EvBetPGH Down Under: Melbourne

Most of my journey to the other side of the world was spent in Sydney. But for a day and a half, Rob and I lived a much faster life (well, a bit slower on the half of that day we were really hungover) in Melbourne. 

I like Sydney. Don't get me wrong. But if someone forces me to move to Australia tomorrow, I'm heading straight for Melbourne. What Sydney lacked in color (i.e. graffiti and street art - I'm pretty sure this is a top-five thing I want in a city), Melbourne made up for a thousand times over.

We spent our first few hours in Melbourne eating lunch and checking out the Parliament building. We spent the next twelve hours drinking. This didn't surprise me one bit, as my friend in Melbourne, Evan, was one of my favorite drinking buddies in Boston. We traveled around the city on foot, having a drink and then moving on to the next place. The variety of the establishments we patronized along the way (hey, I have to try and made a bar crawl sound somewhat otherwise than that) was awesome. There was a wine bar, a rooftop bar, a riverside bar, an outstanding Thai restaurant (ChinChin, where my picky-eater self tried EVERYTHING set down in front of me), bars down slightly scary alleys, and our own private karaoke room (which we were only in for an hour, but by the time we left it looked like we'd been partying in there all night). We ended our night a little after 2 a.m. down on the pier near Evan's apartment, hanging out with the wild penguins who live in the rocks. The whole day and night was an excellent use of our time. 

The next morning? A little rough. 

But once we managed to get ourselves (somewhat) together and put some food (and Gatorade) in our bellies, Rob and I set off to wander around the city and see what we could before our flight that evening. We saw a lot of awesome graffiti, something I saw practically none of in Sydney.

We saw this dragon, made of plastic bottles, in Chinatown:

We also saw this warning sign about the trams that go up and down the Melbourne streets:

The analogy here is that getting hit by a tram would be like getting hit by a rhino on a skateboard. Australia, I adore you.

We also saw this fellow, not really sure what he was doing other than standing around?

Something we did not see, though we did try and find, are featured in the following videos.

I'll guess I'll just have to go back and find those two next time. And I do hope there will be a next time! Melbourne seemed like my kind of place, and I would love to explore it more. A big thank you to Evan and Nary, who showed us an awesome time for the short time we had there. I leave you with photobooth pictures the four of us took, probably near hour seven or eight of drinking. They are an awesome indication of the night we had in Melbourne.