Melbourne
May 4th, 2006Melbourne is a reall cool city, with a lot going on. But I’m tired of being down under and ready to head north where the weather is a little bit nicer. It was nice here (or “fine” as the weather forecast always seems to say) when I first arrived in Melbourne, but most of the weekend was cloudy, cold, and wet. But the city is really nice, with lots of live music, galleries, good shopping and great foosd. All you would expect from a city of 4 million people.
I arrived in Melbourne last Wednesday at about 8:30 AM, and went directly to my hostel. I had no idea where I was going to stay when arrived, but after reviewing some of the accomodation boards at the airport I narrowed it down to a couple of possible places in St. Kilda, a beachside neighborhood in South Melbourne. While calling a couple of them to inquire about rooms, I was approached by a tout who happened to be working for All Nations Backpackers, one of the places on my list. They were offering a $15 rate on the first night’s stay, and also a free shuttle from the airport, so of course I took them up on it. It turned out to be a real dive (one of the locals told me it used to be a motel and that most of the rooms were rented “by the hour” if you get my drift). But the location was good, and they had free wireless acess, so I spent most of my time walking around the neighborhood and surfing the net to sort out my plane tickets to Borneo.