Adventures in Melbourne

(more pictures at the bottom of this entry)

Interesting past few days in the city...
Had one day of pouring (all bloody day) rain. I think it was the day after my last entry. Didn't get out much that day...
The next day was beautiful... so I packed light and headed out for the day. Wandered all about downtown.. checked out the Ian Potter Center National Art Gallery of Victoria and the Australian Center for the Moving Image in Federation Square, gave the Botanical gardens a couple hours for a walkthrough - beautiful stuff. Botanical Gardens especially.
Then decided to head out to Fitzroy and St. Kilda beach... which is kind of like the Whyte ave or Commercial drive of Melbourne. Really nice part of town. Ended up meeting a couple of german girls (lots of germans here, I'm telling you) who just got off their plane a couple of hours before. We went out for drinks (beers on the beach) Fed the possums fine german chocolate. There were tonnes of them. first possums I've seen here actually. fuuuuny little creatures. Cross between a squirrel and a cat or something.
anny how. On the beach.I had a train schedual. calculated that I would have plenty of time to get back to Altona. Hopped on my tram to the Flinders street train station downtown. all on time, everyhitng was good. Still had 18 minutes until the last train, so I ducked into the toilets to take a leak. Got down to the train platform just as as the 12:05 tain sped off. no prolem. There was one more in 16 minutes. not the case. the last train only went about a third of the way, which is no bloody good because there is still about 20km more to go. A young guy comes up and asks if there is another train to such and such place. We both missed our trains and ended up hanging out for an hour or so, planning a way to get to a sleeping place. He offered a place to stay, but it meant a $25 cab ride, as all of the trams and busses were shut down. Long story short - I could get a bed in a hostel downtown for the same price and I had german ggirls to meet the next morning... so I found a hostel.. a crazy city hostel. stayed on the 5th florr. elevator and all. hundereds of rooms. had a shitty shower with no soap and went to bed. All in all, payed $24 for a room that I only had for 9 hours. I would have slept outside but I was only wearing a light T shirt and flip flops... and I don't know Melbourne at night - so I used my better judgement and got a hostel - (keep all you "travel safe" people happy)
That was last night. Spent today helping the german girls find a tent to save on costs... wandered through chinatown and visited the National Gallery of Victora for more fine artwork. Had a nice exhibit of Ancient Egyptian, Mexican, Greek, Syrian, Iraq-ian objects. They Egyptian ones were particularly intriging... something about contemplating an object made by the hands of man 5000-6000 years ago... half decent paintings aswell. Nothing as nice as in the Adelaide Galleries though...
Hit the Queen Victoria market on the way out of town, again... nothoing like the Central market in Adelaide... this one was just produce, not the delicious gormet foods you've never heard of sort of market... but hey, half a kilo of grapes for a buck is a pretty good deal... and a big full of all kinds of fresh fruits and veggies for $5. can't go wrong.
OH - I SAW A HIGHSPEED CHASE TODAY! downtown Melbourne. I was in a tram. just saw it down a street I was passing. a black sports car of some sort. The cops had this vehical sort of cornered.... bottlenecked, more like. when I noticed what was going on, the car was right outside my window. It came to a stop and 4 cops approached it. One cop tried to open the door and the driver pinned it, peeled the tires and sped off. knocked a couple of the cops on their asses.. knocked stuff off their belts - radios flying into the air. The car sped down the tram track in the midddle of the roadway, lightning fast, where cars normally don't drive. Came up to a roadblock that was set up - bunch of cop cars and things and was speeding toward a gap when my view down the street got obscured as my tram continued down the track, perpedicular to the street with all the action. My brief glimpse of the action was something right out of Grand Theft Auto - "GTA Melbourne City"
Pretty exciting day in the city. I've seen it all and Now I'm ready to go.
I bought a plane ticket this morning to fly to Launceston, Tasmania tomarrow morning. Even with less than 24 hours notice, the flight cost be $80 AU, (about $72 Canadian) I'm spending about 12 days in Tassie... have only the roughest, sketchiest idea of the route I'm planning on travelling, so far. On the evening of the 16 of Feb, I'm flying to Sydney. I wish I didn't have to fly to sydney... but the time frame for Chrysi's days off and the way everyhting works out, that is the way it has to be really.. So I bought that ticket this evening, as they were already getting really booked for that flight.
So yeah. The next 3 weeks are layed out infront of me. I have a skeleton to work within here.
I'm bombed tired presently. it's late here. just figured I should make some record of Melbourne happenings before I plunge into the wilderness of Tasmania.
sleeep.

PHOTOS!!
(photos can also be found by clicking on "fenderson" under the authours column to your right, then clicking "more photos" under the photos column. Or bookmark the page when you get there...