First Days of Melbourne

My first days in Melbourne have been a bit of a rollercoaster in more ways than one.  The weather can change drastically at a moment's notice.  And I've definitely been up and down figuring out whether I made the right choice doing this trip alone.  I'm figuring things out as I go though and feeling much more comfortable now that I have some friends.  Yay!

I'm staying at a hostel in a suburb of Melbourne (St. Kilda - described to me as the Kitsilano of Melbourne).  It's clean and fun and cheap, all very important qualities.

So, what have I been up to?  Being assaulted by my shoes for one thing.  It's been on the cold side since I've been here and I've been quite happy that I bought a pair of $9 cords while I was in Arizona.  I've also been quite keen on keeping my feet warm, which means shoes and socks.  Unfortunately, the shoes I brought with me I purchased just before the trip and still need breaking in.  This is the result:

 

Problem: Shoes full of blood.

Solution: Taping up my feet whenever I want to wear shoes.  Not so awesome.

In terms of actual activities, I've spent a lot of time walking around the streets of Melbourne.  I got into the city quite early on Thursday (5:15am and checked into my hostel by 7:30).  The day was spent checking out St. Kilda and napping and then checking out more of St. Kilda and then going to bed at 9.

On Friday the hostel put on a free tour of downtown which was quite good for getting my bearings and meeting a few people outside of my roommates.  A few shots of downtown Melbourne:

Centre Way is a small alley filled with little boutique shops and yummy restaurants.

Melbourne prides itself on its street art.  What would be considered graffiti back home is, in some cases, actually protected by the city.  There are loads of little alleys devoted to street art where the artwork changes on regular basis.

That night I went to a footy game (a brilliant sport - much more entertaining than American football) with my new found friends (Harrison - I think the only other Canadian in the hostel, Ryan - Irish, David - Irish, Frankie - completely crazy German) and then out to a bar that our tour guide had pointed out to us.  It was quite the challenge trying to find it as many of the bars in Melbourne are hidden down winding back alleys.  Despite asking four different people for directions - all of whom claimed to know where the bar was - we still ended up walking in a few circles.  Needless to say, we were quite pleased with ourselves when we finally found it.

Our view of the footy game - we were in nosebleeds in case you couldn't tell.

Our route into Croft Institute:

Alley entrance; turn left.

Walk to end of alley.

Turn right.

Walk to end of alley.

On Saturday David, Ryan and I headed into town to check out the art gallery and some other highlights of the city.  The gallery was good, but nothing special.  And I unfortunately managed to lose my crew while I was busy taking photos (they popped into the art centre quickly and I didn't notice), but wound up having a pretty good day wandering the city, taking loads more photos and eating dinner at a place recommended to me by Joe from his recent visit (I found it and it was delicious!).  That night was spent reading, dozing and sleeping.  Apparently I hadn't recovered from my jet lag as much as I had thought - I seem to be in good shape now though.  Finally!

Today (Sunday), I went back downtown to check out the Sunday arts and crafts market, the botanical gardens (HUGE - spent an hour and only got about 1/3 of the way through) and Queen Victoria Market (also huge - took an hour to do about half).  For those who know the Richmond Night Market, the Queen Victoria Market is much like that, but covered and has more Aussie themed knock-off/stolen crap in place of the Asian themed knock-off/stolen crap.  Oh, and I went down to the St. Kilda pier to try to spot some penguins.  Only saw two hidden away in the rocks - will likely try again tomorrow.  Obviously, I took a zillion more photos today.  Here's a few:

Birds of Paradise

I couldn't actually see any of these, but they must be some bloody huge cones.

View from St. Kilda beach at dusk.

Entrance to Luna Amusement Park.

Sorry this was so long!  I'll try to update more frequently so you don't have trek through any more novellas.  I hope this finds everyone well - email me updates please!

xoxo
Shan