Melbourne: Part Two

From Melbourne & the Great Ocean Road

The last full day I had in Melbourne started out just as cold and overcast as the previous one. We got up early (to clarify, I took this trip with my friend Christie) and spent part of the morning at the American Consulate, an unassuming office in a large building on St. Kilda Road. (Christie had lost her passport, the motivating reason for the visit in the first place). Luckily, it didn’t take long, and I was able to have a leisurely breakfast of… a bagel and cream cheese! While there are bakeries everywhere in Australia, very few if any actually sell bagels. Yet another craving satisfied.

One of the more frustrating idiosyncrasies Australia has is that shops close incredibly early nearly every day. In Adelaide, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a retail store that stays open past 5pm; in Melbourne, they’re open until 6pm. This presents a problem, because virtually everything else you would want to see as a tourist holds the same hours, so you end up rushing to fit everything in. We decided, due to the restricted shopping hours, to visit more stores in depth and look through the Magnificent Seven – the seven major arcades in the city center.

Block Arcade

From Melbourne & the Great Ocean Road

By midday the sky was clearing up and it was slightly warmer, which made for much more pleasant city walking. We had lunch at an Indian place, after scoping out the dismally small Chinatown and finding nothing appetizing (disappointment). At this point we were on the west side of the CBD, close to some of the older buildings like the State Library and Parliament, and both of us wanted to see the two major cathedrals of Melbourne: St. Patrick’s and St. Paul’s.

Parliament

From Melbourne & the Great Ocean Road

Spring Street

From Melbourne & the Great Ocean Road

St. Patrick’s was far more magnificent than St. Paul’s; photographs can’t really capture its size. The inside was a true-to-form cathedral, with small alcoves and chapels ringing the inside, and a lovely organ and choir pit. Technically, I wasn’t supposed to be taking pictures inside, because a mass was about to start, but I didn’t realize that until I was leaving anyway. St. Paul’s was under construction, unfortunately. A lot of unsightly scaffolding marred the beauty of its interior.

St. Patrick's

From Melbourne & the Great Ocean Road

From Melbourne & the Great Ocean Road

St. Paul's

From Melbourne & the Great Ocean Road

Some of my friends had told me that I couldn’t miss the National Gallery of Victoria, and it certainly didn’t disappoint. It is the oldest, and largest, art gallery in Australia, boasting some very fine works from all the major periods, including those famous artists like Rembrandt, Picasso, and Rubens, along with Aboriginal and modern Australian pieces. We took a tour of the gallery with a knowledgeable docent, who gave us more information than we ever could have gotten of both the pieces and the building’s history.

National Gallery of Victoria

From Melbourne & the Great Ocean Road

The building itself would have been worth the trip. It was designed by the Australian architect Roy Grounds and completed in 1967, and renovated in 2003 by Mario Bellini. One of its main features is a water wall as you enter the building, flanked by steel sculptures of an entire town of people (8 in total), from Arnhem Land in the Center. Another is a large stained glass ceiling, designed by Leonard French.

From Melbourne & the Great Ocean Road

From Melbourne & the Great Ocean Road

After spending time at the gallery, we made our way to the Chapel Street Precinct, a hip shopping place where you can find both upscale stores and trendy, bohemian boutiques. After spending time shopping in both the city center and Chapel Street, we now know why Melbournians are so well-dressed. Dinner was at a Mexican-fusion restaurant on Chapel Street, where the food was excellent, if not very authentic.

Chapel Street

From Melbourne & the Great Ocean Road

By this time, Christie and I were even more footsore than the day before, so we stopped back at our hostel to recuperate before heading back into the city for drinks with friends from Adelaide who had just arrived in Melbourne. Before we left, however, I needed to make a stop at the famed Monarch Cake Shop to see if their desserts lived up to their reputation. And with a slice of flourless chocolate cake, I got a little bit of heaven.

Walking to the tram stop that night on the Southbank of the city, we passed by a fire show that happens twice each night. There are huge columns placed down the river that shoot up fireballs, synchronized with one another. I so wish I had brought my camera. To stay warm while we were waiting for the tram, we jumped in to the Casino quickly, a massive place that is fairly busy even on a Monday night. We couldn't stay to play (not that I would really want to), because the next morning we had to get up bright an early to catch our bus for the Great Ocean Road, where we spent three glorious days....

NEXT UP: The Great Ocean Road – Day 1

Melbourne: Part One

Let me just clarify the tone you will be hearing throughout these next few posts: Melbourne is amazing. The next few paragraphs (well, many, actually) could possibly be considered a “gush” of just how awesome my previous week has been.

It was the first trip I’ve taken outside Adelaide since I’ve come to Australia, and it was incredibly overdue. A few friends had gone in August, and I definitely regretted not joining them, but it worked out excellently regardless. Melbourne is the closest city to Adelaide in Australia, and that’s saying something: it’s a 10+ hour drive. Luckily, the flights there are cheap, which the exchange rate makes even cheaper, and flying domestically is a breeze in comparison to the US; there are no liquid restrictions, you don’t have to strip down to your knickers going through security, and I wasn’t asked for ID once.

The city itself is much, much larger than Adelaide and in vibe and style very European. It was influenced by a heavy immigration from Italy, Greece, the UK (of course), and more recently South Asia. I stayed in the small suburb of St. Kilda, about a 20-minute tram ride from the heart of Melbourne and right on the beach. It’s considered a young, hip place catering significantly to backpackers. Lots of bars and great restaurants, the beach a 5-minute walk away, which during the night provides a starry view of Melbourne’s lights down the bay, and Luna Park, an historical theme park with a wooden rollercoaster, games, and the gaping face of a clown through which you enter.

Acland Street, St. Kilda

From Melbourne & the Great Ocean Road

St. Kilda also boasts some of the best bakeries in Melbourne, including the Monarch Cake Shop, the oldest patisserie in Melbourne (more on that later). The hostel I stayed at was excellent; full of young international people traveling around Australia, clean and well-kept, and it also helped that in staying in an all-girl’s room we received free towels, shampoo, and champagne every evening.

I have to mention the public transportation system because it factored so much into the ease of seeing Melbourne. A mixture of electric trams, buses, and trains criss-cross the city, and in the center they have digital signs which indicate the time remaining until your tram reaches the stop. If only our cities could provide such an efficient service. I have a feeling that this will not be the first indication that our infrastructure is woefully in need of updating.

I got into Melbourne Saturday evening, just in time to have dinner and a quick walk down the beach. The next day we decided to get up early to explore. Unfortunately, the weather had taken a nasty turn (which remained for the rest of the trip) and we were cold the entire day. We walked through the Sunday morning arts market, where local artisans sell their wares every Sunday, on the way to the tram stop. Heading into the city, we decided to explore Queen Victoria Market, the largest open-air market in the southern hemisphere.

Queen Victoria Market

From Melbourne & the Great Ocean Road

There were hundreds of small vendors selling anything and everything, from produce to clocks to clothing. I’ve never been good at haggling, so it was probably best I didn’t buy much. I did, however, eat poffertjes, which are these unbelievably delicious Dutch pancakes, covered in either sugar and lemon juice or cream, jam and fruit that I’ve found in Adelaide as well.

Poffertjes

From Melbourne & the Great Ocean Road

After perusing the market, we walked into the city to wander. The shopping in Melbourne is so good; they have many beautiful arcades (basically throughways through buildings lined with boutique shops) that are as historical as they are lovely. Most of the shopping in the city center was far to high-end for me to afford, but it was good to see what was on offer. Collins Street is the premiere shopping street for those who can afford the clothing. We decided to take a ride on the free tram which circles the city from the south end to the north end, both to learn a bit of the history of the most well-known landmarks and to get to our next stop: Lygon Street.

Lygon Street marks Melbourne’s Italian precinct. As I mentioned previously, there is a large Italian population in Melbourne, and this is marked by great eating. There we found a small restaurant to eat lunch, and I discovered that great pizza can really be found in Australia (I had, by this time, an incredible craving since Adelaide’s leaves much to be desired). Since Lygon is located very close to the Melbourne Museum, we decided to check it out.

Melbourne Museum

From Melbourne & the Great Ocean Road

Royal Exhibition Building

From Melbourne & the Great Ocean Road

The Melbourne Museum is a large, spacious, and thoroughly modern building, designed by Baulderstone Hornibrook (I kid you not), and is the largest museum in the southern hemisphere and located right next to the Royal Exhibition Building, an immense pavilion and a World Heritage site. It contains exhibitions of ancient, modern, and natural history and boasts an IMAX theatre complex. We had just enough time for a quick walk around some of the exhibits before the start of The Dark Knight. It might sound like a silly thing to do, see a movie both of us had already seen in theatres in a city as great as Melbourne, but the movie was phenomenal, IMAX is great, and by this time we were so footsore and chilled that any place to sit and be warm for a few hours sounded very welcome. And it was totally worth it to see in the IMAX.

After the movie finished, it was time to get back to the hostel in St. Kilda, grab some dinner (an excellent veggie burger with lots of toppings, but thankfully no beetroot this time) and made it an early night, well, after briefly wandering into a packed pub.

NEXT UP: Day 2

Just Right

Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing,
Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness;
So on the ocean of life we pass and speak one another,
Only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Feta, Spinach, and Roasted Capsicum

I know this is not the traditional day for doing this list, but Thursdays are not the only day to be thankful!

From McLaren Vale Wine Tour

- Wrapaway, for providing me with tasty and healthy lunchtime alternatives
- my camera, which is good enough to compensate for my novice photographic abilities and captures memorable moments with great skill
- the springtime, which is glorious in Australia
- Boost smoothies, for being YUM
- getting American mail, most notably my absentee ballot!
- the internet for keeping me in touch with family, friends and American news
- The West Wing
- JB Hifi, for having a copy of Season 2 of The West Wing for a modest price
- the beach, and the pier on the beach. Who cares if the water could have sharks in it?
- being so close to amazingly beautiful (and tasty) wine country. I have gained such a greater appreciation for fine wine.
- my friends in Australia, with whom every adventure is fun and always hilarious
- the American exchange rate, which is now low enough to make Australia livable
- the next two months, which I anticipate to be jam-packed with fun and wonderful memories
- my family, who have been so supportive and understanding with me being so far away, and my mom for learning IM lingo (she uses "lol" now!)
- having a family vacation in the desert when I return to the States
- barbecues on Sundays

The Real Great Depression

I recently stumbled upon this interesting article by Scott Reynolds Nelson, a history professor at the College of William and Mary and Williamsburg, VA. It compares the current financial crisis not to the stock market crash of 1929, but to the Panic of 1873 and subsequent 4-year depression that followed. There are a surprisingly large number of parallels to our current situation, even from over 125 years ago, most poignantly being the unregulated issuance of mortgages in Europe that ultimately led to a liquidity crisis and meltdown of hundreds of banks. The author also attributes many events in the following decades to stem from this (brush off the dust from your American and world history knowledge, folks):

- The Gilded Age, including the reign of Rockefeller, Carnegie, and others
- Anti-Semitism in Russia and Eastern Europe
- Increased religious fundamentalism
- Collapse of unions
- 1877 railroad strike

You can extrapolate from there, to see the ramifications of this depression in decades to come...

Photo Dump

I've finally uploaded all of the photos I've taken in Australia in the last two months to Picasa! Because my internet is so incredibly slow, it's like pulling teeth, but I managed to get through it at last. Of particular note are the photos from my most recent winery tour of the McLaren Vale, which goes down in infamy.... Enjoy! I know I did. ^_^

Adelaide Botanic Gardens



McLaren Vale and Maslin Beach



Adelaide Hills Wine Tour



Morialta