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Published: April 25th 2005
New Zealand was then.
Melbourne is now.
Its great to be in a city again. The 4 million people here from what I can see spend their time in cafes, bars or at footy games. I have done my best to fit in.
The cafe culture is huge. Which is lucky as my capacity for drinking 'long black' coffees is similarly sized. Chic cafes line narrow streets manned by trendy staff with will pointy, gelled hair.
Its a really cosmpolitan affair with really pretty buildings. I am not normally into city architecture but even the train station building is beautiful. The River Yarra divides the CBD in the north with the more weekend-trippy areas of the south. Its great.
Its a really special time here as well as today in ANZAC day, marking 90 years since the Australian and New Zealand military landed at Gallipoli in WW1. There's parades and special events laid on, coinciding with a massive public holiday. Everyone is out, and in 24 degree temperatures too. Ripper.
Most of my time has been spent in cafes, record shops and generally wandering around the different areas. Have met people around the city (we
Shrine of Remembrance
The focus of the ANZAC day commemorationsall clutch copies of the lonely planet) and its great fun. I left my self-respect and dignity at the hostel this morning when I went on a neighbours tour. I'm sorry. I had to. I went to Ramsay Street (which annoyingly is not even called Ramsay Street but Pine Oak Court - one for the pub trivia boffins there). Real humans live there (as opposed to the make believe concoctions like Doctor Karl) and go about there everyday lives while Grundy studios shove TV cameras into their famous cul-de-sac. The tour was predictably stuff full of poms. A lot of them were seriously hardcore. They were trying to get me to go the museum to see a mock-up of the Scullys' kitchen and the ACTUAL wedding cake at Scott and Charlene's wedding. Steady on.
Redeeming my sense of soaking up real-life culture, I took in some of the ANZAC parade and then headed off to the aussie rules footy game. Blindly not realising the ANZAC day game has been sold out for weeks, a fortunately stumbled into Annette and her 10-strong Melbourne-based family, who not only sold me their spare ticket for 20 bucks, but took me under their
footy wing, explaining to me what it means to shout "BALL!" at the top of your voice and down a "4 and 20" pie with a pint of Carlton without checking your health insurance. It was a massive local derby game, cheered on by 70000 excitied aussies. It took place at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Not many people call it this though. A few call it the Cricket Ground. More people, the MCG. Most people - proving that Australia is the abbreviation capital of the world - call it the G. Even the language is laid back.
This is my last day in the city before heading off on a 2 day tour to the Great Ocean Road and the Grampians National Park. My next blog will no doubt be from Bali.
Till then,
G'day.
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