,
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heading out on jeffs dads boat for a night out in the home town. It was good to get out of the city, and we even got a ride on his dads boat... whoop whoop!
After 3 weeks staying at Jeffs flat, meeting his friends and seeing my friends that rocked up in melbourne for a visit, learning that the heat wave was not to last and that in Melbourne the heavens can open just as wide as they do in england (except that really do have a drought here and the rain was welcome!) I decided that it was time to leave Jeff be and head out into the great wide on my own.. of course that didnt last for long, because I had chosen the party hostel of St Kilda to bed down in... and so far havent looked back!
Oh the fun that has ensued in that hostel. Now, noone is going to pretend for a second that the Coffee Palace is the nicest or cleanest hostel that has ever existed, and its certainly not going to win any prizes in the near future.. bed bugs are rife and there are no lockers, at all, the hot water frequently doenst work
and the showers leave nothing to the imagination. But everyone who stays there will tell you that it can all be put to one side for the fun you'll have.. and if all else fails then you wont even notice the mouse that keeps appearing in your room because you'll be too drunk. perhaps this is why the only alcohol that you're permitted to bring in from outside is goon (affectionately named cheap boxed wine, so called prob because it invariably turns you into a goon!) and that is a double edged sword to say the least!
So I've been having fun in the hostel in amongst trialling and applying for jobs and trying to get into the christmas spirit - the closest yet has been that hostel christmas party.. theme 'C' for christmas.. let the karaoke begin...hic! i've met cool people, there's a wealth of scottish, swedish and germans! some have been there for 8 months, some are just passing through, all are there for a good time.
The night life of Melbourne is an eclectic music lovers dream... for posh cocktail bars, to quirky themed bars like 29th apartment (set out like a real apartment) to
the world known Esplanade bar (the espy) you can find anything and everything.. Jazz to rock, backpacker to drum and bass, you name it, Melbournes got it. You can go out on a saturday and come home on a monday, I did my first 'sunday seshion' this weekend and it was a lot of fun.. sunday is the new friday here! I have learnt a few lessons along the way however, namely that the bouncers here are the strictest I've come across ever in the world, and they love their power trips. I was kicked out a club the other day for asking a bouncer where my drink was after i left it with him to go to the toilet. I nearly didnt get into a club once when I asked what the cover charge was... standard for the UK, a MASSIVE no no in Aus, you want to go there? you pay whatever it is, if you ask they suspect you of being a pauper. my friends had to queue the other day for 40mins to get into a bar i walked straight into, the bouncer let in everyone around them and even people that turned up after them!
and there was no good reason.
the only other thing i dont like about melbourne (aside from the cost of living here... think stockholm and you're getting there!) is the taxi drivers... they never turn up, theres never enough, and if you're not going the right direction or distance for them then they just wont take you. its ridiculous.
moving on... If you see a picture of Melbourne on the internet or any brochure you're likely to be confronted with a sight that makes Melbourne a bit unique... its trams. the old ones being around for who knows how long amble their way around the city and ding their way into the suburbs. theres a free one that goes round the city centre and theres even the restaurant tram (a bit out of my league at $170 a trip...but maybe someday). Most locals couldnt even tell you where one tram line goes let alone how to get from a to b, seeing as they all have cars, and unlike old blightly parking is not a half a day mission with rates verging on extreme extortion. The trams are pretty efficient, but they're not cheap. they used to be
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night out in melbourne when charlotte came to town! heavens sweaty door! cheap, even up until last year. this was due to the fact that you could hop on and off the trams without having to pay a cent, you must have the correct change to get on the tram and buy your ticket, they dont take notes. a flaw in the system that the government are now trying to rectify by firstly putting in a new oyster card type thing (highly less sophisticated than the oyster card though) and by putting more inspectors on the trams.. horror stories of being caught are flying round the hostel, as naturally they put the inspectors on the most touristy trams. $170 fines given out by plain clothed officers that have demanded proof of ID even to the point of going through peoples phone to get it. any resistance or swearing gives you another immediate $170 fine. and if you dont show them ID they WILL hold you until the police come. Unfortunately these rumours are true and its a slightly sad state of affairs.
The buildings are a mixture of old and new, locals will complain that everythings too new and theres no history unlike london. I disagree, in amongst the sheaths of
new era glass buildings you'll find little gems of quaint aussie charms.. they look like they've come out of a western movie, saloon in shape and style and are typical of the landscape. and out in the proper suburbs the houses are made of wood and also have a original uniqueness to them.
The wildlife is for the most part not so Australian in the city centres. There was the jellyfish, and I've seen a few possums... when i was walking from the botanical gardens the other day I heard a thud beside me and looked round to see a possum had fallen out of a tree. it was looking at me all dazed and confused and befuddled and then slowly started weaving its way back up the trunk again. think it had a night out on the goon! There are parrots and parakeets, bed bugs and mice, and life you go down to st Kilda pier a couple of hours after sunset you'll find a couple of families of penguins that are using the water break as their home. why i dont know, they must all be blind by now from the japanese with their massive cameras ignoring
the 'no flash' signs everywhere. hmmmm. thats mainly it for wildlife as yet... ill see more when i venture out the city, or go to the aquarium.
food here is the same. they have more seafood, they're obsessed with sushi, its on every corner.. and smoothies and ice cream too. and food is generally expensive. you get kangaroo meat and all that here... but you can get that in brighton if you go to the walkabout. here we have vegemite.. you all knew that anyway. everything else is the same. except that you usually cant buy booze in the supermarket (only in IGA) you have to go to the bottle shop for that, which is next to the supermarket anyway!
Aussies are more open than our closed up british natures. they're loud and brash and friendly and dont hold back. they can sometimes do that awful american trait of being overfriendly and fake. they can say a lot more controversial things on radio and TV, what we might call 'risque', swear during the day and generally dont have that fear of the overbearing POLITICAL CORRECTNESS that is infringing freedom of speech in the UK. so every now and
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jeffs best friend jacob then i double take at what i have just seen or heard, and then relax and realise PC-ness has just been drummed into me. and i much prefer the Aussie way of saying it like it is and actually being able to HAVE an opinion and being allowed to make jokes without holding back. for example, they have a billboard for suntan lotion that makes fun of ginger people, on the radio there is an advert for a department store that wishes everyone a merry christmas 'except the pricks', and noone would bat an eyelid if the presenter of the 7pm show called britney spears a silly b***h. good, thats the way it should be.
i havent watched the news much of late, being in a hostel and all, but i do know that the aussie government is screwed! this being mainly due to the fact that 3 weeks ago the liberal party (conservative to us) pretty much disbanded after the leader of the party resigned (was forced to leave) because he was backing too many of the labour parties ideas. ohh dear. on the plus side, last year the goverment has too much money and gave everyone $900
to put money back into the economy. and you get $5k for having a kid here and $20k if you want to buy a house thats in planning. so thats not a bad deal really. and everyone gets paid well here more or less.
Do I need to say more about the climate? Melbourne is renouned for having 4 seasons in 1 day. I came to a heat wave and since then it cant make up its mind.. thunder storms one day and bright sunshine the next. 20 degrees some days and 40 others. you can never tell. but the council are happy as we've reached the water quota for the year, so everyone can have an extra shower a for a month. great. but they have built in public bbq's which are awesome! we went to the beach for one yest, it was fun.
And the tan is coming along nicely... 1st day of summer was officially 1/12/2009. jan and feb is going to be hot hot hot. and st kilda beach is the place to be, it might as well be copacabana for all the stunning tanned bodies around! the slight glint of the sun and the
beach is rammed, its melbournes equivilant of sydneys bondi.. without the surf.
The only issue I currently have with melboune is that it doesnt feel in the slightest bit christmasy, unless you go into the shopping malls. but i havent heard any xmas songs, theres a few decorations up in town but they look like they've been left up from last year (they dont even light up at night), hardly anyone has xmas trees and generally its just not the same. maybe its the marketting in the UK that has made it into this massive deal, maybe its the climate, but its definately decidedly unchristmasy. so plans for xmas day are BBQ on the beach... however, you'll all be pleased to know that I have just checked the weather and the forecast is rain!
Well, I think that I have pretty much covered everything for now.. I've been here for nearly 6 weeks and they have flown by. I'm sure that christmas and new years eve and the new year to come will bring with it a fresh spout of stories and musings.
Until then all, Hope you are all well, keep in touch
Merry Christmas and
a Happy New Year!
holly
ps.. if the photos dont appear to be in chronological order i appologise... the pc has decided to upload them in a funny manner.
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