Melbourne Exhibition Centre from The Rialto

Prologue

In March of 2006, I went on a two-week adventure with my good friend Todd Ryan. We ventured south to a small island nation you may have heard of. It's known as "Australia". This is the second part of my travelogue, focusing on our Melbourne jaunt. To read the first part, including our arrival and time in Sydney, click here.

Saturday, March 25th

Saturday morning, Todd and I got up early and headed to Melbourne, a quick plane hop southwest from Sydney. They served breakfast, a meal American air carriers have forgotten existed, and we grabbed a shuttle from the airport to the public transportation, then walked over to our hotel, past Batman Park and Batman's Hotel. Awesome!

Our hotel was right on the beautiful Yarra River, and just past a helipad as well (it's visible in the top image, the semi-circle on the closer side of the river. That afternoon, we had tickets for the Gold Medal round boxing matches of the Commonwealth Games. If you're not aware, the Commonwealth Games are the Olympics for the British Empire. My understanding is that they were created because the United States kept winning all the Olympic medals (Ha! Take that, British Empire!).

The matches were interesting, though the lightweight matches were a relatively dull thing. The most interesting thing was actually when I went to grab a snack. I asked if they had any pretzels, a fairly standard event food. The vendor gave me a funny look and said "Pretzels? Pretzels?!" as if I was making up words. I backed away from her slowly. Todd and I later agreed that it was likely they knew them by some other, crazier name, like 'Knotty twisty salty bread'.

As you can see from the second image above, they're years ahead of us in parking technology down in Australia. However, they're a bit behind in their definition of a "car". As well, we went up to the top of Rialto Towers and I snapped a few shots. The third image is the Eureka Tower, at that time still under construction. Apparently, three cranes were needed total: On May 23, 2006, the crane on top of the tower was dismantled by a smaller crane, which was dismantled by a smaller crane that could be taken down the service elevator. To the right is Freshwater Place. I guess I could live there, in either one. I guess.

That night, we headed to a place called Pugg Mahone's on the recommendation of our friend Laena. Their kitchen was closed, so we headed back to find dinner. We eventually settled on an Italian place, where we got hit on by two middle-aged Australian women, until their husbands showed up. Good times, good times. We headed back to Pugg's, only to be rejected for wearing sandals ("thongs", in their wacky parlance). The same thing happened at a couple more bars - for a warm city right near the beach, they sure have some foolish dress codes.

We eventually got into a small Irish pub and watched cricket, a game that's like baseball, except that it's really, really stupid. Also, there's a lot of tea-drinking, and matches take place over several days. Todd did teach me the rules, so it now seems ever so slightly less stupid to me. We were headed home when we made one last stop at a place called E55, which was teaming with backpackers. We left with a couple of them, and hit up a couple more clubs before finally getting home, four hours later than intended.

The quote of the night, seen on a coaster:

I'm off for a quiet pint - followed by fifteen noisy ones.
-Gareth Chilcott

Sunday, March 26th

Sunday we woke up and had breakfast along the river, then headed over to the aquarium. They have a giant squid on ice there, but it's less impressive than I'd hoped. They also have a very odd, out-of-place ice cube ride. It's something like a virtual roller coaster, where the platform moves a bit. It's very, very dumb, but I'm sure little kids love it.

After that, we walked along the Yarra for a bit, then took the Tram out to St. Kilda and the beach. We lounged at the beach, and in a nearby park, grabbed dinner at Wagamama (coming to Boston soon), and took the tram back. We were pretty exhausted from the previous night, and wound up staying in and watching Australian Rules Football, before passing out for the night.

That was it for Melbourne, but it was a busy two days. I really liked the city - it's close to the beach, it's on the water, and it's got some great buildings. Perhaps I'll be back some day.