I walked 18 miles yesterday. 18. That’s like, a gajillion kilometers. In my exuberance and enthusiasm, which flagged but never entirely waned, mostly because by that point I didn’t really have a choice if I ever wanted to make it back to my hostel, I didn’t think about the repercussions this would have for my legs. I didn’t think about it at all, in fact, until I tried to get out of my bunk bed this morning only to discover that my legs no longer functioned like normal. I stumbled, spun, and sort of flopped over backwards onto the tiny, unforgiving plywood table in the center of the room. That acrobatic maneuver took about all the energy I had. So needless to say, today has been a quiet day, a day for contemplation about this city we call Melbourne, a day for mincing about with tiny steps and cringing every time stairs enter my field of vision, a day for rubbing aloe vera on my first authentic Australian sunburn, while locals look at me and grin and say, “Looks like we got you mate.” Smug bastards.
In keeping with this sense of contemplation, here is a list of things that delight me about Melbourne (and possibly about the rest of Australia, but I discovered them here, so I’ll count them to Melbourne’s credit).
1. The art is plentiful and accessible. I know I’ve mentioned the street art a little bit, but it truly is remarkable, so much so that looking back through my photos of Melbourne, all I really have is photos of skanky (fun tidbit, my computer and I just had a fight about that word, it really wanted to turn it into ‘swanky’. I’m afraid if I look away, it might still win) alleys filled with beautiful graffiti. I also have an occasional building (mostly theatres), an occasional statue (mostly funny), and an occasional outdoor lighting installation (mostly trees). It is a city that breathes art, and really wants to ensure that it is everywhere, for anyone. I went to the National Gallery of Victoria today, which is split into two separate buildings on opposite sides of the river. Both were free, and had a fantastic exhibit spanning them of new work by Australian artists, in particular, artists based in Melbourne. It was well-curated, well-designed, and did I mention, free? There are free outdoor concerts, free outdoor movies, free museums; even cooler, the gallery today was filled with mostly students and 20-somethings, so obviously Melbourne is doing something right.
2. The buskers are of an unusually high quality. One main drag, Bourke Street, which is sort of a shopping mecca, actually makes their buskers audition in front of a panel of judges, sort of like American Idol except, you know, without the fame and tv and irritating celebrities. This means that in general, you’re hearing really quite good music as you wander down the street. Similarly, the artists along the river seem to be in a constant competition, so they’ve all learned to put on a pretty good show. My favorite was a Mexican artist who used spray paint and dabbed and dribbled and splotched and scraped it all over canvases to create these alien landscapes. I saw him at 10 in the morning, and I saw him at 10 at night, just spraying away. This was a full time job for this man, although perhaps he was just enjoying the fumes too much.
3. The newspapers are enormous. I picked one up this morning, the thing was at least a foot and a half wide, I think more like 2 feet. I couldn’t hold it. I couldn’t eat while reading it. I couldn’t do much of anything except wrestle with it while the wind tried to turn it into a paper equivalent of Mary Poppin’s umbrella.
4. At one of the busiest touring houses in Melbourne, a seat in the third row is always kept empty for the ghost of Fred Baker, who died on stage while being lowered through a trap door in the late 1800s.
5. At the old Melbourne jail (sadly now closed), the youngest person ever jailed, on charges of being idle and disorderly, was 3. He was kept in jail for 6 months. He must have been one hell of a little bastard.
6. The main public transit is a series of trams that runs through the central business district. San Diego, please take note, look to Melbourne if you want to see how a trolley system should actually operate. These trams run down the center of the main roads downtown. Because of this, something has developed in Melbourne that strikes fear into the hearts of drivers throughout Australia, the infamous Melbourne right turn. Because they drive on the wrong side of the street in this country, right turns require you to cross traffic, like left turns in the states. Simple enough. But because the trams run down the middle of the road, you can’t wait in the middle of the street for your chance to cross, because you would be blocking the trams. Solution? The right hand turn lane is actually on the far left side of the street, where you have to wait, as far from your destination as possible, till traffic has stopped coming at you, and then you can swerve across the road and pray that the traffic you are merging into doesn’t hit you. Confused? Good, because so am I, and I’ve seen it in action.
7. Speaking of trams, I saw one yesterday with a restaurant on it. Just one tiny little tram car, with candelabras and beautiful linens and fancy place settings.I could see a bartender shaking a cocktail and attempting to keep his balance as the tram bumped over a bridge and down the street. I feel like this has the potential for great comedy.
8. The theatre is fantastic. I can’t speak to all of it, but I saw one fabulous production that spoke to the ballsiness of big theatre in Melbourne. They had originally planned to start their season with ‘The Philadelphia Story’ but the rights fell through just as they were going into rehearsal. So instead, the director and actors created a farce loosely based on Gogol’s ‘The Government Inspector’ that was self-referential, massively meta-theatrical, and generally a send-up of the situation that they were in. And this theatre produced it, this brand-new, thrown-together, mash-up, basically improv’d piece. That takes some serious cajones, and if the crowd last night was anything to judge by, it is paying off brilliantly.
9. The live music scene is flourishing. So much so that the bands I saw perform on Tuesday, who were all truly exceptional and original, had a scant 30 people watching them perform. I think this speaks to the number of options in Melbourne on any given night.
10. They are not afraid to light things on fire. There are these sort of ugly concrete and glass chimneys (big pillars, two stories tall, look like supports for a bridge that somebody forgot to build) that run all along the south bank of the river. They are so unremarkable that you can completely forget they are there. And then, starting at 8:00, and continuing every hour on the hour til God knows when, they start belching giant mushroom clouds of fire. It’s quite startling if you’re not expecting it, one minute you’re just walking along, maybe eating an ice cream, and the next minute there’s this tremendous WHOOSH and a lot of heat and a giant cloud of fire goes bursting into the air behind you and in front of you and then your ice cream lands with a sad plop on your toes. Did I mention, these pillars are surrounded by trees? Ballsy people these Melbournians. Ballsy, artsy, strange people.
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| View from the rooftop |
PS, written some hours later, and after an intoxicating night of movies and pear cider and free gelato (nothing intoxicates me like free gelato) - I went to a rooftop cinema tonight with a German friend, and it was everything a roof top cinema should be. The view was exemplary, the lawn chairs were comfy, the movie was great, they charged us for blankets (because who knew that it could feel that cold in Melbourne?) but gave us free gelato, perhaps to help with the blanket sales. But what actually stuck with me was the building. A very helpful bartender told me that it used to be the Communist Party headquarters in Melbourne, but then the party was banned, the building was raided, and it sat empty from the 60s til the 90s. It finally got redeveloped around 2000, and now it is 7 amazing floors that hold, among other things, a restaurant, a night club, a live music venue, a bookshop, and a kung fu school. There’s an elevator, but it doesn’t seem to work, so you have to climb up a tiny little staircase lined with stickers and graffiti to reach your floor. I think, when I look back on Melbourne, this building is how I will choose to remember it.
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