We payed a visit to the second biggest city in Australia on December the 15th, Friday, 2017. I wanted to see Amelie Lens (a Belgian techno DJ who is kicking it at the moment) for a long time. In fact, she came two or three times to Barcelona during 2017 but, unfortunately, I never managed to see her. So, I was excited when I found out she was coming to Sydney but… Two months before her performance, when I tried to buy the tickets, they were already sold out. So, when I learnt she was playing in Melbourne I spoke to Gorka. We discussed it for a little bit and we made the decision to go see her and spent the weekend in Melbourne!
On Thursday I had to work from 17:00 till 00:30… I got home at 01:00 and, after having dinner and taking a shower, it was already 02:00 in the morning. I thought about whether going to sleep or not for a while and, finally, I did lay on bed but I didn’t really catch any sleep. At 04:00 the taxi was waiting outside to take us to the airport.
We used a FASTeTICKET by “Cabcharge” who a customer “gave” to Gorka in the restaurant he worked. I did some research about these cards and it was a little bit weird. Basically, they told me (several times) that yes, it was only valid for one trip but it didn’t have a maximum quantity of money we could spend. So, when I asked them: “but, like, that doesn’t make much sense to me, does it mean we can grab a cab and go from Sydney to Perth?” They answered: “why not?” Later we learnt we couldn’t go that far with that ticket…
The ride to the airport took like 20 minutes. We didn’t spend much time going through the security control so at around 04:30 we were already waiting for the boarding gate to open. The flight was taking off at 06:15 so I tried (but didn’t succeed) to catch some sleep while waiting. While trying to catch some sleep, I could hear a familiar voice. I stood up and confirmed my suspicion, it was “Javiera”, a very kind girl from Chile who was my coworker at the Mexican restaurant for like two months. Yes, you read well, who “was”.
I’ve changed workplace, but I’ll talk about it another day. Anyway, I said hello to her and her Chilean friends and I found out they were going to Brisbane. Many people talk about Brisbane and it looks like it is a nice place. It’s kind in the middle of the East Coast and by flight it takes a little longer than one hour. I’ll have to give it a try sooner or latter :).
We landed at around 08:00 but, I wanted to make a point before continuing with this post. I felt kind of weird when I crossed the boarding gate and nobody asked us for our passports. We thought maybe they had forgotten about them or they missed us for whatever unknown reasons, but we’d find latter that that wasn’t the case.
Once in Avalon (an airport like one hour away from Melbourne and way smaller than the Granada’s one) we learnt that the only way to get to Melbourne was by paying 24 AUD to get onto the Skybus… Well, there are other ways, like hijacking or grabbing an uber/taxi till Lara, and from there you have to take a train to Melbourne. But, after doing some math, we decided we had no choice but to take the thief bus…
We arrived in Melbourne a sunny morning on the third week of December. The hostel was… it was, which was enough :). Right after getting into our room, a vagabond came to join us in the room as our new roommate. We had an interesting conversation with him. He told us he had been sleeping on the street for the last weeks and he was happy about having a bed now. However, the more he spoke, the less I liked his way of being.
So, when I told him he could work as a dishwasher to have a “decent” life he told me he was already retired and he had worked too much in his life and was tired of working. When I asked him about how long he had worked, he told me he worked for 30 years… Then, he complaint about how expensive life was, like, he didn’t have enough with 50 AUD per day to eat.
Wtf? I spend like 50 AUD per week myself on grocery shopping. When I told him that, he turned back to me really surprised and asked me -“what do you eat”? -“Basic stuff like pasta, rice, vegetables, etc”, I answered. He said he didn’t like to cook… His final complaint was about the price of tobacco, which, indeed is crazy: around 25 AUD per packet. I asked him why he didn’t try to quit and he said it was too late and he rather spent his money on cigarettes instead than on food…
Moving forward, even though I was super tired, we decided to go for a walk to get to know the city a little bit. We wanted to start by going to the Melbourne Olympic Park to see the Rod Laver Arena, the court that hosts the final of the Australian Open (hopefully Nadal will win there soon). We realized that the second biggest city of Australia had some differences compared to the first one. For example, the traffic lights for pedestrians take way less (thank God!) time, the streets are wider and you can get to see some musicians playing on the street, etc.
We saw some hints showing Christmas was around the corner. Some Christmas tress and some decoration but, nothing to do with what we have in Europe. Little by little, we arrived to the Yarra river, which we needed to follow to get to the Olympic Park. The walk was nice. The sun was shining and some people were having barbeques and/or picnics.
We finally made it to the Rod Laver Arena court and we found out it was closed. Nevertheless, we were able to take some photos with the court behind us. Pretty much the whole area was under construction. The tournament will be starting soon and they still needed to do some arrangements. We also saw the Melbourne Cricket ground and some other tennis and Australian football stadiums. Eventually, we got the Myki card (like the Opal card for NSW) to be able to take the train and get back to the hostel, where, finally, I was able to catch some sleep…
After waking up we found out that we had a new roommate, a girl from Germany (hello Shannon!) who was just 18 years old! It’s crazy the courage some people have to jump into the unknown and get to know this world a little better :). If you are reading this by any chance, greetings from Sydney!
We went to Aldi to buy some drinks to get ready for Amelie Lens. We were scared about running into the lockout rule, like in Sydney. That is a law that doesn’t allow you to keep drinking or get into a club after a certain time but, even the supermarkets, at a certain time, before closing, stop selling alcohol! Thank God in Melbourne they have more common sense and, after laughing at us, the girl told us we could get what we needed.
Before starting with the drinks, we went to a bar, where we saw some drunk people celebrating Christmas. We spoke to an Irish girl who told us she achieved the extension of her visa by doing farm work. Basically, she had spent four and a half months, eight hours per day and five days per week, milking cows. Yes, you read well, milking cows. Who knows? Maybe one day I’ll do it myself :).
While we were having dinner and starting with the pre-game, we met some nice people. It’s by far the best thing about staying in hostels: the amount of incredible people with super different backgrounds you can meet. We spoke to people from the U.K., Senegal, Japan, Italy, etc. If you are reading this by any chance, Yuki, I hope you are having a good time. Hopefully one day I’ll be able to read your blog in Japanese, lol.
At 01:30 we got to the “Bottom End” club, where the “magic” had already started. The club reminded me to some of the ones you can get to see in Trainspotting, and so some of the people I saw there :). There were many different stages with great DJs performing. Finally, we got to see Amelie Lens. The key reason for the weekend in Melbourne was right there, in front of me! Her performance was amazing and we were so close to her that I was even able to grab her hand (minute 2:05), ahhhhhhhh!! (like a bimbo blondie screaming after grabbing… Justin Bieber’s hand).
We went to sleep kind of late so next morning we didn’t wake up as early as we wanted. After waking up and speaking a little bit with Shannon, we got ready and headed to Brighton Beach, the famous full-of-boxes beach in Melbourne. The train took us there in like 30 minutes. We realised that, like us, there were some tourists who thought it was a good idea to get to see the famous beach on a Saturday afternoon. The boxes (houses) were nice and there were some nice views of Melbourne’s skyline from the beach. But, the beach itself, was OK, I guess.
After recovering some energies, we went back to Melbourne to see the Royal Botanic Garden and the Shrine of Remembrance. I found the Royal Botanic Garden of Melbourne both bigger and more beautiful than the one in Sydney. After seeing my second botanic garden I got to understand a little bit better Australia. It’s true that I’ve just been to two cities (or at least, two big ones) but it looks like all of them have the same setup: a big skyline with all its businesses going on, a royal botanic garden, which is the lung of the city and where you can get to see tons of plans, trees and some animals, and some main streets that split the city into different blocks.
As I was saying before, the garden was really beautiful. We got to see some tipsy groups of people having fun and playing some music and/or games, some weird birds which made a crazy alarm-looking sound and some impressive trees. We were really tired at that point but finally we made it to the Shrine of Remembrance. That’s is some sort of a pantheon erected as a memorial to the people who lost their lives in the the first World War. It also hosts ANZAC celebrations annually.
After dragging our feet up and downstairs, we agreed with Shannon we will meet her at the entrance of the Eureka Tower to go see the sunset from up there. The Eureka Tower has the highest observation point in the Southern Hemisphere. The price was 22 AUD (even though the website advertised 20…) but then, if you show them your Myki card, you get an 11% discount. Of course, that was not advertised or said anywhere 😉
The views from the top were nice. There was an extra view point where could feel like if your feet were floating over the air. Of course, you couldn’t use your own phone to take some pictures, but just the ones of the tower so you could be happily charged. Damn Capitalism… We waited patiently until the sun set and we took some nice pictures.
That night we didn’t go out. We had enough with the first one. Yes, we are getting old lol. We had dinner in an Indian restaurant close to our place. Back at the hostel, we had some beers with our colleagues and went to sleep.
Sunday morning was our last morning in Melbourne. So, after having breakfast and saying good bye to Shannon, the vagabond and Yuki, we went to see the Queen Victoria Market. The market is huge and you can find anything from food to souvenirs to clothes. We saw a paella booth and, after approaching it, we met some Spaniards who were on holidays in Australia. They were somewhere between 40 and 50 years old. We talked for a bit, shared some experiences and tips, said goodbye and left.
All we had left was to go to Hosier Lane to see some of the famous art/graffiti. Before that though, we stopped at the State Library of Victoria (the second biggest one in Australia) to acculturate ourselves. I was a little bit disappointed with what I saw at Hosier Lane but, as I walked through it, I learnt to like it better. I guess that’s something we see plenty of times in life 😉
The weekend in Melbourne was over and we headed back to Avalon airport. There, I had a discussion with one of the members of the airport about why they didn’t check our passports. Basically, as in Australia they haven’t suffered any terrorist attacks like the ones we have had in Europe, when taking a domestic flight, it isn’t necessary to show your passport not to throw away your liquids before having your belongings checked. I hope it stays like this forever 🙂
