Airlines Don’t Suck So Much

Subtitle: A380’s and Home
So I’m back home now—back in the US of A. Actually I was two days ago, but I slept most of the first day then didn’t feel like writing a blog the second day. This just happens to be my 63rd blog post, which means of the 150 or so days I was in Australia, I managed to write one for every two and a half days which isn’t bad. Now to the blog title:
I can easily say that this trip, as apposed to the trip that brought me to Australia (Airlines Suck) was ten times less stressful and difficult. I have to admit it all looked to be going pear shaped when I left Monday morning and a wheel burst on my luggage about half way to the train/bus station that would take me to the airport then there was a good 40 minute wait to check in and drop off bags, but it got resounded better after that. In fairness the check-in wait was due in majority to the brand spanking new A380 (which I flew on) heading to LAX, and what I could only guess was a 747 headed New Zealand and on to LAX. On, what I estimated to be its 25th passengered voyage across the pacific, the A380 is a monster. It doesn’t look quite so imposing from the outside but from the inside the wings are enormous and the cabin is ridiculously wide (on the bottom level). While at the gate, the wings bow, bending under weight or length. As you take off, your ears pop just but the speed which it has to attain to get off the ground. The wings—which must be made out of the most flexible material ever—straighten, wobble and bounce around in the wind. But when you’re up, clouds that would disturb any other plane are shredded by the enormity of this plane. This led to one fairly smooth flight, and the softest landing I’ve ever experienced (compared to one of the worst—top 3—on the connecting flight). The landing was partly due to the fact that the land was much closer than anticipated because of intense fog in the LA area (the pilot had threatened a missed attempt it was so bad). Surprisingly, this angry bull of a plane came to a stop before the end of the run way and taxied to the gate surrounded by airport police (bizarre?!). Due to the crazy amount of people on the plane LAX used two baggage belts to distribute luggage, which was a pain in the ass for singular travelers like me. Customs was a breeze, and my bags were deposited again (checked through, thanks Qantas!) and with boarding pass in had (thanks Qantas!) I could jump in the insanely long queue for security at Terminal 4 LAX for my connecting flight. 6 hours later I was in JFK (thanks STA! ), picking up my luggage from a near empty luggage belt because everyone took their lives and their kitchen sinks on the plane as carry on (thanks AA baggage fees! ), and in a car bound for Kinnelon, home.
It’s cold here. And there are no leaves on the trees. This bugs me.
Melbourne—‘the most livable city in the world’ (Economist tested, David approved).

Victoria (Vic) Market

As the largest open air market in the southern hemisphere it is by no means the prettiest, but it is the best. I’ve been to this place at least once a week every week while being here. While that partially because it’s so close, 4 minutes walk down Peel Street, but mostly because its such good value and selection. Vic markets main attractions are its meat market, its veggie market, delicatessen, restaurants/cafes and general merchandising. Spread over numerous sheds and buildings it’s easy to get lost amongst the stalls. I didn’t get a chance to go in the first week I was in Melbourne, but I remember first walking into the open air sheds and just being amazed (and this was just one of the numerous sheds—selling just veggies). The great things about fruit and vegetables at the market is that they are cheap, cheaper than any prices you get at Safeway or Coles (big brand supermarkets), so from that point I brought most, if not all, of my produce from the Vic Market for the remainder of the semester. The meat section is also astounding, with two aisles of butchers, serving and dicing fresh beef, pork, lamb, chicken and fish. I also never bought meat from a supermarket for the rest of the semester. Next door is the delicatessen building. Just walking in this door makes me drool. With bakeries in building, and more cheese than a whole heard of sheep and goats could make in a lifetime. It also has deli meats, certain marinated meats and specialty meats like rabbit, crocodile or kangaroo (it’s good, honest). Finally there’s the area where you undoubtedly spend the most amount of time at Vic Market (partially because it makes up so much of it), the merchandise section. With the best selection of souvenirs, useful goods and useless goods it’s a great place to pick up something for a very cheap price. Bargain! It’s often worth a walk through even if you don’t intend on getting anything because there is just so much in there.
There are downsides to the market though. The first is its opening hours: Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, morning to mid afternoon. The second is the quality, sometimes you really have to look hard for something that’s even worth the price their asking. And finally is the quantity, if you really think about how this place works: the retailers buy in bulk and all the similar stores sell the same crap. If you can get over those three things, you can spend hours hunting down the best price for two potatoes, a boomerang or that perfect pork chop.

MCG and Footy

(click to enlarge)

This is a post I’ve wanted to right pretty much since the first weeks in Melbourne. But (lying) I wanted to wait till I toured the place, which I did yesterday. In the semester that I’ve been here, I’ve been to the ‘g’ (as the MCG is referred to), home of the Melbourne Cricket Club, 4 times. 3 times to see footy matches and once to tour the place and explore the national sports museum. Footy is an interesting sport, but we‘ll get to that in a second, first its venue for 46 games a year.
Seating just over 100,000 in its permanent seating. It was home to the 1956 Melbourne Olympics and 2006 common wealth games. The Victoria cricket club and numerous footy teams call this place home. They lease the grounds along with a multitude of others including soccer, rugby, concerts, international cricket and international footy. It’s also home to the Boxing Day test match, a long held tradition in Australia. The six white light towers light the field, and are the largest for a stadium of its size in the southern hemisphere. In the center of the oval is a unique drop-in pitch for cricket that allows 10 cricket strips to be grown externally and placed into the centre. I saw three footy matches there; coincidentally every time I saw the Hawthorne Hawks…who went on to win the premier ship. I chose to support the Richmond Tigers, as they were the first team I saw win and they looked pretty good…they came in 9th (which apparently is sort of a curse/traditional place).
Footy:
I believe there are four stages to the appreciation of Australian Rules football. The first I experience when I first watched a match on TV. The first stage is characterized by complete confusion at the crazy game you’re watching. There’s kicking, passing, running, jumping, giant banners, oversized pompoms and four goal posts! Then when they win there are team songs, like theme songs for a team which a played and everyone knows the words and sings along. Most of the songs are set to other tunes like the Hawks being set to the tune of Yankee Doodle Dandy. Anyway at the end of the first stage, you’re confused, you want to know more, and you were thoroughly amused by that game. So you look up and/or learn the rules and that leads you to the second stage. I looked up the rules during the first game, and the rules aren’t really that hard. At this point you are completely content with the game, so you watch more. Then stage three hits, and that’s the onset of confusion again. There are more rules to this game that was initially apparent. Rules about tackling, running with the ball and passes—there one particular rule that makes the crowd yell ‘Come On!’ or ‘Awww!’ The next stage I never got to because I only saw three games live and the season was ending. But I assume the next stage is regular seats with meat pies and beers, calling out the player’s names, with radio commentary in one ear and complete understanding.
Whichever stage of understanding you are on with this absurd yet great game, you will undoubtedly enjoy it. And I did see the tigers play once, they lost…to the hawks.

Like the tiger of old,
We’re strong and were bold.
Oh we’re from tiger… (Yellow and black)
Oh we’re from Tigerland!

Great Ocean Road

In order to catch this blog up in as fast a fashion as I possibly can before this study abroad is over I’m going to have to change to elaborated bullet points of the major points to a trip and leave your creative little minds to fill in the gaps. This blogs filler should be a big ol’ bucket of bus-van, 21 person seater.

DAY ONE:
• The trip was through Melbourne Uni, the Outdoors club. For a small price they were offering trip along the great ocean road for Melbourne Uni students.
• The great ocean road is a winding road east of Melbourne along the cliffs of the coast built by returning war vets who had no jobs.
• Starting on Saturday fairly early in the morning with a two hour drive to our first destination
• 2 hour surfing lesson, I stood up almost at first but progressed fairly quickly backwards after that.
• The beginning of the great ocean road is marked by a log ‘entrance way’
• Second stop, huge waterfall (and so cold!)
• The windey part of the road began then, in and our along the headlands. Great views and sights.
• Third stop, wild koalas. Truly wild, not like the Phillip Island conservatory. And a joey fairly fresh out of his mothers pouch climbing amount the leaves.
• There were numerous stops along the way to get out and see some of the best sights from the great ocean road.
• At the waterfall the tour leader, ‘Azza’ (as he proposed to be called) filled the bus-van with sticks.
• That night at a backpackers in Apollo Bay, Azza lit a bonfire with said sticks and we sat around that for the last bit of the night.

DAY TWO:
• The next morning we headed into the rainforest first where Azza gave us a history/biology lesson of sorts about the massively huge and tall trees there.
• Heading back to the coast and the great ocean road we stopped at a few more beaches and overlooks for the views.
• The 12 apostles (or the ‘sow and piglets’ as they may have previously been referred to) were the next stop. What used to be 12 stumps of un-eroded rock separated from the mainland (now something like 8).
• Gorge Beach, where a ship had shipwrecked and the only two survivors washed ashore. We stayed here for a while. The water was absolutely freezing (I did go in), and learned a bit more about aussy footy (like how to kick and handball). Randomly ran into some of Barrys friends who I met in Brisbane.
• London Bridge—it did in fact fall down. A peninsular of sorts out into the sea that used to be like a bridge till the middle fell out. As bill Bryson (and Azza tell), two people were stuck out there when the bridge fell, they were cheating on their respective counterparts.
• Finally there was lunch, and the trip back to Melbourne.

It was good and enjoyable trip, definitively worth the money. The views and sights from the road were pretty spectacular, even the road itself. I would highly recommend it especially for study abroad students at Melbourne Uni who don’t have access to transport out there (and even if you do).

Classes: Part One

This is a series of posts I’ve been meaning to make since orientation exactly 12 weeks ago now. And being as this past week signaled the end of classes right now might be an apt time to write about classes overseas at the University of Melbourne. This first post is about taking classes overseas, and a second will be about the actual classes and professors. And this post basically follows on from this post
That Monday I took my first lectures in my classes, Chemistry, Culture Media Life, War State and Society, and Australian Indigenous Studies as well as my first tutorial for Chemistry. By Wednesday I had dropped chemistry (which I realized was WAY over my head) in favor of Globalization. With that change the rest of the week followed fairly smoothly as I began to understand and appreciate the Aussie way of classes. That was:
Each of my classes has three teaching hours a week. 2 of those are lectures. Lectures are in the large lecture halls around campus—most buildings have one, some have two, one even had 4 smaller ones. Here a single lecturer or a host of guest lectures give you the bulk of the information you will need for the class. Terms, theories, definitions and facts are shoved into you brain as fast as the lecture can in their 50 minute time period. The remaining hour is a tutorial. Here the big lecture hall is split into smaller groups (10-20 people each) to hold meetings throughout the week for sessions with tutorial teachers. In many cases tutorials take the form of discussions about the weeks topics presented in the lectures. It’s here that the information jostling around in your head is solidified with examples and clarification into something meaningful. After particularly confusing weeks it’s easy to see the benefit that tutorials have on classes. In some cases, like my Chemistry class which I promptly dropped, there are Practicals. Practicals are generally once a week in addition to lectures and tutorials and usually last for 3 to 4 hours for realistic application of the week’s material. Then finally for all classes there is reading. Interdisciplinary subjects and broad ranging subjects generally utilize a reader, while more concise subject will use the traditional textbook (chemistry, par example). The readers are separated by weekly divides and contain one to two readings that supplement the week’s lectures. Readers are good sources for material, information and quotes for essays that have to be written throughout the year, as well as for the reason they were designed—to be read.
The class day is split up into one hour periods, with one running into the back of the next. This means that lecturers and teachers generally run from 5 mins in to 5 mins before so students can get between classes. Although in some cases (my Culture Media Life lecture) the lecturer often ran to the very end or even over the time period.

I See Trees of Green...

...red roses tooI see em bloom...for me and for youAnd I think to myself...what a wonderful world.
I see skies of blue...clouds of whiteBright blessed days...dark sacred nightsAnd I think to myself...what a wonderful world.

(Spring: given that you experience every season on any given day in Melbourne)

To the Rescue

This is a regular part of my day. With the Royal Melbourne Hospital practically right across the street it does mean should i get injured in any way its right there, but it also means that everyone else is going there. There are two medical helicopters (the other one looks cooler) and they both land here at least 3 times a day although on a good day it can be over 10.

The Melbourne Cup

Sunny and beautiful were the conditions for this Melbourne Cup day (the biggest horse race in Victoria—and I think Australia too) it really couldn’t have gotten any better. I went with Barry, some friends from AustraLearn and RMIT village for the 148th Melbourne Cup. The Melbourne Cup race is actually the 7th race of the day (out of 10) which is again part of a bigger festival at Flemington Racecourse the Melbourne cup festival (including Derby Cup day this past Saturday). It was my first time to a horse race so I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect but had been watching the other major races (Caulfield Cup and Derby Day Cup) in the previous weeks of the spring racing season. Melbourne cup isn’t just about the races, it’s about the fashion and flowers and there were many absurdly large hats and hairpins in the crowd. It was fairly packed at the racecourse, the general admission area being the grass zone between and in front of the two stands (grand stand and hill stand). The racecourse did look good and all the flowers were in bloom (mysteriously, they must train them or something as blooming was definitively 2,3 or even 4 weeks ago). The other part of the cup, of course, is the betting. The Melbourne cup is the most betted upon race in Australia (‘the celebration that stops a nation’) so I’d been trying to figure it out in the run up. I’d set a limit of $25 for betting that day with a good portion going to the actual Melbourne cup race(as most people do, the Melbourne cup is one that all join in on regardless of their experience). We arrived for race 4, but I didn’t bet till race 5. Reservedly I put $5 on Hips Don’t Lie to place (3.6 to 1 odds)…he would win, making that my first win in horse racing ever. The next race I bet on was the Melbourne cup, picking 3 horses to place and Nom De Jeu to win…none of those happened. In race 9 I picked Tour Guide to place (3.3 to 1 odds)…and he came in third. Finally race 10 picked Secret Flyer to place…as he passed us he was in third but fell half a length behind crossing in 4th. All in all, I ended up winning $1, that is I departed with one dollar more betting money than I arrived with (take that punters). Of course my strategies were based on punters odds and by how much I liked the horses’ name.
The Melbourne cup race itself was incredibly tight for first and second with about a half a nose between them (Viewed edging out Bauer) as they crossed the finish line.

Oh and Barry did fairly well too, ridiculously, getting some $40 and $60 winning tickets (he even had Bauer to win the Cup with 40 to 1 odds—missed that by half a nose) . Other people didn’t do so well. It’s all luck really and it’s all part of the sport. And overall it was a great day.

AusTour 18: Adelaide Day Two

After a less exciting and informational ride back to Adelaide I stored my luggage in the terminal (having to return later that night) for day two in Adelaide. The first stop I made, and one I had seen the day before was the Rundle Street mall. Here I counted no less that 3 clowns, at least 7 instrument performers (including a singer, harmonica-ist, two boys emphatically playing ‘pep-band’ songs on trumpets, and several guitarists), 1 free tattoo lady [i was tempted...], 2 people on huge balls, and a couple of other people I cant remember right now. Rundle Street mall is a pedestrian only section of Rundle Street with more shops than your dog has fleas. Following that I walked up to the Adelaide oval for an actual tour. The old man who led it, dressed to the nines (or perhaps the eights) in a uniform you would probably expect from the turn of the century (20th that is) was fairly informative about the history of the oval and its specific significance in cricket history (host of the ashes in 1884 where England won!) as well as some of the major players after whom the stands had been named. We got to go out onto the oval grass (pretty cool) but the most impressive part was going inside the traditionally kept and still operable scoreboard. It’s a fairly mammoth task of operating this monster, and required at least 4 men on a good day.Following the oval tour I went down to the Adelaide art museum. Mostly this was to see some of their Aboriginal Art (Again for my essay), but I also spent some time in their more classical art of which they have a lot. For free entry it was good just walk quickly through the fairly sizable rooms for a quick glance at the art. As five o’clock neared again and everything in Adelaide began to shut down I headed down through Adelaide Uni to the banks of the Torrens. I sat for a while on the quite banks of the river, watching the ducks, rowers and sun sinking in the sky.
As the day drew to a close I grabbed dinner before heading back to the bus terminal for my bus back to Melbourne to end the trip. It was an overnight bus getting into Melbourne at 6:30 in the morning. It was good to be back in Melbourne, a city that is now incredibly familiar to me, but it was also nice to be away from it. Somehow I managed to get from Southern Cross station to my apartment without a single tram passing in my direction, a 30 minute walk.

2 Things, Possibly 3

Just wanted to 1) say I’m back from another trip. This one I didn’t actually advertise I was going on but it was up the Great Ocean Road which is west of Melbourne. I went with the Melbourne Uni Outdoors trip, and it was really great. Really nice weather, awesome people and lots of spectacular sights. 3) I’ll blog about it after I’ve finished with Aus Tour which I’m about 5 days into—the next one is Port Macquarie.
Finally 2) this is the first night in Melbourne where I’ve actually been able to keep my door to the balcony open. It’s incredibly nice out still with temperatures still hovering in around 23 degrees (73). There’s a light breeze but most importantly it’s a warm breeze. It was super ‘fine’ today (probably one of the nicest Melb days I’ve had here) and I could definitely get used to this warm evenings thing I’ve been missing for the past few months.
Im going to close it now and go to bed though because I’m so tired from this weekend.

Gallery Update—St. Kilda

Following the last post on the Melbourne beach resort cum suburb of St. Kilda, I went in and updated the gallery to include so more St. Kilda pictures.

Sunday at St Kilda

(What I’m going to attempt to do this week is to go through some of the major events that have happened since being here so I can work on being a little more current, interspersed with some anecdotal/random posts)The Sunday before classes started a friend from AustraLearn, Victoria, and I took a tram ride down to St Kilda—the closest beachside resort for Melbourne. Of course, in typical Melbourne style (or at least the Melbourne I know) it rained for most of the morning before trying desperately to break through to sun in the afternoon. The actual purpose of the trip was to go to the Sunday artist festival but because of the rain not many of the artists showed up, so we did the town, beach and pier.
As you get into St Kilda you’re greeted by a giant face, creepy amusing scary it covers them all and it also fronts Luna Park which looks eerily like Coney Island in New York (in fact its modeled after it)—a mini amusement park. There was also one of those human statue people, interesting enough, took a picture. Getting past that you hit the sand, and your first good shot at the sea. And while it is technically still inside the Melbourne harbor due to two giant peninsulas that leave a singular 5 km straight, the feel is still the seaside. The sand was crisp and the water was…ABSOLULTY FREEZING. Turns out the Melbourne Sea, like everything else in Melbourne in winter, is cold and wet. We made our way along the pier (apparently pretty famous) up to the end where there are supposedly little fairy penguins (we didn’t see any—only a load of dead starfish and a couple of fishermen). There’s a reserve up the end for these little critters, and they’re apparently joined with some sort of, and what can only be described as a, sea otter (rakali). We walked into the café on the end of the pier, partially to warm our hands and partially to see the prices—to expensive.
We went back into town to find something a little more pocket friendly and stumbled upon several very good looking cake shops (identified by crowds of people drooling on store fronts). There were lots of other small shops along the street, all small personal business each with their own little culture. I had no idea what the one pictured to the right is selling but it had an awesome shop front. Taking a hot pie and a cup of tea from one of the delicious-looking cake shops, it was just right for the cold weather and rain, and with that the sun began to come out. Yay! With the sun came more people including a couple of people rollerblading—one of whom wiped out spectacularly. St Kilda’s is literally filled with scenic beauty and hinted with grunge attitude. It would probably be a lovely place to live, though we went in the middle of winter and I can only imagine how crazy this place must get in the middle of summer.

Transportation the Second

Transportation part two goes a little something like this:

a) “Trams can’t swerve”.
b) Cars don’t stop for you.
c) Roundabouts in Melbourne are just about the scariest and most wild experiences ever.

a) One of the first things we learnt when we arrived in cairns for our orientation experience was that “trams can’t swerve”. The simple solution to this problem is: don’t jump out in front of them because they won’t stop, and the cant move around you. An aussy footy player was actually hit by one not to long ago.

b) I lied. The first thing we learned in cairns is that pedestrians do NOT have the right of way. Cars will not stop for you carelessly stepping out into the street, and you’ll have to wait your turn before its your turn to cross. The only exception to this rule is when there are zebra crossings, at which point I take my time laughing to myself that I finally have the right of way—and flinching when cars stop all of 2 inches from your knees. This all leads to:

c) Outside the Village, between the village and Uni, is one giant mother of all roundabouts. Amoung its amenities are pedestrians, cars and bikes (like any other roundabout), but then the city of Melbourne decided it would be fun to run 4 trams tracks right through the center. For all parties involved this has to be one of the scariest and most spontaneous intersections ever. For example, to get from village to Uni I have to run across three sets of road (one zebra-ed and two not) and two sets of tram tracks. If you’re not awake when you leave, you sure as hell will be once you’ve successfully navigated this Melbourne deathtrap. To Melbourne’s credit I’ve never seen any accidents there, though.

Transportation

A post I’ve been meaning to get to for a while now, but like the rest of this blog suffers from extreme lethargy.I’ve talked a number of times about either the transportation system of Melbourne in general or actually using it; in sum the system is made up of trams, trains and (to a lesser extent) busses. The trams run above ground, all over Melbourne—from the outer suburbs into the city centre. They are definitively not the fastest way to get around, as they follow the roads for the most part (even though they run on rails) and therefore have to obey the traffic lights and make lots of stops. They are however incredibly useful for hop-on-hop-off errands or getting to a specific place. The trains on the other hand run underground in the city and then over ground out into the suburbs. They’re much faster than the trams (not having traffic helps), fit more people and stop less often. They’re an incredibly efficient way to get into or out of the city to anywhere. It all runs on one ticket—met cards—which come in different amounts: 2 hours, daily’s, weeks, months etc. When you combine trains and trams in any combination, it is an easy way to get around all of Melbourne for a cheap price.

O-Week

O-Week arrived in a hurry, just a couple of days after arriving in Melbourne. (I’m still not exactly sure if it’s a ‘O’ like orientation week or a 0 like zero week—it’s been referred to as both). Most of the AustraLearn group met in the lobby to make our way onto the University of Melbourne campus for what would be the first time (for some of us). The campus is particularly hard to describe, because although it has some amazingly sculpted old-English-feel buildings (Old Arts), it also has some that aren’t so appealing to the eye (Redmond Barry). The much newer buildings are different again, are taking on a very modern look (Medical and Alan Gilbert). Without any kind of map to weave our way between the insane number of oddly-shaped and large buildings it was surprisingly lucky that we made it to our first orientation site. Though, even with the map we managed to walk the complete opposite direction to the second orientation site. Buildings are often named after what their faculty is, the zoology building is zoology, chemistry is chemistry, and old physics is physics. The universities buildings are nestled in between each other, leaving small alleys between them, which are often filled with bikes, people and the occasional car trying to squeeze through. For what space there is between buildings there are attempts at sitting areas and lawns. The south lawn in front of the Old Arts Building is the biggest, but there are also areas next to the student union and in front of the Asia Centre (coffee shops appear everywhere, but that’s typical for Melbourne). Construction runs rampart through the university, with one building readying for construction on campus, one almost finished slightly off campus and numerous places on campus where there is minor work being done (including the entirety of the chemistry building). I managed to register for Australia Indigenous Studies, Chemistry 1, Culture Media Life, and War State and Society. All of which would commence the following Monday.

Melbourne Shots Added to the Gallery

Due to the slow nature and pace at which i write this blog i've been holding back some of the updates to the Gallery. being as the intro to Melbourne is basically done i've finally added some photos i took of and around Melbourne to the Gallery.
Go Check Them Out!

Melbourne, Victoria: Part 3—Under Construction: the American England

One well known fact about Melbourne is that it’s still growing. And one of the most visible signs of this is the sheer number of cranes in the skyline. From any position on any night you can generally count about ten—and there are still more obscured by already constructed buildings. The city is changing, evolving into taller city, the buildings that are being built are easily exceeding 5 stories, some beating 10 and a few higher still. On every street there is evidence of construct of reinvention and of a more to the modern. The buildings, new and old, take on what I would describe as American English as a walk through the city can evoke feelings of both American and England. From what I can deduce it’s more of a modified English, but at the new buildings rise it is slowly becoming even more Americanized. The street signs for example, in the city they take on an American vibe, while the motorways and signs are named and created in the same fashion as England (motorways, a roads, b roads and c roads). Mailboxes are both English in shape (rectangular openings) and American in placement (at the end of driveways). The transport system (to be described later) is a complete mix between something European and something American. The overall result is a city that is very easy to settle into (especially for me), and to get to know. A partly unfortunate result is that it can feel too familiar at times, and I’ve gotten caught out a number of times saying I was in the States.

Rain, rain go away…

Who said Australia was in a drought? As I write this it is currently pouring outside, and has been all morning (fun for walking to classes!). This is probably the heaviest I’ve ever seen it rain here, but regardless it hasn’t been sunny everyday here. Melbourne is bizarre in that you can see sun in one corner of the sky and it can be raining on you. The random and unpredictable showers have the habit of catching you out…generally when you have two hands full of groceries. Back to the original thought of Australia drought, I can’t conceive that this country could be in a drought with the amount of rain we’ve experience just in the last 4 weeks. The water restrictions (they say 4 minute showers, no washing cars etc.) seem a little extreme. On the bright side though (excuse the pun), the sun-shower mix means that we’ve seen some pretty intense rainbows—in fact quite a few. Pictures!Also props to whoever said that I would get here and it would rain all the time…thanks!

Melbourne, Victoria: Part 2—Getting Settled

As the day dawned on the first complete day of living in Melbourne we ventured out to find that most of our notions from the previous evening were completely wrong, and it was unsurprising that it had taken us a good 30 minutes to walk home because we had headed in the complete opposite direction in the first(see end of post for explanation on why). We spent the first days doing the general walkabout thing, spending a considerable amount of time in Melbourne Central on one day. It would be unfair to call Melbourne Central a train station (which it is in essence) because it contains everything. A fully equipped (American style) mall, a supermarket, a fairly large food court, a bowling alley, nightclubs/bars, a movie theatre and even the old lead shot factory right in the very center of it all (pictured on right). The first day was also the first experience on one of the cities trams which is both like and unlike the nyc subway system (more on that later). The later days would lead to further exploration, some of the major streets (Elizabeth St, Swanston St and Bourke St[left and below]) as well as the QV centre. The QV centre is another one of these bizarre mall-like structures. What we had originally set out for was the Big W (essentially Wal*Mart except minus the food part) to find some basic necessities that weren’t included with the room. Turns out the Big W is hidden under the QV centre (a mix of fashion, food and entertainment [and even living space as I discovered after wandering in the back way thinking id found another QV centre--it was the same one] places). Along with it, hidden in the basement is a partner store and major supermarket Safeway (or as it’s known ANYWHERE else in Australia Woolworths). I should also mention at this exact moment that Australians seem to have a love of chocolate/candy/sweets; Big W alone has about 13 aisles of the stuff. In the first few days I only got down as far as Bourke St along mainly Elizabeth St and Swanston St (see map, outlined in blue). Maps, as a reminder from reference, became our best friend, because although Melbourne seems pretty square and linear the top part of the city bends. It just so happens that the bend is away the village and you can be determinately heading north from the city along Swanston St (the general direction you want to go in) and be getting further from where you want to be without knowing it. This is especially frustrating with two handfuls of shopping from Safeway. Once you’ve figured out that fact, it’s pretty hard to get lost in Melbourne, and you realize that it isn’t really that big of a city. Reassuring, yes?

Melbourne, Victoria

“The place to be” and “the garden state” (as the license plates so genuinely suggest), founded in 1835 and home of 3,806,092 people—(3,806,093) including me. As we took our first brisk step into Melbourne life (see end of Over So Quickly for emphasis on brisk) we were stepping into our home for the next 5 months, into this European influenced city dubbed the most livable city in the world according to The Economist (it shared this post with Vancouver, Canada—twice). We arrived by moonlight, under the city gates, and into the darkness of the city, and it was only 6 o’clock (Australian southern winter for you). packed into a small van the driver was surprisingly enthusiastic about having 18 20 year olds in the back of his van and pointed out some of the main landmarks and trivia as we oohd and ahhd. We arrived at our permanent accommodation (AGAIN: RMIT Village Old Melbourne, 5-17 Flemington road, North Melbourne VIC 3051) and were whisked off to our rooms in the 5 story hotel turned student accommodation. The rooms were as billed ‘modern student accommodation,’ that is, a large desk, a small flatscreen tv cum monitor, spacious closet and book-shelving, balcony, kitchen and space that you can really call your own. I would show a picture but my room has generally been a mess for the majority of my stay (save two days: move in and when I cleaned it once). The bathrooms left a lot to be desired (not quite as contemporary as the rest of the place) which leads to the most disappointing discovery ever. NO. OVEN. This would ultimately lead to some very creative cooking innovation over the coming weeks. After throwing my stuff around the room (realizing I didn’t have an Ethernet cable), we were out into the night to have a bit of an explore. Two of my mates and I went to a pizza place just down the road for dinner before returning to the village to meet with other people and go out again. During the entirety of the remainder of the night we wandered around the city centre of Melbourne, dodging cars and trams alike, walking in all directions up and down any street (some of which was in a search for a way back), all the while taking in everything that was new and not comprehending any of it. When we got back we had a start for a working knowledge of Melbourne, one that would both be further realized and proven wrong in the next day and the days to come.

Over So Quickly

4am, Friday Morning. Yes, 4am. 2 of the people in our room not-so-secretary snuck out to catch their plane to their final destination. I should take a step back and describe where we were staying. Now I don’t know if you’ve seen hostel the movie, but that’s generally what I was expecting it to look like on the inside. Needless to say it was not. After all this was Australia and not Amsterdam (close but no cigar). So instead of being a small and shady hostel tucked away behind in a small allay I was greeted by a glowing neon sign in the middle of a pretty loud and alive city street--Gilligans.In fact it was described by lonely planet as “the Ritz of all hostels.” I wouldn’t have called in the Ritz, but it wasn’t shabby either. With about 4 floors and countless rooms, a kitchen for each floor and balconies all round it was easy to see why AustraLearn would prefer this place. The rooms were of 8; mine filled with the 5 guys for Melbourne Uni (including myself), 1 from somewhere else and the 2 that left at 4am for their flight to Brisbane/Gold Coast. it was good to have all the guys for Melbourne in one place as it allowed us to get to know each other better before being thrust into the City of Melbourne. Each room had a toilet and shower room and plety of space for backpacks and luggage, and entry onto on of the many shared balconies. I should also mention that the shower was SO nice after 56-odd hours of traveling. So yea, back to 4am…after falling back asleep, 4 hours later it was our turn to leave. The Backpacker (and I know this whole post seems like an advertisement for Gilligans) has a nice breakfast situation too with lots of selection to eat. Surprisingly (especially for myself) we had no problems with this flight, it left 5 minuites late and there was minor panic when all of austral earns luggage came of DEAD last (pretty much everyone’s luggage who arrived normally (aka not me) was lost on the trip from LA to Cairns). We left the warm costal city in the north and flew down to Melbourne where it was…well, FREEZING. We dug through our luggage to retrieve the warmest clothes we had before bracing the cold night on our way to our accommodation, RMIT Village Old Melbourne, 5 -17 Flemington Road, North Melbourne VIC 3051.