Let me start this post with a complaint. People hype things up with me, and I find that it leads to my inevitable disappointment. For a while people have enthusiastically told me that I would absolutely love Melbourne. As if I'd pee my pants and change my life plans immediately upon viewing it. So when I got into the city, I was expecting some kind of apotheosis.
I liked Melbourne just fine. But I did not weep with divine knowing, and I did not feel like my life was finally complete. It was just fine. I looked around and thought to myself, "It's nice." But that was kind of it. And that disappointed me quite a lot.
What was Melbourne like? Well, it was a place of borrowed personalities. London and Paris had a baby, and Uncle LA and Aunty NYC took it for the weekends to show it how to grow and build a society by getting dirty. And maybe had a sibling named Portland, or maybe DC? It jumbled a bunch of cities in my head without much definition, so in that way it was indeed its own city. I just couldn't quite pin the impression it gave me for its personality, other than sewing together other cities together. I still liked it.
Our hostel was rough. It was over a bar, but not a very nice one. We were lodged in a stale room with mattresses that stabbed you with coils and ants seeping out of the floorboards. Some of the hostel guests were also faithful patrons to the bar below and would shout in their drunken stupors in the middle of the night. The first morning I woke up to find that someone painted their vomit across a toilet and its walls - it never really got cleaned up over the 3 nights we were there.
Now, onto good words.
We started our 3-day walking tour in South Melbourne for some Mexican food. I will say, that place has some really great food from which to choose, and a whole lot of choices to boot. There were hundreds of restaurants everywhere.
Melbourne also has trams and trains, which left me confused. That's all I have to say about that.
I got to see my NYC friend Kelly Ann for a few hours in the morning in a suburb further out of the city. She was leaving heading back to the US that evening, so I helped her pack as we talked about our experiences with Australia. We both agreed that the people are lovely, but we had different experiences with climate and culture. I am finding that Brisbane really feels like a college town to me, where everyone is highly qualified - Kelly Ann has been experiencing a less-educated population with a lot of high school dropouts. This led to interesting conversations on the education system in Australia. I'm still pondering this.
After I saw her and headed back to the city proper, the ladies and I met up at Federation Square and set off on a self-guided walking tour that led us through a maze of arcades and lanes throughout CBD. I was charmed by the arcades, as I always am. We also walked along the bridges along the skinny Yarra River that divides Melbourne much like how the Thames divides London. They have some very interesting bridges that share stories while you walk across them, and I enjoyed the views of the city. We ended the evening in a very hip area called Fitzroy for dinner. It seemed like the college students' area, being next to University of Melbourne. We had the most delicious Thai, and ended with decadent chocolate from an unforgettable place called Chocolateria San Churro. Let me take a moment of silence for this one...
The next day we headed straight to Melbourne Museum for some free exhibits. Unfortunately, it seemed like every single poorly-behaved child in Melbourne was in the museum with us, so we didn't last too long in the exhibits. We walked free from the oppression of bratty children through some nearby parks (to detox from the trauma) and made our way to the Koorie Heritage Trust. We were hoping to learn more about the Aboriginal cultures of Melbourne, and the Koorie exhibit was quiet and educative, to our luck.
And then we walked more. We walked a lot.
We actually got to experience an Australian protest on our walk! The city filled with a peaceful protest arguing unethical land grabs by the government in Western Australia for coal mining. It was a protest filled with Aborginal flags and people participating in a sit-out. The cops peacefully watched from the sides and managed the crowds surrounding the protest. I wish I was able to explore it more without fear of jeopardizing my visa/scholarship - it was fascinating!
And we went to the Eureka Skydeck and rode the elevator up 88 flights to view Melbourne from high above. Being mildly afraid of heights, I clung onto the inner walls while the girls got to explore closer to the windows for a little bit. It was a pretty impressive site to see, but I missed Earth a lot up there.
Other than that, we ate Greek for dinner and crepes for dessert. And we went to a fancy personal-sized movie theatre to see "Big Eyes".
Our last day we had a lot of time to kill before we had to make it to the airport, but we didn't have enough time to go into deeper explorations. We ended up at the Museum of Moving Image (ACMI) in Federation Square. It was a very fun place! We got to interact with a lot of videos and displays.
Next time I get to Melbourne, I hope to have more money with me so I can afford to go on more adventures. I think that also made it harder to enjoy the city more. And I will plan on making a friend who knows the city better and can show me around the hidden gems we couldn't uncover on this trip.
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