I went to Australia!

Where am I?

The city has a great interactive map showing the different precincts. The standard street directory is Melway, which you can also use online.

Chris lived in Hawthorn East when I visited in 2001.

Zoom around town on the train. The tram is more fun, though.

My favorite radio station was Triple J. Now I listen online.

Read the local paper. The Sunday crossword will make you wish you were online with Google.

Movies filmed in Melbourne include The Castle, Death in Brunswick, and Love and Other Catastrophes.

reading list

Australian Lives: a collection of autobiographical sketches of Australians over the last two centuries.

Tales from a Suitcase: like the US, most of Australia's population came from somewhere else. These are some of their stories.

I hate to mention it, but Bill Bryson's self-inflated ramblings (really, who does this guy think he is?) in In a Sunburned Country do paint an interesting and generally resonant picture of this fascinating land, its people, and its past. One of my favorite bits is his description of driving down the highway being stuck with only cricket commentary on the radio for a companion.

He Died with a Felafel in His Hand and The Tasmanian Babes Fiasco by John Birmingham. Really, really, really funny stories about flatmates in Brisbane share-houses in the 1990s. Will make you 1) feel sane and well-adjusted and 2) appreciate your roommate.

Speaking of which, Melbourne has the best bookstores. I liked Grub Street Bookshop on Brunswick Street Fitzroy, Reader's Feast downtown (check out their recommendations for Australian ficiton), Cosmos Books & Music in St. Kilda, and Readings on Lygon Street Carlton (when I came home with my bulging shopping bag, Chris sighed and said, "Oh, I was afraid you'd discover Readings. Well, now that you've blown your budget, let's see what you got!").

go to a museum

The museums in Melbourne are fascinating, especially the Immigration Museum.

The Melbourne Museum has a great exhibit on the history of the city, as well as galleries on Aboriginal culture, technology, mind and body, and natural history. I really liked the architecture too - most of the walls are at angles, and it's very colorful and open and soaring without being overwhelming. Plus Chris made some of the film about space in the science gallery. Best exhibits: model of the Melbourne Cricket Ground with funny scenes painted on the side and famous tv clips playing on the scoreboard; low-tech high-fun interactive in which you get to choose-you-own-adventure through the Melbourne sewer system.

The Old Melbourne Gaol is good for learning about the city's bad seeds - and it has the tackiest display mannequins I've ever seen. They also have an exhibit called "Bad Women Make Good News." I agree.

The Melbourne Aquarium has such good exhibits that I took notes. Plus there is an oceanarium where you can go nose-to-nose with a shark.

The Ian Potter Museum of Art on Melbourne University's campus was the happiest surprise of my travels and my favorite museum that I visited. Fantastic pieces and provocative labels. A must-see.

site-seeing

The Grooviest Thing in Melbourne is a great way to find those cool urban thingies - whimsical public art that tourists love to discover and locals generally ignore. My vote for Grooviest Thing in Melbourne is... oh, so hard to choose... the library thingy (the international library community is tight!), closely followed by the little dog. But I also really really like Storey Hall.

On previous foreign adventures, I have been fondly accused of being "stoppy-looky," meaning I tend to stop in my tracks and become engrossed in random things. In Melbourne, stoppy-lookies were as often for plants as for my usual weakness (buildings, fabric stores, and historical markers) - lemon trees, camellias, calla lillies, and birds of paradise. Ordinarily I'm not much for plants, but here they became friendly proof of being in a new and enchanting place. Since Chris is not much for plants either, he was unable to answer my constant stream of questions about "What's this flower? What's that tree?" - so I went to the spectacular Royal Botanic Gardens. Take a book and sit by the lake in the sunshine with the magpies and bell miners to keep you company. And buy a field guide - your host will be grateful.

Enjoy the city and take a self-guided tour of some of Melbourne's architectural heritage.

I was enchanted by Melbourne's architecture. Learn about it at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology's Aardvark Guide to Contemporary Melbourne Architecture. Some of my favorites are by Denton Corker Marshall, the architecture firm responsible for the Melbourne Museum, who have left a color, playful stamp all over the city. In fact, I loved Melbourne's buildings so much that I made an annotated guide to Melbourne architecture on the web for class.

Take a walk through Carlton and Fitzroy for fun shops, great Italian food, and apartments you wish you could rent.

Take the Hurstbridge line train to the Fairfield station to see FIDO. We passed FIDO on our way to Chris's Top Secret Surprise Outing, the Fairfield boathouse. It's a lovely Victorian park where one sunny Sunday afternoon we had scones and cream on the veranda and watched the Yarra flow by.

Go to the Rialto Tower and watch the fantastically cheesy introduction film "Melbourne: The Living City" and sing along with the equally fantastically cheesy themesong: "Melbourne, a never ending story... Melbourne, the living city, Melbourne, a great place to be!" Mmmmyes, but not because of the song. It is up for debate whether the best thing about the Rialto is the themesong or the nighttime view of the flaming monolith thingies outside the Crown Casino across the river. Maybe this should be a poll question in The Grooviest Thing in Melbourne.

a bit of pop culture

I liked listening to Regurgitator. "Sordid and seedy, yet upbeat and poppy," as I read in a review on amazon.com. If you want to see the video for "Polyester Girl" let me know - it's on the CD. Oh and of course my long-standing love for anything involving Neil Finn was much encouraged and well fed. His latest album is lovely.

The comedy band Tripod, whom I saw live at the Prince Pat in Collingwood, knows the mighty power of the second drawer down. Australian tv is also funny, especially the Panel and the classic Late Show, where everyone our age gets most of their quoteables. Champagne sketch comedy!

Sugar rush: Tim Tams, Cadbury Cherry Ripe, and Schweppes raspberry lemonade (which isn't lemon at all - as Chris said after I'd had one too many, it's basically carbonated red-flavored syrupy goo). And yes, I have done the Tim Tam Slam. Note to Chambana-ites: Violet Crumbles are available at World Harvest!

Cultural commentary let's-make-a-deal: If I admit that Hershey bars aren't really all that great (despite their mandatory presence in smores) and that the US should keep Twinkies and TGIFriday's to ourselves (even though some of us don't like them either), can I be permitted to ask what the big deal with Tim Tams is? I mean, they're sandwich cookies. I'm not saying that Tim Tams aren't good. I'm just asking why everyone raves about them, why they seem to be continually rated as Australia's best contribution to sugar junk food, when clearly that prize goes to Cherry Ripes, or at least Violet Crumbles, which, while not my favorite, are really interesting. Discuss.

best souvenir:

A wombat-shaped cookie cutter from the tinsmith reenactor at Sovereign Hill historical village. Runner-up: a floaty pen with trams going back and forth.

So, when are you going?

For online guides, try the Melbourne City Guide, Melbourne.com, the Melbourne Visitors' Guide, Tourism Victoria's Melbourne in a Day, Only Melbourne, and Lonely Planet's Introduction to Melbourne.

Lonely Planet's Melbourne guidebook was essential - full of relevant, usable, fascinating, and, as far as I could tell, correct information. It was especially good for discovering the groovy inner suburbs, which despite my hours of pre-trip reading had not registered on my mental map. I couldn't find it in US bookstores, so why don't I show you how to order it online? I'd lend you mine but I'm still sleeping with it under my pillow to ensure dreams of lattes, sunny gardens, tropical birds, and funky boots.

Never underestimate the power of a $1.50 latté.