Melbourne, Australia 3-5-2010

While in Istanbul, Turkey, I became friends with Jason, an Aussie from Melbourne. He’s not a stereotypical Australian guy though (the blonde hair surfer type), he’s a lawyer who comes from a great family and is very well put together. His firm allowed him to take off 8 months to travel the world and we had met while both starting on our RTW (around the world) trips. We’ve kept in touch over the past 8 months and when Jason heard I was coming to Melbourne, he generously offered me a place a stay at his family’s house.

I arrived at 4:30am from a 110 degree Fahrenheit Perth to a 40 degree Fahrenheit Melbourne. While waiting around the baggage claim outside, all of us passengers layered on our jackets, coats, and warm shoes. This place already was much different than what I was used to... I haven’t worn a scarf in months!

I took a bus into the city and then haggled with a taxi driver for a fare to Toorak (the province where Jason and his family lives). I still had the SE Asia mindset that everything should be a few dollars and it was hard to switch back to normality. My driver reluctantly agreed to a $13 cab fare to Toorak (should be $20) and when we arrived I could see why he was extra confused. All of the houses in Toorak look like mansions and I’m sure the driver was puzzled why I was haggling so much over money when I was staying here. I felt bad about the fare so tipped a few extra dollars (tipping is not customary in Australia, or anywhere in Asia or Europe for that matter), but I thought he deserved it.

Jason let me inside the house around 6:00am and showed me the guest room where I would be staying. “A BED!” was my first thought and I was so happy to have a comfortable place to stay. I snuggled up under the covers and fell asleep within a matter of seconds with the most content smile on my face.

In the morning I met Jason’s whole family; mom, dad, sister, and brother. Everyone was rushing off to work, school, or to run errands so I just had the chance to quickly say hello.

My first day in Melbourne was spent in the city center walking around and exploring the streets. This city is MUCH larger than Perth (Perth is like the size of a grocery store compared to this place!) and I just loved passing all of the cute coffee shops and restaurants scattered about the city. A good amount of buildings have decorative graffiti on their outside walls and the city looks very trendy. It’s sort of a mix between San Francisco, NYC, and LA; but mostly San Fran.

I popped into a hostel at one point in the day to browse and wound up booking a “Kiwi Experience” bus package for New Zealand. It was the last day of a sale and I could buy the north island bus pass for $300 and get the south island for free! It was a great deal. Then I ate some expensive snacks and took the train back to Toorak. Jason’s place is just a 15 minute walk from a train station and is in one of the nicest areas in Melbourne. 

I met up with Jason in the evening and we went out with his friends to a Chinese restaurant for dinner and a bar for after-dinner drinks. The bar was called Der Raum and is one of the best bars I’ve ever been to. Der Raum has all of their liquor bottles hanging from bungy cords from the ceiling and the bartender serves each drink as a presentation. We ordered one drink called “prescription” and half of the drink was served in a glass with ice, and the other half we had to squirt in with a syringe-like applicator. And to top it off, a pill, filled with powdered orange sorbet, is thrown on top (which disintegrated pretty quickly).

They use dry ice a lot in Der Raum, so most drinks are steaming over like a witch’s cauldron and calling for attention. I ordered a “Moroccan Spice” which had some curry, agave, a collection of liquorsm and a sugar cane stick in it. As a bartender, I asked the bar man a lot of questions and spent some time looking over the menu and ingredients. This bar is top notch and I would recommend it to anyone.

For the next few days I toured the city as much as I could during the day. I checked out St Kilda (beach shops), Studly park (to row boats), Eureka tower (tallest lookout point in the southern hemisphere), and Fitzroy (trendy café’s, bars, galleries, alternative clothing shops, and bookstores). Since Jason works during the day, I had to make my own friends in the city. I met up with Scott, a Canadian from CouchSurfing who was also visiting Melbourne. We toured around the city together and went to the Moomba festival (an annual outdoor carnival in the city center on the Yarra River in Melbourne).

My Australian friend Nick that I met on my Halong Bay trip in Vietnam lives in Melbourne and we met up a couple times and went to an AFL game together. Australian football is similar to American football, except the ball the rounder than an American football and the players constantly kick the ball or throw it, but can only have possession of the ball for a few seconds. The game is like a mix between football, rugby, and ultimate Frisbee. It’s a messy sport, the players don’t wear any pads, and it’s great to watch (for women) because the players are very fit. Nick and I spent the breaks in the game walking around the stadium picking out the best seats. He wasn’t surprised when I decided that my favorite seat was right behind the players’ box.

One weekend afternoon I went out with Jason and his girlfriend Shelly for coffee. It was a beautiful sunny morning, but as we were driving, clouds rolled in and it starting sprinkling rain. Within a couple minutes it was hailing! The bang of hail hitting the roof of our car sounded as if kids on the 5^th floor of a building were chucking rocks at us! Shelly was concerned about her new car, but luckily everything was fine. The rain continued for almost two hours and then it was gorgeous and sunny again. Crazy weather here. Melbourne is known for having shifty weather and it’s not uncommon to have four seasons in one day.

After rushing around so much recently, I decided to give myself a little break to rest and catch up on my photo albums and blogs. It does take a lot of work to keep up with everything and the busier I am, the harder it is to find time to write and hop online for hours. I took off a couple days to get back on track.

A couple days later, Scott and I met up to have a beer lesson at Little Creatures (a chain of the Little Creatures in Perth). They taught us how different types of beers are made, how a darker color is produced and where the flavor comes from. We tasted barley, smelled hops, and became beer snobs.

In the evening we out to a bar in Fitzroy Scott heard was good. I showed up, walked inside the completely packed bar with him, and noticed that I was 1 of only 4 girls in the whole place! It was a gay bar and tonight we were in for a Drag Queen Show! I was instantly mentally teleported back to Spring Break 2007 when a group of us were in Key West and went to a Drag Queen show there. This one in Fitzroy was equally as great. The Queens were wearing layers upon layers of full-on make-up, had huge wigs, loud outfits, and contagious smiles. They were having the time of their lives and so were all of us in the bar actually. The crowd of guys were going wild screaming and whistling at the Queens! It was great.

The following day I spent some time with Jason’s parents, Hilary and Mark. We went out for coffee and gilato and I felt like I had my own parents back again. Staying at their house was the most “at home” I’ve felt on my trip.. I had my own room, a bed, a house, and a family. I have so much to thank them for… they couldn’t have been more generous and accommodating!

Hilary and I went grocery shopping and I cooked the family a Japanese dinner of miso soup, salad with ginger/soy dressing, stir-fried veggies, oshitashi, and ahi-seared Tuna. It was just one way to show my appreciation for all they were doing for me.