melbourne ultimatum

I woke up early on my last day in Melbourne, in time to return the car with Seka, then pack my stuff and check out. Seka and I drove to the dealer's office, were after pumping $40 worth of gas into the gar, we discovered that we had driven so many kilometers that we owed double the original rental fee! But the day of driving was more than worth it, and after leaving the Elvis-clad rental office, Seka and I walked back to the hostel. I made a few last stops in Melbourne before I had to catch a tram to the bus station, and I have to admit that I was feeling rather bumbed about having to leave. My time in Melbourne was one of the highlights of a rather exciting trip, and so it was with a heavy heart that I said my goodbyes to Seka and the city.

I ended up riding the tram into town with Seka, changing at the last minute when I suddenly realized I was at my stop. The tram had taken much longer to get into the city than I had experienced before, and I was starting to get worried about catching the bus that would take me to the airport. Rather than flying out of Melbourne's Tulamarine Airport - which had welcomed me to the city four days earlier - I had opted to save a couple bucks by booking a flight on the budget airline Jetstar, which flies out of Avalon Regional Airport. Avalon is about 45 minutes out of town, and is only serviced by one public transportation option: a bus that is timed to leave Central Cross Station two hours before each flight. Flights left at less-than-regular intervals, which meant that if I missed the bus, the next departure would take place roughly 15 minutes after my flight had left the ground.

I hastily switched trams, speeding toward Central Cross Station while I conversed with my fellow tram riders as to the quickest route through the station to the bus counter. Feeling very prepared when I arrived at Central Cross, I lept out of the train and ran for the bus ticket counter. As I reached the counter, the women behind the booth was shouting to a man that he must run quickly if he was to catch the bus. When she saw my face, she immediately surmised my circumstance, and as she took my $20 and printed me out a ticket, the women suggested that I run to flag the bus. I ran, and watched as the bus backed out and started to drive back in the direction I had just come from. Spinning around, I continued my desperate run, waving like mad, my luggage bouncing behind me, until the bus turned a corner and was gone.

I returned to the counter to see if maybe, possibly, there was another bus, but my fears were confirmed when the women refunded my ticket and told me that the only way to get to the airport was to catch a cab. A pained curiosity forced me to ask "Do you know about how much that will cost?" The look on her face was telling enough, but the quantitative response was still dramatic. "It's going to be around one-hundred dollars I'm afraid." My heart, already dangerously weighty from having leave Melbourne, dropped to depths unprecedented in the Southern Hemisphere.

It's important now to mention that I only paid fifty dollars for the flight, so I was in a bit of a quandary as to whether it was worth it to triple the cost of my trip to Sydney, or just give up on the plane and treat this like some kind of devine intervention. Crunching numbers in my head, I figured that it would probably be about the same cost to buy another plane ticket and catch the later bus, though I wasn't sure if fifty dollars was a normal price. I also checked train schedules, and found that because it was already late, there were no trains leaving for Sydney until the next morning. Lastly, I seriously considered looking on this whole blunder as the aforementioned devine intervention, meant to keep me in Melbourne, or at the very least, renting a car and driving up. If I have to pick my one regret of the trip thus far, it's that I didn't take that last option, though it probably would have been a whole lot less romantic than I imagine it to be. Instead, I swallowed the ramifications of my prepared itinerary, and forked over ninety-eight dollars to a local cabby. I cleared security with only one hiccup - I lost a fork that I had left in my checked luggage; though I managed to sneak a knife through - and before long I was high about Melbourne enruite to Sydney.

Spending $100 to catch a $50 flight. At least it's a benchmark I'll hope never to match.

Melbourne from the air.

Everything went smoothly from there: I made it into the city with no problems, I found my hostel easily, and after dropping my things off, I headed into the city for a late-afternoon look around. The sun was starting to get low in the sky, and as I made my way through town, I had my sights on making it to watch the sunset behind the Sydney Opera House. As much as Melbourne, Sydney is a gorgeous city. It's even cleaner than Canadian cities, and it has a pleasant modernism to it that isn't as jarring as Dubai, but is much more comfortable than many American cities. I made my way through Hyde Park and into the Domain - another local park - admiring the incredible purple flowering trees as I went. As I walked through the Royal Botanical Gardens (if it's beginning to sound as though Sydney has a lot of parks, then you're beginning to get an accurate picture of the city) I looked to my left, and peaking through the trees was the most famous establishing shot in the world. Immediately recognizable by its interlocking sails, the Opera House is to Sydney what the Statue of Liberty is to New York and the Eiffel Tower is to Paris. Having been luck enough to see all three, I can tell you that nothing beats turning a corner and seeing the Eiffel Tower for the first time, but the Opera House comes pretty close. Fighting a dying battery, I managed to coques a few shots out of my camera before its obeisance finally won out and it refused even to close the shutter when I tried turning it off.

The purple flowering trees of Sydney.

The Sydney Tower, once the tallest in Australia.

Setting sun, sailboat, and symphony (I'll assume the last on for alliterative purposes)

Taking in the view for a little longer, I eventually retraced my path through the city, stopping at a grocery store to pick up provisions for my time in Sydney. The grocery store I chose to patronize (and I mean that in a good way) was the first IGA I've stepped into in over a decade. IGAs, which stood for: Independent Grocers Alliance (in Australia, the "A" stands for "of Australia"), used to be a feature of the United States, and I can still remember shopping at the IGA on School Street in Concord, which is now, unforgivably, a Rite Aide. Adopting the support for the mission statement of IGAs from my mother at a young age, I enjoyed the opportunity to shop in one while not sitting in the cart for the first time. My indulgent purchase of the stop was a bottle of Ocean Spray cranberry juice. Upon discovery of this most-missed favorite beverage, my heart managed to recover from the ravages of the day and soar.

The colors of night embrace Sydney.

I returned to the hostel with an armload of groceries, and quickly got to work preparing the first recipe I ever learned to cook. For most people, the first thing they learn to cook is pasta, or scrambled eggs. The first thing I ever learned to cook was stuffed peppers. This, combined with the fact that this skill was acquired in a course whimsically titled "Kindercooking", was the source of serious ridicule on the part of my college friends, but I nevertheless maintain that I made a damn good stuffed pepper and most of my friends may runny scrambled eggs. During dinner, I chatted with a German girl who remembered me from the hostel in Melbourne, and then accepted an invitation to play poker with a geographically diverse group of guys. A Yank, a Brit, a Philippine, two Germans, and one guy from parts unknown rounded out the poker game, and the five dollar buy-in game got under way. I am not the world's best poker player - I suppose you'll have to play a round with me to find out if that's the truth, or part of a long-term bluff - but I did fairly well that night. Things did get a bit desperate when I went all in on a no-chance bluff against the Brit, who was holding pocket eights. The flop was in his favor, but I managed to pull off a miraculous out-of-the-blue, no-chance straight on the flop and river, so I stayed in a while longer. I didn't end up winning that night, victory went to the disciplined playing style one would expect of one of the Germans, but it was a fun night, and it helped to me to end the day on a good note.

Hey, I've finally uploaded pictures to the two previous posts... check 'em out!