Melbourne!

Best laid plans? Not really...

I have just returned from a very enjoyable (yet incredibly tiring) weekend trip over to Melbourne and it was a great travel experience.

I originally got the desire to visit Melbourne after meeting a steady-flowing stream of Victorians over in Europe, all of whom claimed that Melbourne is a really nice city. Since coming back home, I have waited for an opportunity to visit to see the sights and meet some friends. Unfortunately, work only gives out rosters one week in advance, so effectively, I would have to make plans the weekend before I would go. This is how it turned out and, as it turned out, it would be an expensive flight on a holiday period. Bad planning? Yes. Diabolically clever? Maybe. No matter though, as fun was had.

Murphy's law

On the morning of the flight I had to work a morning shift. Basically, I finished work at 12:15, which would give me a manageable buffer to get home, get changed, and catch the 12:44 train. Unfortunately, not everything went smoothly.

I finished work on time and proceeded to power-walk to my car. This, it turned out, would be a futile attempt to save time as, being peak hour for shopping, the parking lot was in the middle of a traffic jam. I was screaming obscenities inside my car (which must have looked really amusing to other drivers) as cars moved very slowly, taking me probably a total of 10 minutes to get to the main road.

I got home and got changed to my street clothes in record time. I decided to skip grabbing a take-away lunch so that I wouldn't miss my train but, as it turned out, I could have comfortably ordered (and probably eaten) lunch from the KFC across the road because CityRail, role-models for reliability, had the train to Sydney running around 10 minutes late.

By the time it arrived in Sydney it was around 15 or so minutes late. I was sitting at Central Station in Sydney waiting for the next train to the airpor, wishing very bad things towards the state rail system organizers.

Despite all the annoyances, I did get to the airport on time and decided I'd grab a Boost juice before takeoff.

I don't know if I should quote Weather With You or Four Seasons in One Day

Sydney was sunny and warm when I boarded the flight, and I was still drinking my Boost juice, which I had taken with me since it was still full of ice and mostly undrinkable. I was very conscious of the people in the seats around me while I slurped on my drink.

The moment we landed at the airport the captain gave his thanks for flying with Virgin Blue and made a comment that went something like "I hope you have a jacket because it's 8 degrees outside." I immediately cursed out loud in front of everybody (I had only packed my outer thermals).

It turned out that it had started to rain that day, and I had no doubt in my mind that it was my weather curse, the one that makes it rain whenever I go out or travel. "Everywhere you go..." as the song goes. I also had "Four Seasons in One Day" in my head as it's the famous saying about Melbourne. However, it seemed more like 2 seasons, both of them cold, repeated twice during the day.

Anthony and Emily picked me up at the airport and we made our way to the city centre, to meet up with Luke, Simon and Stuart at Flinders Street station. After a short dinner at Degraves Street we headed to E55, a nice underground bar at 55 Elizabeth Street. We also checked out another bar (the name of the bar escapes me) and the casino (I think... I can't remember it all that well) before calling it a night.

Being a tourist is a hard job

I caught the tram from Anthony's place to the city the next day and headed over to the tourist information centre at Federation Square. After making my bag twice as heavy as it originally was due to brochures and flyers, I went to check out the local cuisine. That is, I ducked in to Hungry Jack's for a burger. The rest of my meals for the day would consist of KFC and a French fries joint called Lord of the Fries.

Sights for the day included the architecture at Federation Square, the Yarra River, the Queen Victoria Markets, where I unsuccessfully tried to find a decent jacket, and the Carlton Gardens, where the Royal Exhibition Centre and the Melbourne Museum were located. I didn't go into either though. I covered a fair few miles walking around the city so by this time I was pretty tired. I decided that my last major stop before nightfall would be the Observation Deck at the Rialto tower. This gave some great views of the city, and I was lucky to get pictures before and after the sun set.

I met up with Anthony after resting for a bit in the Observation Deck lounge and we headed over to bide some time at E55 before seeing Charlie Pickering at the Comedy Festival. I noticed that E55 had a tabletop version of Galaga, so I couldn't resist having a game. As for the gig that followed, that was pretty entertaining. It wasn't the best stand-up I've ever seen, but it was funny, and that's what matters. It was probably the first live stand-up performance I've ever been to though. We ended the night by meeting up with Emily and Stuart at Luke's work, a backpacker's hostel/bar, where we basically just chilled.

Trams... TRAMS!!

On my last day in Melbourne, I found out one very important lesson for tourists... use the trams! My legs were either dead or dying after a day's wandering around, something that could have easily been prevented by catching the trams to get to places.

Anyway, the day started with a hangover and a coffee with Alice, a Melbourne local that I met over in Rome. I noticed Andrew Johns from the Newcastle Knights in the table across from me having lunch with a few people. He didn't seem too concerned that his side got smashed by the Melbourne Storm the night before. After coffee and a late breakfast, Alice showed me around the uni for a bit and suggested other places to visit.

I caught the tram back to the city centre and was going to check out the Aquarium. Unfortunately, it would have cost me about $20, which was all I had left in my wallet, and I decided that this would be best spent on food. This made my next stop the MCG, followed by a trip around the city relaxing on the free City Circle Tram.

After my final trip to Lord of the Fries, I checked out a few cool buildings and outdoor sculptures at Docklands as I like outdoor architecture... and let's face it, any sculpture named "cow up a tree" deserves a look. This would be my last activity in Melbourne, and I soon headed to the airport to head home.

My legs are still killing me as I write this entry, and it causes me so much pain to walk that I had to call in sick at work today. That said, it was a very eventful trip, and I should have visited long ago... and besides, my bad planning turned out to have a hint of luck to it as it was a good weekend for people to come out and meet up.


Pictures from the trip should be up by the end of the week.