Melbourne – Where Love Means Nothing

I apologize for the horrible tennis joke in my title, I just couldn’t come up with anything better to label this entry.

We flew in from Hobart and met up with my buddy from Vancouver, Aaron, at the Melbourne airport before heading to his place out in the suburb of Box Hill.  Like our friends from Vancouver in Sydney, he was also working in Australia (albeit he was here on a 6 month contract and not indefinitely like them).  Unlike our friends in Sydney, he moved here because he has an unhealthy infatuation with Australian surfer dudes.  To each their own I guess.

Anyways, we were happy to be able to crash at his place and for the next 5 days we explored the area.  We also met up with our friend Susannah, an Australian we ended up travelling much of Syria with.  She had started a new job in Melbourne after living for 8 years in London and it was great catching up with her.  On our first day we basically just walked around the central business district, checking out the Queen Victoria market and Chinatown as well.  It was hot out and the skies were blue so we decided to relax in the shade in Federation square for a bit, surrounded by a lot of other Melbournites who were watching tennis on the outdoor big screen.  The reason they were watching tennis was because the Australian Open happened to be on at the exact time we were in Melbourne, which was pretty sweet.  In the evening we hit up a club/lounge called Transport and had good night.

Have I mentioned how expensive Australia is?  I’m pretty sure I have, but to illustrate this point I’ll tell you about our movie experience.  The next night, after dinner with Aaron’s girl Megan (yes, for those who know Aaron and are reading this, there actually is a real life female who not only is awesome, she also seems to like him…crazy but true) and her friends we decided to catch a movie.  Di wanted to watch the Green Hornet since Taiwanese superstar Jay Chou was one of the main characters, and Aaron and I were down to watch a super hero movie.  The theatre was pretty nice, though no nicer than those we have in Canada, and the ticket prices were advertised at 18 dollars.  I thought that was pretty steep, but when we paid for the ticket it was actually 24 dollars each!  You see, 3D movies are 23 dollars and we had to buy the glasses for an extra dollar.  I paid 48 dollars for what turned out to be a pretty crappy movie.  Actually pretty crappy is an understatement, it sucked.  Don’t watch it.

While Aaron was working we also spent some time with Susannah.  She took us out for a fantastic lunch at a French restaurant called Bistro Vue in the downtown area, complete with Wagyu beef and perfectly smoked salmon.  It was a nice change from this ghetto restaurant called China Bar (though the food was actually decent) that Aaron kept taking us to.  The highlight of our time in the city though was seeing a tennis match one evening with Susannah at the Australian Open.  Di and I picked a day that worked best for the 3 of us, not knowing who was going to be playing.  We totally lucked out as our tickets ended up being for Nadal vs Cilic.  Nadal is the number 1 ranked tennis player in the world, so to catch him playing Cilic (ranked 15^th) was pretty awesome.  This was our first time watching live tennis (that’s them playing in the above picture), and where better to do it than at a Grand Slam event.  The match lasted about 3 hours, and though I wasn’t used to being completely silent while watching athletes play, I really enjoyed the game.  Nadal won, and I, like all the other screaming ladies with outstretched arms, was hoping he’d throw me his sweaty shirt once the match was done.  No luck there, shucks.

For our last couple of days in the area we drove up the Great Ocean Road, Australia’s most famous stretch of asphalt.  Megan (I swear this girl is real guys) was sweet enough to take Di, Aaron, and I on this famous road trip in her ride.  We made it to the town of Apollo Bay pretty late at night, and the next morning we headed to the 12 Apostles, the Great Ocean Road’s most famous landmark.  Basically this part of the coast is comprised of sheer limestone cliffs overlooking fierce and beautiful seas.  At the 12 Apostles, the erosions caused by the powerful ocean left independent limestone “apostles”, though we really only could count 5.  Nevertheless it was a gorgeous spot, and the apostles won’t be around forever due to continued erosion, so we were happy to make it there.  On the way back we grabbed some fish and chips and a bottle of wine and just relaxed on a beach to eat lunch and enjoy our surroundings.  The beach was packed, full of teens wrapped in Australian flags and families with little children, as it was Australia day.  That definitely made for a lively and happy atmosphere.  The Great Ocean Road is populated by some awesome surf towns that are not far removed from each other.  As we drove by Torquay, Lorne and Apollo Bay I was slightly disappointed that for the 3 weeks we’ve been here we haven’t yet got on a surfboard.  Luckily I quickly got over that disappointment due to the music that was playing on the radio.  We were listening to a program that was all corny love song dedications, and they were playing hits like “Nothing’s Gonna Change My Love For You”.  As Aaron and I loudly sang along to that song, and others like “Sometimes When We Touch”, I could tell that Megan and Di were enchanted by the magical unison of our voices and our heavenly harmonies in combination with pretty much the best songs ever.  I’m sure it’s a car ride that touched their hearts and will forever leave a blissful impression they can look back on in their darkest hours.  In all honesty singing along horribly to those cheesy songs with Aaron was pretty hilarious, to me and him.  Actually travelling in developing countries for so long hasn’t really given us the chance to keep up with the new music, so to my dismay Justin Bieber wasn’t the only one putting out awesome new songs on the radio when I arrived.  I admit that I’m pretty into Bruno Mars’ music now.  I’ve probably heard that Grenade song no less than 10 times in the past few days, and after singing it so much in the car I’ve pretty much got the lyrics down at least as well as Aaron’s got the dance moves down.

We had a great time in the Melbourne area, watching tennis, checking things out, and visiting our friends and meeting new ones.  Hopefully Susannah and Megan will come visit us in Canada sometime soon.  And Aaron, thanks for letting us crash at your place; I’d catch a grenade for you (yeah yeah yeah).