Melbourne Nights‏

Another season, another city. To be more precise, summer in Melbourne. Melbourne (being down south) is one of the coldest places in Australia so it's not always that hot. In fact, even during summer the place can go through 'four seasons in one day' which is a bit like being at home. But without the grey sky.

I've been here for about a month now, living in a big hostel that's right in the centre of the city. In fact it looks over the main station so if you fell off the balcony you'd be an instant tourist attraction. Unlike Sydney, Melbourne seems to be a really hard place to find work, unless you enjoy crap work like telemarketing, collecting for charity or doing long hours in a cafe or restaurant. I managed to blag myself a cushy office job, but only after three weeks of looking, registering with five different agencies and running out of money. Anyway, after selling drugs to kids for a few weeks to make ends meet I'm finally earning a few bucks working in the business travel part of Flight Centre.

Melbourne is a pretty small place to get around. I managed to see most things in 4 or 5 days. It's a really nice, spacious, relaxed place. Sydney definitely has more to see and do as a tourist, but Melbourne is the kind of place you would prefer to work and live in. One of the momst famous things about Melbourne is it's trams. They are as important to Melburnians as the ferries are to Sydneysiders. Apart from the fact that they look cool, they create some freaky traffic conditions. When cars want to turn right at a crossroads they have to get in the left lane while they're waiting for the traffic to clear. The reason for this is that if they were hanging around in the middle of the road they might get a scratch on their paintwork as a huge tram comes ploughing through them. What it also means is that if you try to cross the road you have cars coming at you from four angles, cars turning when you don't expect them too, and unstoppable trams dinging their bells as they brush past you. You could wait for the little green man, but where would be the fun in that? I have to be careful now as my travel insurance ran out at Christmas (I was originally supposed to be back then), otherwise I wouldn't have minded being run over by a tram.


Apart from the Yarra River, the fantastic Queen Victoria Market, the Botanical Gardens and the HUGE Crown Casino (where I lost a whole dollar), the other big attraction in Melbourne is St Kilda, a beachy suburb a few miles down the road. This weekend was the St Kilda festival, which about 400,000 people showed up for. It was a bit like the Notting Hill Carnival meets Brighton Beach, but was pretty cool.


The other thing realy interesting about Melbourne is it's bars. They're all hidden, which is freak, but kind of cool. The whole of Melbourne's streets are based on the grid system. Now imagine walking down a side road until it starts to get quiet. Then off of the road is a dark graffiti-covered alleyway that looks like it would be home to muggers and dealers. Then you walk down the end (praying you won't be stabbed) to what looks like a dead-end where there turns out to be an even smaller alley raunning off to the side. You walk down there until you get to a small door, which you enter assuming you're going to be in mortal danger any second.... and walk into a funky stylish bar full of funky stylish people. And they're all like that. You could wander round the main streets of Melbourne and never find any decent places. Mental.

The other thing you notice when you go out (anywhere in Oz) is the Australian blokes. They're funny to watch as they seem to be closely related to cavemen. Coming from Essex I'm not exactly surrounded by subtle chat-up lines, but some of the stuff they come out with makes every other nationality cringe. There are a lot more blokes in the cities than girls (especially in Sydney) so maybe they have to be more 'assertive' but it's still entertaining to see them make an idiot of themselves. Melbourne is also known for it's immigrants, and there are a lot of Greeks and Lebanese here. They tend to hunt in sleazy-looking packs. The girls are generally pretty and a lot have Mediterranean features, but they're tough in an East London kind of way. It's no wonder considereing the amount of crap they have to put up with from guys everytime they go out. Of course, as an English guy I'm full of charm and sophistication. :)

Well I only have about three weeks left here until I'm off further south to check out the Kiwis. Hope you all have fantastic Valentines Days. Remember, if you don't get anything it's a stupid commercial money-making day for florists and card shops. If you do then it's the greatest day of the year.

Gotta go play with the trams!