Day 5
Today I went down to the beachfront neighborhood of St. Kilda, an area full of colorful shops, cafes, and restaurants. They also had an arts & crafts market every Sunday, which actually had a lot of cool jewelry and other handmade items.
I spent most of the day window shopping, and after eating my sad sandwich and grapes for lunch I gave into temptation and got a cupcake from one of the many bakeries.
It was a bit chilly/breezy for a pleasant walk on the beach, but it was nice.
Later on I went back up to Fitzroy for a CouchSurfing board game meetup at a cafe/bar/restaurant called Monties. I was late but assumed I was first when I saw no one there..then a foreign-looking guy walked in and went into a private room where there was a big group of people at a long table playing games. I sat at the end where there were some open seats and chatted for a bit with the two guys that arrived at the same as me. One was an Australian who'd just returned from a 3-month stay in South America, the other was a Vietnamese guy who just moved to Melbourne. Some more trickled in (locals mostly) and we had some coffee and started a game of Harry Potter Uno, followed by a Finnish game called Menolippu, which involved building train tracks across an old map of Europe. It was actually fun once we got the hang of it.
For some reason, Monties closed at 5:30 while many of us were still in the middle of our games, so much of the group continued the party down the street at a place called Bimbo. It was a cool place - dimly lit, huge space with lots of sofas and comfy chairs, a DJ playing good disco/funk/soul music, and a huge menu of excellent $4 pizzas. I got one with pumpkin, soy cheese, pine nuts, and rosemary, though I ended up having to wait at least an hour for it. Rather than continue the games we all just hung out and chatted. My giant camera drew all the photography enthusiasts into a conversation and served as a good ice breaker. Philip, one of the CSers I had talked to online previously was one of them, and we spent much of the time playing around with our cameras, switching lenses to experiment. Eventually everyone left while Philip and I were still waiting for our pizzas.
After we finally ate we moved on to a club called the Retreat Hotel in Brunswick where his friend's friend's band was playing. I sat on the back rack of his bike for most of the trip over, which was a bit physically awkward, but he impressively managed to both steer straight and carry on a conversation.
He turned out to be a really interesting guy. He was an engineer of some sort but worked with schools to aid them in becoming more energy efficient. He traveled the world for over a year on an "around the world" ticket, which until now I never knew existed, but sounded like a brilliant idea if you could afford it. I admired the fact that he was in debt but didn't care and figured he could just work now to make up the money.
The Retreat was one of many hotels-turned-clubs in the country that retained the "hotel" portion of its name. It was a large space with an outdoor patio in the back where we met up with Philip's friends, pulling up whatever stools or wooden crates we could find to sit on. Unfortunately we didn't make it in time to see his friend's band, but we caught a glimpse of similar band on the way out - Irish punk style a la Flogging Molly but with fewer people. They were pretty good.
All in all, I was glad to have finally met up with some people.. I didn't see my hosts much after the first couple nights, and hanging out by myself several days in a row was already starting to take its toll on me a bit. But everyone I met was cool and friendly, and it finally gave me the chance to do some things I couldn't do on my own. And it was just nice to interact with people again.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Saturday, 9/13 - Melbourne
Day 4
Today I went to the Queen Victoria Market, a huge outdoor marketplace with lots of crappy merchandise but good food - local produce, meats, cheeses, baked goods, etc. The only gems I found amongst the tacky stuff were some little aboriginal paintings and a stuffed wombat keychain. The food was more appealing - I tried to look for Australian things specifically, whatever they may be. I went with a Tasmanian apple, a couple pears, some dried paw paw, and a couple kiwis, which the vendor ended up giving me for free since I wanted less than the 10 for a dollar deal. They got squished in my bag but I ate them anyway.
I got lunch in the prepared food section - some kind of long bread thing with potato and spicy veggies, and a Turkish delight. This was my first tasting of an authentic one, and I was pleasantly surprised. It reminded me of mochi, but sweeter. Finally my impression was redeemed after I mistakenly tried the disgusting Cadbury chocolate-covered version first.
After sitting and writing in Fitzroy Gardens for a while I took the old-timey City Circle tram to the Docklands, a commercial area by the piers. There wasn't much to do there unless you're eating out, but I got some decent pictures out of it.
After dark I went back to the house and Jeremy invited me to go hang out with his friends, but I decided to be a homebody, watch some more Flight of the Concords and get in some internet time.
Today I went to the Queen Victoria Market, a huge outdoor marketplace with lots of crappy merchandise but good food - local produce, meats, cheeses, baked goods, etc. The only gems I found amongst the tacky stuff were some little aboriginal paintings and a stuffed wombat keychain. The food was more appealing - I tried to look for Australian things specifically, whatever they may be. I went with a Tasmanian apple, a couple pears, some dried paw paw, and a couple kiwis, which the vendor ended up giving me for free since I wanted less than the 10 for a dollar deal. They got squished in my bag but I ate them anyway.
I got lunch in the prepared food section - some kind of long bread thing with potato and spicy veggies, and a Turkish delight. This was my first tasting of an authentic one, and I was pleasantly surprised. It reminded me of mochi, but sweeter. Finally my impression was redeemed after I mistakenly tried the disgusting Cadbury chocolate-covered version first.
After sitting and writing in Fitzroy Gardens for a while I took the old-timey City Circle tram to the Docklands, a commercial area by the piers. There wasn't much to do there unless you're eating out, but I got some decent pictures out of it.
After dark I went back to the house and Jeremy invited me to go hang out with his friends, but I decided to be a homebody, watch some more Flight of the Concords and get in some internet time.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Friday, 9/12 - Melbourne
Day 3
Today was spent walking around the Botanic Garden, the Shrine of Remembrance (WWI Memorial), and eventually the Yarra River and Federation Square, which made for some good pictures after it got dark.
I went back to the house for a while for dinner, a long nap, and some Flight of the Concords while I waited for Rebecca to call and tell me where to meet her. Things were tricky at this stage with communication.. I still wasn't entirely sure how to instruct her to call my American cell number, which I was trying to avoid anyway due to the hefty charges. She didn't call the house phone til around 10ish, after which I called her again from a payphone to rendezvous at the train station. Eventually we found each other and headed over to a bar called Purple Emerald, which was a pretty nice looking place with dim reddish lighting, comfy couches, and a live funk-type band. Her friends were all very nice to me. Among other things we discussed music, American/Australian politics, and cool stuff to do in Melbourne. Shockingly, my first visit to a real Aussie nightclub and I managed to get hit on twice throughout the night. The first was some douche who apparently took a class on how to pick up women, using the brand new pickup line/conversation starter of asking Rebecca and I whether we thought intuition is primal or learned. Being fairly caught off guard and the naive foreigner that I was, and not used to getting hit on in bars, I tried to be polite, not knowing any other way. Rebecca didn't even humor them as the guy's reputation as a pickup artist in training had preceded him. The second guy was simply drunk and immediately after introducing himself, asked how old I was and if it was weird that he was 37. After some mild pleasantries on my part, I pretended to not hear him every time he tried to get my attention from the next couch over.
We wound up staying out til about 3 and were among the last to leave before closing. Of course I was ready to pass out long before.
Today was spent walking around the Botanic Garden, the Shrine of Remembrance (WWI Memorial), and eventually the Yarra River and Federation Square, which made for some good pictures after it got dark.
I went back to the house for a while for dinner, a long nap, and some Flight of the Concords while I waited for Rebecca to call and tell me where to meet her. Things were tricky at this stage with communication.. I still wasn't entirely sure how to instruct her to call my American cell number, which I was trying to avoid anyway due to the hefty charges. She didn't call the house phone til around 10ish, after which I called her again from a payphone to rendezvous at the train station. Eventually we found each other and headed over to a bar called Purple Emerald, which was a pretty nice looking place with dim reddish lighting, comfy couches, and a live funk-type band. Her friends were all very nice to me. Among other things we discussed music, American/Australian politics, and cool stuff to do in Melbourne. Shockingly, my first visit to a real Aussie nightclub and I managed to get hit on twice throughout the night. The first was some douche who apparently took a class on how to pick up women, using the brand new pickup line/conversation starter of asking Rebecca and I whether we thought intuition is primal or learned. Being fairly caught off guard and the naive foreigner that I was, and not used to getting hit on in bars, I tried to be polite, not knowing any other way. Rebecca didn't even humor them as the guy's reputation as a pickup artist in training had preceded him. The second guy was simply drunk and immediately after introducing himself, asked how old I was and if it was weird that he was 37. After some mild pleasantries on my part, I pretended to not hear him every time he tried to get my attention from the next couch over.
We wound up staying out til about 3 and were among the last to leave before closing. Of course I was ready to pass out long before.
Thursday, 9/11 - Melbourne
Day 2
Since my foam mattress was on the floor, Stumpy got into the habit of crawling into bed and snuggling with me every morning after his master left. He'd usually stay under the blankets until I put the bed away. The house was pretty chilly so I don't blame him. He didn't have much fur and seemed to shiver a lot for a dog.
Rebecca was nice enough to let me use her computer when she was out, so I got into the habit of doing that in the morning, communicating with people and making plans for the weeks to come. I tried to make lunch at home before leaving to avoid eating out. Same cheese and apple sandwiches every day. But you can't go wrong really.
I went into town and hopped on one of the free tourist shuttles that circled around the city center. I feel like this city really caters to tourists - maybe it's just because I was one, but it felt like everywhere I went presented itself to me as if it knew I wasn't from the area. Signs pointing to notable sites, printed informational materials, not one, but TWO free tourist transports in the CBD, the easy-to-navigate grid layout of the city.. Plus everything looked clean and new - not much litter, recycling bins everywhere, no ghetto areas/homeless (yet). The only graffiti I saw was intentional public art. It was kind of refreshing to see it actually being incorporated into the cityscape. I noticed this in a lot of areas throughout the country.
I got off at Lygon Street first, which was the Italian district scattered with some tasty looking restaurants, lots of gelato places, and trendy clothing shops. Sadly I couldn't afford to eat or buy anything, so I just walked around. Rather than give into the temptation for gelato I satisfied my afternoon sweet tooth with a Kinder egg from a little market, which to my disappointment contained some mysterious-looking toy that appeared to be a combination of a boat and a fire engine. Weird, but not really in a cool way.
Next I walked over to Brunswick Street in nearby Fitzroy, the local "artsy", "alternative", or whatever-you-want-to-call-it part of town full of small cafes, bars, and boutique shops. All the buildings were painted in different colors, some with elaborate sculptures for signs, much like London's Camden Lock. Needless to say it had a lot of character. Despite the lack of money I found plenty of shops to browse in and keep me busy til they started closing.
I went back to the house and talked to Jeremy for a bit while heating up my pathetic and grossly underportioned serving of Easy Mac. I discovered he was from Auckland, unemployed but had a ton of savings to live off of, and was into boxing..which was surprising considering how lanky he seemed to be. He seemed like a nice guy, but Rebecca later informed me of his secret life and all his druggie friends back in New Zealand. Well, in either case he was nice.
Rebecca and four of her guy friends returned shortly after and invited me out to the city, so I grabbed my things and we left immediately. We went out to a Chinese restaurant first, which was nice relief from the sad non-meal of tiny macaroni and lumpy powdered cheese I'd had earlier. I sprung for some hot & sour soup and a coconut smoothie, both of which were excellent.
Afterwards we stopped at the sex toy shop at Club X to gawk at some of the better video titles, then headed over to a nearby pub where Rebecca bought me a beer. Good times.
Since my foam mattress was on the floor, Stumpy got into the habit of crawling into bed and snuggling with me every morning after his master left. He'd usually stay under the blankets until I put the bed away. The house was pretty chilly so I don't blame him. He didn't have much fur and seemed to shiver a lot for a dog.
Rebecca was nice enough to let me use her computer when she was out, so I got into the habit of doing that in the morning, communicating with people and making plans for the weeks to come. I tried to make lunch at home before leaving to avoid eating out. Same cheese and apple sandwiches every day. But you can't go wrong really.
I went into town and hopped on one of the free tourist shuttles that circled around the city center. I feel like this city really caters to tourists - maybe it's just because I was one, but it felt like everywhere I went presented itself to me as if it knew I wasn't from the area. Signs pointing to notable sites, printed informational materials, not one, but TWO free tourist transports in the CBD, the easy-to-navigate grid layout of the city.. Plus everything looked clean and new - not much litter, recycling bins everywhere, no ghetto areas/homeless (yet). The only graffiti I saw was intentional public art. It was kind of refreshing to see it actually being incorporated into the cityscape. I noticed this in a lot of areas throughout the country.
I got off at Lygon Street first, which was the Italian district scattered with some tasty looking restaurants, lots of gelato places, and trendy clothing shops. Sadly I couldn't afford to eat or buy anything, so I just walked around. Rather than give into the temptation for gelato I satisfied my afternoon sweet tooth with a Kinder egg from a little market, which to my disappointment contained some mysterious-looking toy that appeared to be a combination of a boat and a fire engine. Weird, but not really in a cool way.
Next I walked over to Brunswick Street in nearby Fitzroy, the local "artsy", "alternative", or whatever-you-want-to-call-it part of town full of small cafes, bars, and boutique shops. All the buildings were painted in different colors, some with elaborate sculptures for signs, much like London's Camden Lock. Needless to say it had a lot of character. Despite the lack of money I found plenty of shops to browse in and keep me busy til they started closing.
I went back to the house and talked to Jeremy for a bit while heating up my pathetic and grossly underportioned serving of Easy Mac. I discovered he was from Auckland, unemployed but had a ton of savings to live off of, and was into boxing..which was surprising considering how lanky he seemed to be. He seemed like a nice guy, but Rebecca later informed me of his secret life and all his druggie friends back in New Zealand. Well, in either case he was nice.
Rebecca and four of her guy friends returned shortly after and invited me out to the city, so I grabbed my things and we left immediately. We went out to a Chinese restaurant first, which was nice relief from the sad non-meal of tiny macaroni and lumpy powdered cheese I'd had earlier. I sprung for some hot & sour soup and a coconut smoothie, both of which were excellent.
Afterwards we stopped at the sex toy shop at Club X to gawk at some of the better video titles, then headed over to a nearby pub where Rebecca bought me a beer. Good times.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Tuesday-Wednesday, 9/9-9/10 - Melbourne
Day 1
It was about a 14 hour flight from LA to Sydney, most of which I managed to sleep through relatively comfortably since I had an empty seat next to me. Over the course of the three flights from Seattle to LA, LA to Sydney, Sydney to Melbourne, I managed to watch an episode of 30 Rock, E! True Hollywood Story on Marishka Hartigay (whom I'd never heard of previously but learned too much about), How I Met Your Mother (guest starring Danicka McKellar!), Monk, and part of The Visitor. I planned on using my time to read up on things to do, which I somewhat did, but months of procrastination caught up to me, and that paired with the distraction of (mostly) crap TV allowed me to plan only a few day's worth of activities.
Upon arrival, I spent a little time at the airport going through customs with a very friendly guard and figuring out how to get around. Since I couldn't go to my Couch Surfer's house til after 5, I had a whole day to kill while lugging around my giant backpack. Upon leaving the Spencer Street station, my first impression of the city was its colorfulness. There were many older buildings juxtaposed with more modern ones, sleekly designed and painted in bold colors. It reminded me a little of London.
I started out walking around the city center for a while (here referred to as the CBD or Central Business District, but more commonly just the "City"), found a cheap $5 lunch deal at an Indian/Malaysian place called Gosh, then walked around to all the landmark buildings - the Royal/Block Arcade shopping areas, historic Swanston St., Chinatown, St. Paul's Cathedral, Scot's Church, and eventually the Old Melbourne Gaol (which I later found out is pronounce more like "jail"). I thought it looked like a cool enough site to stop at where I could stash my backpack somewhere for a while. A bit overpriced at $17-ish, but interesting. They took us on a tour of the newer wing with holding cells that closed in 1994, simulating like we'd just been arrested. The older part from the colonial era, with the tinier cell blocks, where the (apparently) infamous Ned Kelly was hanged, was kind of cool.
On my way out I went to pick up my bag, which they stored in a cell during the tour, and the guy who worked there told me I "sounded" like Julia Stiles. That was a new one.
After all that I still had an hour or two to kill, so I sat in Carlton Gardens down the street and wrote for a while before heading to the nearby Hawthorn area to find my Couch Surfer's place. It being my first CS experience I was obviously a bit nervous about just showing up on a stranger's doorstep, fearing, what if she forgot or something? Or what if no one was home?
I knocked on the door, and the girl I'd contacted, Rebecca, was out, but I was greeted by her roommate Jeremy and a little dog named Stumpy. I talked to Jeremy for a minute and he showed me in to what would be my "room" for the next week, the living room, which was in its own separate area and thus semi-private. He left me to it and returned to his room where he seemed to spend 90% of his time, playing video games or surfing the net or whatever.
I decided to go down the street to the grocery store to get my provisions for the week and was somewhat disappointed at the limited selection and the lack of anything I interesting I couldn't get in America. The price of fruit was also a shock - grapes for $9.99/kg, average of about $1.33 for a banana. And I'd later discover that seemingly you could not get peaches anywhere in this country. So after this I priced out produce carefully. But for the next week my meals basically consisted of the following:
-Breakfast - vanilla yogurt with banana/grapes or apple, or when that ran out, cheese toast
-Lunch - Sandwiches with edam cheese, apple, and Dijon mustard
-Dinner - Microwave noodles, Easy Mac, or microwave Indian curry
When Rebecca and her brother James got home from swing dancing lessons, they were very friendly and welcoming. I bonded with Stumpy on the couch as we talked.. eventually we got to talking about music and they broke out their string instruments (a guitar, a banjo, and a ukelele) so we could play together. Sadly I didn't know the uke as well as I probably should have so I mostly took the guitar. We played some simple songs they had music for, then just started making stuff up, which they did pretty well, but is something I've never been particularly good at. We switched off on instruments and James taught me a few tips on the banjo.
Once James left Rebecca brought out a foam mattress pad and blankets for me to sleep on the living room floor, which was plenty comfortable. When she gave me her house key to come and go as I pleased, I was taken aback by her hospitality. I could manage to grasp the concept of people letting you stay at their place free of charge, but giving them open access to your home wasn't something I expected. Other people I'd meet later claimed similar experiences, with some hosts going so far as to let guests stay while they were out of town, and even allow use of their car. In many ways the whole concept of Couch Surfing and the people I met through it managed to restore a great deal of my faith in humanity.
It was about a 14 hour flight from LA to Sydney, most of which I managed to sleep through relatively comfortably since I had an empty seat next to me. Over the course of the three flights from Seattle to LA, LA to Sydney, Sydney to Melbourne, I managed to watch an episode of 30 Rock, E! True Hollywood Story on Marishka Hartigay (whom I'd never heard of previously but learned too much about), How I Met Your Mother (guest starring Danicka McKellar!), Monk, and part of The Visitor. I planned on using my time to read up on things to do, which I somewhat did, but months of procrastination caught up to me, and that paired with the distraction of (mostly) crap TV allowed me to plan only a few day's worth of activities.
Upon arrival, I spent a little time at the airport going through customs with a very friendly guard and figuring out how to get around. Since I couldn't go to my Couch Surfer's house til after 5, I had a whole day to kill while lugging around my giant backpack. Upon leaving the Spencer Street station, my first impression of the city was its colorfulness. There were many older buildings juxtaposed with more modern ones, sleekly designed and painted in bold colors. It reminded me a little of London.
I started out walking around the city center for a while (here referred to as the CBD or Central Business District, but more commonly just the "City"), found a cheap $5 lunch deal at an Indian/Malaysian place called Gosh, then walked around to all the landmark buildings - the Royal/Block Arcade shopping areas, historic Swanston St., Chinatown, St. Paul's Cathedral, Scot's Church, and eventually the Old Melbourne Gaol (which I later found out is pronounce more like "jail"). I thought it looked like a cool enough site to stop at where I could stash my backpack somewhere for a while. A bit overpriced at $17-ish, but interesting. They took us on a tour of the newer wing with holding cells that closed in 1994, simulating like we'd just been arrested. The older part from the colonial era, with the tinier cell blocks, where the (apparently) infamous Ned Kelly was hanged, was kind of cool.
On my way out I went to pick up my bag, which they stored in a cell during the tour, and the guy who worked there told me I "sounded" like Julia Stiles. That was a new one.
After all that I still had an hour or two to kill, so I sat in Carlton Gardens down the street and wrote for a while before heading to the nearby Hawthorn area to find my Couch Surfer's place. It being my first CS experience I was obviously a bit nervous about just showing up on a stranger's doorstep, fearing, what if she forgot or something? Or what if no one was home?
I knocked on the door, and the girl I'd contacted, Rebecca, was out, but I was greeted by her roommate Jeremy and a little dog named Stumpy. I talked to Jeremy for a minute and he showed me in to what would be my "room" for the next week, the living room, which was in its own separate area and thus semi-private. He left me to it and returned to his room where he seemed to spend 90% of his time, playing video games or surfing the net or whatever.
I decided to go down the street to the grocery store to get my provisions for the week and was somewhat disappointed at the limited selection and the lack of anything I interesting I couldn't get in America. The price of fruit was also a shock - grapes for $9.99/kg, average of about $1.33 for a banana. And I'd later discover that seemingly you could not get peaches anywhere in this country. So after this I priced out produce carefully. But for the next week my meals basically consisted of the following:
-Breakfast - vanilla yogurt with banana/grapes or apple, or when that ran out, cheese toast
-Lunch - Sandwiches with edam cheese, apple, and Dijon mustard
-Dinner - Microwave noodles, Easy Mac, or microwave Indian curry
When Rebecca and her brother James got home from swing dancing lessons, they were very friendly and welcoming. I bonded with Stumpy on the couch as we talked.. eventually we got to talking about music and they broke out their string instruments (a guitar, a banjo, and a ukelele) so we could play together. Sadly I didn't know the uke as well as I probably should have so I mostly took the guitar. We played some simple songs they had music for, then just started making stuff up, which they did pretty well, but is something I've never been particularly good at. We switched off on instruments and James taught me a few tips on the banjo.
Once James left Rebecca brought out a foam mattress pad and blankets for me to sleep on the living room floor, which was plenty comfortable. When she gave me her house key to come and go as I pleased, I was taken aback by her hospitality. I could manage to grasp the concept of people letting you stay at their place free of charge, but giving them open access to your home wasn't something I expected. Other people I'd meet later claimed similar experiences, with some hosts going so far as to let guests stay while they were out of town, and even allow use of their car. In many ways the whole concept of Couch Surfing and the people I met through it managed to restore a great deal of my faith in humanity.
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