Easter in Melbourne (cont.)
The ‘local’ met me at her local train station out in the suburbs, and we spent the rest of the morning chatting and repositioning sun lounges, as we chased the sunny spots tracking across her overgrown back yard
After a bit we decided to go out for pizza in the city and I insisted that I wanted to ride a tram. We don’t have trams in Sydney and it was a bit weird riding in a vehicle that was train shaped, but was cruising through the middle of road bound car type traffic.
We ended up in a groovy pub. She was drinking white, I had red. We talked about the feminist position on scrunching and folding, the burgeoning popularity of tapas in Melbourne, and how it’s hard for a single girl to get ‘knocked up’ these days as guys have realized that the government will hunt them down and make them pay for the upkeep of the sprog (as a result condoms are gaining in popularity again.)
What I thought was interesting was that she expressed the opinion, that single woman are more interested in having a guy around as a babysitter, then sucking his bank account dry.
We ended up back in my hotel room after I had checked in, and attacked a complimentary bottle of red that we found sitting on a cupboard (I think it was complimentary as I wasn’t charged, and no one appeared to claim it.)
The next day my hostess had to study, so I did what I normally do when I’m in a new place and explored.
Central Melbourne is all wide tree lined roads, or narrow lanes crammed with interesting shops and cafes.
By comparison Sydney is condensed, over bearing, and choked with exhaust spewing cars and buses.
Walking to the opposite bank of the river, I found a big art gallery. There was an exhibition on Bollywood which didn’t interest me, but a display featuring the history of exotic sneakers did.
School holidays are on so the gallery had set up a children’s activity where a pile of Lego had been spilled out on a table the foyer.
Since this was an art gallery they couldn’t just use normal Lego.
The only colour available to the children was white.
Where did the gallery staff hide all the other colours?
The children were building tall towers of shiny white Lego, which looked great but there didn’t seem to be any childish chaos to the structures, and I couldn’t help thinking that the kids were being prompted.
Now for the travel details bit...
I flew to Melbourne with Virgin Blue (cheap flights but you have to pick the right times. It was astoundingly cheap to fly back on Easter Sunday.)
Virgin has this handy web check in where the passenger can save time by printing out a bar-coded travel document.
Exiting the terminal, I caught the cheapest available transport to the city on the Skybus (about fifteen bucks, I was told by a taxi driver that a one way cab fare is at least forty-five.)
Melbourne public transport is amazing. Trains and trams run all over the place and the bright yellow cabs (I like the idea of yellow cabs, reminds me of New York) fill in the bits in-between.
I stayed at the Hotel Rendezvous (328 Flinders street)
The hotel was a lot nicer then I thought it would be.
It’s an old fashioned building which has been brought up to modern standards.
The room was small but clean, and I didn’t mind not having a view as all I was going to be doing in there was sleeping and bathing.
The staff were really friendly.
Something that I noticed the three days was that the staff were mostly Caucasian.
Up till now, my main experience of hotels has been while traveling in the U.S. where a lot of the staff are Latino or Black.
The cleaning staff that I met in the Rendezvous were Asian, and a lot of fast food outlets over here are staffed with Asians.
It’s interesting where different countries find their ‘cheap labor.’
To be continued…
After a bit we decided to go out for pizza in the city and I insisted that I wanted to ride a tram. We don’t have trams in Sydney and it was a bit weird riding in a vehicle that was train shaped, but was cruising through the middle of road bound car type traffic.
We ended up in a groovy pub. She was drinking white, I had red. We talked about the feminist position on scrunching and folding, the burgeoning popularity of tapas in Melbourne, and how it’s hard for a single girl to get ‘knocked up’ these days as guys have realized that the government will hunt them down and make them pay for the upkeep of the sprog (as a result condoms are gaining in popularity again.)
What I thought was interesting was that she expressed the opinion, that single woman are more interested in having a guy around as a babysitter, then sucking his bank account dry.
We ended up back in my hotel room after I had checked in, and attacked a complimentary bottle of red that we found sitting on a cupboard (I think it was complimentary as I wasn’t charged, and no one appeared to claim it.)
The next day my hostess had to study, so I did what I normally do when I’m in a new place and explored.
Central Melbourne is all wide tree lined roads, or narrow lanes crammed with interesting shops and cafes.
By comparison Sydney is condensed, over bearing, and choked with exhaust spewing cars and buses.
Walking to the opposite bank of the river, I found a big art gallery. There was an exhibition on Bollywood which didn’t interest me, but a display featuring the history of exotic sneakers did.
School holidays are on so the gallery had set up a children’s activity where a pile of Lego had been spilled out on a table the foyer.
Since this was an art gallery they couldn’t just use normal Lego.
The only colour available to the children was white.
Where did the gallery staff hide all the other colours?
The children were building tall towers of shiny white Lego, which looked great but there didn’t seem to be any childish chaos to the structures, and I couldn’t help thinking that the kids were being prompted.
Now for the travel details bit...
I flew to Melbourne with Virgin Blue (cheap flights but you have to pick the right times. It was astoundingly cheap to fly back on Easter Sunday.)
Virgin has this handy web check in where the passenger can save time by printing out a bar-coded travel document.
Exiting the terminal, I caught the cheapest available transport to the city on the Skybus (about fifteen bucks, I was told by a taxi driver that a one way cab fare is at least forty-five.)
Melbourne public transport is amazing. Trains and trams run all over the place and the bright yellow cabs (I like the idea of yellow cabs, reminds me of New York) fill in the bits in-between.
I stayed at the Hotel Rendezvous (328 Flinders street)
The hotel was a lot nicer then I thought it would be.
It’s an old fashioned building which has been brought up to modern standards.
The room was small but clean, and I didn’t mind not having a view as all I was going to be doing in there was sleeping and bathing.
The staff were really friendly.
Something that I noticed the three days was that the staff were mostly Caucasian.
Up till now, my main experience of hotels has been while traveling in the U.S. where a lot of the staff are Latino or Black.
The cleaning staff that I met in the Rendezvous were Asian, and a lot of fast food outlets over here are staffed with Asians.
It’s interesting where different countries find their ‘cheap labor.’
To be continued…
[this is good] But did you like Melbourne more than Sydney? ;)
ReplyDeleteMelbourne sounds sooo .... nice. And like my kind of town. Yup, Mexicans and illegals comprise America's cheap labor. In fact, I once worked a resort job where I was the only gringa and the vast majority of my coworkers spoke no English. It was tough for the guests (some of whose jaws dropped when they saw me; white lady housekeeper doesn't compute ...).
ReplyDelete