More Melbourne
Did you know Melbourne was originally called Batmania? True.
I am madly in love with this city. It is absolutely gorgeous. So – I left this morning, and wandered through the central business district, which has tons of stunning architecture and sky scrapers and is all lovely and well planned out AND I found a street vendor selling ROASTED CHESTNUTS!!! How exciting is that? Very. Super. I love chestnuts. Then I went walking in the Fitzroy gardens, which is very lovely. Its mostly grass with huge Elms, which are in the process of dropping their leaves – so I got to go crunching through them and do the fall thing. It has a fern gully (Oh wow – I just looked up the lyrics from the movie for a quick quote to put in here, but really – they are all just ASTOUNDING! Check em out: http://www.aquamarine.nu/lyrics/af/ferngully.php). Ahem – it also has Cook’s cottage, which is the cottage that belonged to Capt. Cook’s parents, and transported here (I didn’t go in – it cost money) and a small scale model Tudor village. I don’t know why.
Then I went to the National gallery of Victoria, which is housed in the Ian Potter center, and is totally cool. The whole building is very modern and beautifully designed and almost none of the planes of the building (well, aside from the stairs) come together at right angles. It had a special exhibit dedicated to Australian Impressionists, which was very lovely, although dominated by about 4 guys and 1 girl, some Aboriginal art (I like some of this, but the ones that are endless repeating dots and lines start to blur together pretty quickly), a fashion exhibit featuring some of the ugliest garments I have ever, ever seen, and the traditional permanent art collection, lots of which were donated by one guy. This was cool – because they made a little environmental trail leading through this gallery that gave little environmental factoids by some of the landscape paintings. It also had one painting of a big vase of flowers (it was called something like fabric flower, fable flowers? something like that) anyways, it was exhibited at the Golden Gate Exhibition in 19shmushmu. (39?). I got a photo of it, because I liked it so much.
Then I stopped by the Australian center for the Moving Image, which had a huge collection of short films you could watch, video games you could play with, and AN OSCAR! An actual physical oscar statue that was won by a guy for the best short film in 2003 or something. It was very cool. Shiny. They were setting up an exhibit on pixar, but it doesn’t open for a couple of weeks.
To get out of the arts complex, you have to walk through a giant plastic bubble door thing.
Next I went to the Aquarium, which was very good. Not quite Monterrey, but on par with Baltimore, and very well laid out. They had a local creatures exhibit, featuring sea dragons, a creepy creatures exhibit (and much as I enjoy seeing them – I really think putting tarantulas and centipedes on display is stretching it). They did have coconut crabs on display, which are the largest land crustacean. Next were a touch tidepool, a billabong, with long-necked turtles, which are very cool looking, and a ray and shark display. Then jellyfish (including some cool upside-down jellies), a coral atoll (which had a moray eel and this very cool giant grouper looking thing that was pearly blue), and then the oceanarium, which was a combination fish roundabout and the tunnels you can walk under as giant sharks and rays float over you. They have a grey nurse shark breeding program there, that seems to be quite successful.
And when I got out – the FOG had rolled in from the bay over the river! It’s foggy outside! YAAAAYYYY!!! It is very beautiful.
Also – I quite like my hostel. At the moment I have a 4 bed room to myself (even though it is on the 4th floor). I’m off now to find dinner, and see if I can get cheap tickets from the tkts booth. Miss Saigon is here, which I’ve never seen. Also Spring Awakening – but I think its the play version – and not the musical version that just swept the tonys. Ooh – and the circus! There’s a big top and giant ferris wheel set up south of the river.
I also sent an email to Ross and my parents about this – but I read Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman the other day and it is absolutely brilliant (particularly for anyone who has been to London). Go read it! (I know want to read his other novels, including American Gods, which has been on my to read list for awhile). I’m on Lady Chatterly’s Lover at the moment, which is good so far.
That’s it. I love this city – chestnuts! fog!
Tags: Travel
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