Melbourne is an amazing place. Everything is designed, and I mean everything. It’s a metropolitan city, but you never feel closed in. There are beautiful interesting parks every few blocks that have insane gardens plugged into every nook and cranny as well as eye popping sculptures that flow seamlessly with the landscape. The architecture of buildings is so open and inviting and vibrant that you don’t mind being surrounded by these towers even in the most dense areas. It also helps that we’re being hosted by Lexie, her sister Zoey, boyfriend Pat, and roommate Verity who are enthusiastic about showing us their city, and do it with much hilariousness at every stop.
We start off being taken by Zoey and her mom to the Victoria Market, a massive outdoor market where you buy all your meats(including Kangaroo meat), seafood, fruits, veggies, and breads by screaming dealers. We find out there’s a one-day music festival with some big names such as Lorde, Chvches, Earl Sweatshirt, and Frightened Rabbit. Without tickets again we have to plot and scheme how to get in. We will be coming out with a book next year: “Jumping fences, scaling mountains, dodging security, fake mustaches: how to sneak into Concerts”. We hit up a few salvation armies to find fluorescent vests(fleuros); the preferred uniforms of cheap security worldwide. We arrive at the show, me with the vest on and Hilary in all black trying to blend in as a food truck worker. We keep our story simple: Hilary got in a wreck on her way to work and now she’s very late and I’m supposed to escort her in. The first door we try the guy looks us over and exclaims: You can’t just put on a fluorescent vest and pretend you work here!” Are we that obvious? A little let down we try a few more and get more refusals. Finally we find a laid back worker who feels sorry for this pretty blonde lady who’s late for her burger flipping shift. Were in! Really great shows, but hot as hell all day! We get home to hear Lexie screaming. We run into the bathroom to find a 4” giant huntsman spider in the shower, I grab a bowl and slide a paper underneath and chuck the thing across the street. Hilary is thoroughly freaked out by now of a spider night raid on her body. After checking the room and assuring her everything is ok we pass out. Sure enough we wake up to find a massive, nipple-looking, spider bite on her neck. They smelled her fear!
We spend the rest of Melbourne hanging out with Hilary’s long lost cousins who throw us a “Welcome to Australia Party” and are extremely kind, fun and send us off with vegemite (disgusting) and tim tams (scrumptious) as well as a few bottles of local wine. Pat the youngest boy of the family takes us to see the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Grounds), a massive 100,000+ person stadium. We also spend our time biking around the city with Lexie checking out museums and the inside of a few bars. The girls also take me to get my nose pierced (I’m a bleeder). Lexie’s mom’s friend lives in the Eureka tower, Melbourne’s tallest building. We are invited up for drinks and a panoramic view of the city. We are also schooled on the rules of cricket, where there are sometimes games that last 5 days and they incorporate breaks for tea. For our last couple days we are taken to an animal sanctuary (for Hilary) and the Cranbourne Gardens (for me). At the Healesville Animal Sanctuary we see duck billed platypus’, Tasmanian devils, tiny marsupials, we pet wallabee’s and have huge birds soar inches over our heads. At the gardens we see beautifully designed native plant schemes. The next morning we say our goodbyes and our off to Bali!
