big city
It's too late. I've already turned into a country bumpkin. 2am Friday night, me: "ooh, look how light the sky is, is that because of all the city lights?". My companion: "yes".The first thing that struck me about Melbourne was how so many of the suburbs are named after AFL teams*. Also, the city is huge - it took me just over 3 hours to get to the outskirts from the town I live in, but almost another hour to get to where I was going - my sister's ex-boyfriend's house. I got there around 8pm, took my sister to the airport at 11pm, left there some time after midnight and got back to the city at 1am. [speaking of ex-boyfriends, totally unrelated, but you know how I have an ex-boyfriend who married one of my best friends, well I got the news on Friday that she had the baby... they didn't name it after me, but then it's a boy, so I guess that's OK].
I was staying with someone I've never met before (the fiancé of an Aussie friend I met in Berkeley), but I knew everything would be fine when he offered me a beer within 5 seconds of me walking in the door. We then went out dancing and I ended up going to bed at 5am. Crazy.
The next day I went to the Queen Victoria markets and bought random stuff - food, shoes, picture frames, soap and candles. Then late afternoon I went and met the very lovely Another Outspoken Female and we had a glass of wine or two, chatted away, and tried to figure out whose blog we'd found each other on. It's a slightly surreal experience meeting someone you've only known online - it's a bit like when they make a movie of a book, and the characters aren't quite as you'd imagined.
On Sunday I headed out to St Kilda (named after yet another AFL team) and after spending an hour finding a parking spot, walked along the beach and browsed the stalls and had a lovely roast pumpkin salad for lunch before driving back.
All in all it was a lovely first taste of Melbourne - and I'm planning on going back in a fortnight, which is exceedingly exciting.
R
* yes, yes, I know the history of AFL and why so many teams originated in Melbourne, but I suspect the majority of my readers don't really care, and if they do, they can go google it themselves
posted by flying kiwi @ 10:34 PM
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