Melbourne Day 1

I'm going to write about each day separately, otherwise the post will get too long. But I'll try to be quick about it, promise! We arrived in Melbourne on Monday the 11th, at about 11am. The flight was super quick, and there was a shuttle to the Canberra airport from downtown, and from the Melbourne airport to our hostel. The hostel itself was poorly maintained and pretty dirty/smelly/yucky in general, but they had free breakfast and were in the center of town, so it served its purpose. And the yuck hostel is about the only negative thing I have to say about Melbourne!

It's such a neat city. There were all of these things that we recommended to do, and we did as many as possible, but we also just took time to relax and wander around the city. The neatest part is that the most interesting things (ie shops and restaurants) in Melbourne are down side streets and alleys, as well as on the floors higher than ground level. We did a lot of window shopping, and also met up with some friends that I met in Montreal, as well as family I didn't know I had until recently, but I'll have to leave you in suspense about that for now as it wasn't until later in the week.

When we arrived we dropped off our stuff and immediately started wandering around. We grabbed lunch at a Japanese restaurant, it wasn't the best but it wasn't too bad. We went into a LOT of bookstores since we both enjoy them so much, and we found a salon school where Simon got his haircut (I went back Wednesday to get mine done). Before he went we went into the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology's bookstore, and while I was looking for a quick amusing no-brainer book for the week (since I was almost done the one I'd brought with me), I ended up finding a recent book by an author whose previous book I've yet to find. Her name is Emma Larkin and her first book is about retracing George Orwell's steps in Burma, because he lived there while in the military during British colonial rule (the 1920s I believe). I've read Burmese Days, Orwell's book, but haven't found Emma Larkin's yet. It's on my list. Anyway I bought the other book and read at the National Library while Simon got his haircut. The Library really caught my attention because of what I feel is its resemblance to the Vancouver Art Gallery. Realistically it doesn't look much like it, but the vibe it had, lots of people around, many just hanging out, watching people pass by, was really like being on the Georgia steps. Anyway, here are some pictures...

Not a very good representation, but it's of the inside of the Library.

The coolest thing about this book, or one of the cool things I should say, is that the Friday before I bought it I presented with a group in one of my classes about the junta's response to the 2008 cyclone, and how they refused to let aid into the country despite the insane loss of life and potential for much more loss of life without immediate help, all because they were (and still are) afraid of the US intervening. And also, and potentially more importantly, because they didn't want outside monitoring of a constitutional referendum which was set for a week later, which was set up to solidify the power of the military (the referendum was rigged...they received something like a 98% approval rating according to their own reports. What other country has a such a high turnout for their polls? NONE. Urgh.). Anyway, the author managed somehow to get into Burma a week after the cyclone hit, and she confirmed pretty much everything my group had said, which felt very validating, but also sad and super frustrating given how many lives could have been saved with a faster response.

This is the National Library. Those of you from Vancouver, can you see the resemblance to the Art Gallery? Just a little? I thought so!

Another cool thing about Melbourne was that there is some really cool modern architecture in and among the Victorian style buildings of its origins. This is an example, I believe it's another RMIT building.

I'm not sure what this is meant to be a picture of. I think it's headed towards Lygon street, which is where all the great Italian food is. We ended up there for dinner that night.

This was a bath house, and I read somewhere what it is now but I can't remember. It's a cool building though!

More cool architecture.

After we wandered around for the afternoon we went back to the hostel to relax for a bit before we figured out what to do for dinner. This was the view from our hostel room window. There were shops on the first floor of the building, then a Chinese restaurant on the second floor, then the top floors looked like a cooking school. I'm pretty sure they could see us as easily as we could see them, which was a little creepy.

This is Simon at the Italian restaurant we went to on Lygon street. We had a marinara pizza and penne bolognese, and there was enough for leftovers, which we had the next day. We went to dinner pretty late so when we got back we took it easy and went to sleep pretty early, since we were up early that morning to catch the flight.

Alright, that was Monday. I'll try to post Tuesday over the weekend. With all of the school work I have (13000+ words for 4 essays all due in the next month), this and the post about Bateman's Bay (which will come after) are probably the most excitement I'll have in a while so maybe I should spread out the posts a little, hehe. Course then I run the risk of forgetting details. Hm. I'll post asap :-)

Til soon!