Off to Melbourne
Trip Start
Dec 31, 2008
1
17
40
Trip End
Mar 27, 2009
Where I stayed
Melbourne,
Victoria,
Australia
Friday, February 6, 2009
We arrived at our hotel and they let us check into one of the rooms, and we took naps before venturing into the city. For those who don't know anything about Melboure, it is the capital city of the state of Victoria with a metro area population of almost 4 million (about half the size of Chicago and a little smaller than Sydney). Sydney and Melbourne have a long-running rivalry for supremacy in Australia, and while Melbourne was formerly the leading power in the country, it is now unquestionably Sydney. Melbourne is a big sports town, with the Australian Open (which we regrettably missed by 1 week), the top athletic teams in Australia's major sports (which are Rugby, Cricket, Aussie Rules Football, and soccer) and it hosted the 1956 Summer Olympics.
My initial impressions of Melbourne are mixed. It's a nice city with a smaller skyline than Sydney and some really great architecture. The weather on the first day was really great. It's really clean and there are a large number of restaurants, bars, etc. But there's not really anything special to see here. The Yarra river runs through the south end of downtown and has a nice area of restaurants and shops and a cool bridge crossing it. There are a number of nice cathedrals and churches, and they have something called Federation Square that has some cool looking buildings, but there is not a single destination site to see like Sydney has. The strange thing about Australia is that it is literally one of the last countries of the world settled and therefore doesn't really have many sites to see (certainly not historic ones). Parts of the U.S. have this problem as well, but I think that it is even more so here. At least on the east coast of the U.S. you can find stuff from prior to 1800.
After we explored the city for a while, we decided to go to something called the Chill On Ice Bar. This was a bar whose entire inside was made out of ice, including the walls, bars, tables and chairs, even the glasses we drank out of. It cost $30 Australian (about $20) to go in for a half hour, and that included one drink. They also provided you with boots, gloves and a coat. As ridiculous as the place is, we had a fun time there, but we came in shorts, and were ridiculously cold. It was about 15 degrees in there. After returning to the hotel with some take-out food, we hung out in the room a while before going out. We first went to a place called Cupido near the Italian Village and the University of Melbourne, where we actually had a really good time, but it started to clear out a bit around midnight. So we headed to Chapel Street, which we had been told would be a fun place to go out. After having a bit of trouble finding a place, we landed at a bar with some live music. But after about 15 minutes the live music stopped, and much to my delight, they started rocking out 80's music. Let's just say that I showed the Aussie's how to be "Footloose". We ended the night at some club and got home probably around 4 am. One of the beauties of being in a city where there isn't a whole lot else to see, is that you don't worry about sleeping in since you probably aren't missing a whole lot, so I definitely planned on sleeping late the next day.
