Art and Shopping: A Weekend in Melbourne

After Dave came to Sydney, we planned for me to come to see Melbourne. I was supposed to stay with him at Uni Melbourne, and he would be my tour guide. However, he had forgotten which weekend I was coming and didn’t inform his college (dorm) that I was going to be staying there.
When I booked the flight, I hadn’t know how long public transport took to get to the airport. My flight was at 7:45 PM, meaning that I had to get there by 6:45 PM. My tutorial ends at 6, and it takes about an hour and a half to get to the airport. I had to leave in the middle of my two-hour class and rush to the bus stop, illegally eating dinner on the way.

I got into Avalon Airport, a tiny Hicksville airport, at 9:15 and took the Sunbus, the only transport from Avalon to the city. Because they have a monopoly, it was $19 for one way!! There was no other choice besides the even more expensive taxi. When we got to Southern Cross Station, however, we were dropped off at the opposite end from the trams. I wandered around for about a half hour trying to figure out how to get to my hostel, finally said “Screw it,” and took a taxi.

My hostel, the Nunnery, is a converted convent which plays up its history. The place is covered with religious paraphernalia, and the staff is referred to as “the Nuns.” I LOVED the hostel. I stayed in a 12-person room, though there was only six of us each night. It was so easy to meet people. I got in at about 11 PM and found a few people drinking on the balcony. As soon as I opened the door, they offered me a beer, and we all sat, talking and playing card games (first outside, then inside when we were told that we needed to move in because it was too late).

The next morning I woke up early, ate the free breakfast of corn flakes and bread with various spreads, and walked around the city. I walked from Fitzroy, on the north side of the city, to the Old Melbourne Gaol (after about an hour, I got bored of it, but did my best to get the most out of the $9.50 entry fee), then down to Federation Square. I walked to Batman Park (had nothing to do with Batman, unfortunately, but did have pigeon housing, to control pigeon populations), tried to find Batman Hill, and finally met up with Dave for an early dinner. He had something to do that night, so I planned to meet up with Bridget, one of the girls from the hostel.

I went with Bridget to meet up with her friend Sarah and Sarah’s friends. It was a random mesh of people, all from different nationalities, but we had an amazing time. We got dinner at the Vegie Bar (vegetarian, of course), then went to a few clubs. When we got back from clubbing, Bridget and I found Joe and Tom in the lounge, so we hung out again with them before falling asleep.

I attempted to wake up early again, slept in by mistake, but woke up with enough time to eat breakfast for free again. I went to the Queen Victoria Markets, bought a cool hat and funky earrings, then decided that I’m bored with markets as a genre of shopping venues. I’ve been to four different markets in three different cities and they’re all the same. I spent the afternoon with Dave. We took a tram to the Botanic Gardens and walked around, stopping at the Shrine of Remembrance. We were just in time for a five-minute “moment of reflection” presentation, where we stood and silently watched a beam of light cross over a stone, remembering the sacrifices of Australian soldiers in World War I and II. The woman from the shrine then went on about how “you could spend a whole day here, with all of the exhibits here.” Buuuuut, we left as soon as we had wandered up to the balcony and taken a few pictures.

That night Dave and I decided to go out to a club he had found in the Lonely Planet guide. It was supposed to be pretty cool, but when we got there (after walking for a half hour) we discovered it was a mostly older crowd. We stayed because we had paid $15 for the show. It was a female singer called “Super Girly” parodying pop songs (a la Weird Al), a few with a political twist. Mostly they were just teasing though, like “You’re Beautiful” changed to be a drunk man trying to hit on a girl at a bar or “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’” to be about Jessica Simpson’s intelligence. She was quite funny.

Unfortunately, Dave had been feeling ill for most of the weekend, and as soon as the show was over we left. We started to walk back, but on my insistence we grabbed a cab to Uni Melbourne. I then walked back to my hostel, stopping for ice cream along the way (I love my sweets).

Sunday was a day for museums and shopping. I thought that the Melbourne Museum was a contemporary art museum, based on the outside, but it turned out that it was a science museum. Luckily, I got in on the concession price—free—so I didn’t feel too gypped. I wandered around, saw some cool stuff, walked down to the city again, stopping in stores that caught my eye (mostly bookstores, though I found an awesome retro shop where I bought two pairs of earrings), and finally found the Australia Centre for Contemporary Art. It was very small but worth the trip. One exhibition was a series of films an artist had done. She made one film for her grandmother who always wanted to know when she was getting married. She walked around Melbourne in a wedding dress with a sign that read “I’m still alone Nanna.” Another that was funny was “How to Be Me in 25 Easy Steps,” set to an older song with steps like “Go to work and have your boss tell you that you have B.O.,” “Find release by mentioning the episode in an art piece.” I then went back to the National Gallery of Victoria, but I was running short on time. I went to the Contemporary Art and International Art wings and also saw a sneakers exhibition which was quite cool.

Since my journal had run out of pages, I wandered around Chinatown briefly and found a hilarious journal. It has Victorian-looking paintings with English quotes from “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes” on the cover, then more paintings with Chinese quotes next to them on the pages. I happened to end up talking to a Malaysian guy who spoke Chinese on the plane, and he translated some of the quotes for me. They’re all really cheesy like, “I miss you every day, as what I have is deep love for you; hope I can recall the beautiful memories and appreciate the time we get together and hope this feeling is in your heart as well.” I wrote down what he said word for word because it was funnier with the broken translation (if he was translating for real it would have been different, but he was just giving me an idea of what it meant).

I went back to Southern Cross Station to catch the shuttle, but they had overbooked the shuttle and needed to call a second one in! We made it to the airport 45 minutes before the flight (rather than the hour you’re supposed to get there), but it was fine. I flew back home, talked to the aforementioned Malaysian guy, and ended up having to spend more money on the transport back home because the trains weren’t running the normal way. I got confused at Central Station and had to pay for an extra ticket to get back on the train to get to Town Hall Station (right next to QVB, where we get buses back to Macquarie from).

Melbourne was AMAZING and I cannot wait to go back (though I did spend a little more money than I meant to…pasta and PBJ sandwiches for a few weeks). I’ve been talking about visiting again with either some of my flatmates or Dave (the one I went with to Brisbane, not from UR…too many Daves!!).

I’m back in the grind, however. I have two final essays to write and one big exam to study for, plus a trip to the Outback and a trip to Cairns that I’m hoping to make. Also, hopefully I’ll squeeze in a weekend to the Blue Mountains. Elisabeth is so jealous because she did all of her traveling in the beginning of the semester so it’s over for her. Instead, I get to look forward to all of my traveling!