luna park & st. kilda

today's expedition was a fun one.  (MASSIVE sarcasm.)  it involved me getting a ride to st. kilda, and then at the first place i go realizing i had forgotten my wallet with all of my cash and credit card.  fortunately i at least had my change for the tram (thank goodness for $1 and $2 coins) so i went the long way round through town and past the tram line construction and an hour and a half later made it back to toorak.  fortunately, i bypassed the construction on the way back and it only took me 45 minutes.

st. kilda, along with fitzroy (yesterday's completely uneventful expedition) are reasons why i would love living in melbourne.  fitzroy doesn't have a whole lot to offer as far as cohesive neighborhoodness but does have positive aspects to it, but st. kilda is great!  along acland st. are a bunch of little shops and cafes, and the neighborhood is also home to third drawer down.  i love the products, and i love the idea of putting art onto everyday objects and making it accesible to everyone.  (it's kind of like ray troll's t-shirts.)  after eating a gelato at 7 apples, i wandered down to luna park.  it's a small park, so not much to see inside, but gotta love the iconic mr. moon face at the entrance!  and i was there at a good time of day, the lighting was really nice--although i still need to clean up this photo:

walked down by the esplanade, wandered around the neighborhood some more and then took the tram again back here.  i had considered going out tonight, there are a lot of places with live music, some of it jazz, but at this point it's too late and i'm too tired.  and tomorrow i'm going with my relatives to someplace with a sculpture park, and angus keeps saying that myself, him, and his dad are going to go see the new indiana jones tomorrow.  we'll see if that happens, but it'll still be a full day.  the longer i'm here, the longer i wish i had. i have no idea how i will fit everything in that i want to do!

in what alternate universe is this possibly acceptable?

i present to you...

THE MANKINI!  for a limited time only at the queen victoria market!
what would dear old queen vicky think, i wonder!

across the ditch!

i made it!  i am in australia!  another stamp in my passport!  i flew in to sydney on tuesday via auckland, my favorite city (ugh).  it was funny, as fiona was dropping me off at the nelson airport she told me that it's the fourth busiest in new zealand (the three busier ones being, obviously, the three international airports.)  hilariously, there were fewer people there than i've seen at the airport in king salmon.  taking into account hundreds of cannery workers and fisherman, it was still not as busy as cedar rapids.  and i had to pay to leave the country.  weeeeird.  but it was neat to see, while flying over the north island, mt. taranaki on my left and taupo and tongariro on my right.  minus the car debacle, it took us almost a day of driving to get that distance.  although from the air and being able to see the landscape you can really see why!

sydney looks amazing, i took a walk to the harbour as you can see from the top photo.  i'm excited to spend some time there, i just wish that i had more time in melbourne.  it seems infinitely more my type of city and SHOPPING!  i know i shouldn't, but there is an esprit here!  and a helly hansen (they have a belt i've been wanting, but you can only buy their products through retail--no online shopping)!  and stores i will never go into like tiffanys, chanel, gucci and prada.  i feel a little bit like i'm back in new york, really.  anyway, so yeah, i spent the night in sydney completely jetlagged (over a two hour time difference no less) and rose early the next morning needlessl and caught my bus to melbourne.  13ish hours.  we got to get off twice.  this is the difference between the two greyhounds, american and australian.  i may have spent 50 hours with four looooong transfers (one being in the middle of the night in salt lake, and the other at a truck stop in nowhere washington) but at least they let us get off every two to three hours!  i tried to stretch, but without being able to get out and walk my knee was hurting so much by the time i got off.  hence the second photo, approach to melbourne.  it was much anticipated.

i met harrison, my mom's cousin, at the bus stop, and we came here to their house.  i got to meet his wife and son for the first time ever, and they are all very nice to me.  so generous to let me stay!  it's a nice house, and they have a lot of artwork.  which should make me feel inspired but really mostly just makes jealous, hehe!  i went today to the ian potter something or other national gallery of victoria.  honestly, sometimes museums make me crazy, so i only looked at a few exhibits before leaving.  that was enough for me.  the rest of the afternoon was spent looking around the CBD--melbourne has TONS of tiny little lanes and alleys that go off with shops EVERYWHERE.  it's great, but it's hard to find what you are looking for, or if you are just browsing.  i also saw the shrine of rememberence and remembered to get on the correct tram coming back.  the best part though was taco bill's.  i've been craving mexican for a long time now, and new zealand just can't deliver.  this was so good though!  no el rancho grande, but it'll do for the time being.  (now, if tomorrow i can just run into someplace with barbecue...)

the only thing that could make this better is if kate where here.  not because i don't love anyone else, but because i know she would love it.  it's architecture and design heaven.  i think that even if i end up hating the rest of australia, which is unlikely, i will still have to come back to melbourne sometime.  another working holiday, perhaps?

three photos

beautiful blossoms, self-portrait, and myself and my friend jennifer.  i wanted to write a post with words, but it's late and my fingers don't want to work.  or perhaps it's my brain? 

itinerary

i've mostly booked things now, at least, the things that i need to book in advance.  which means that i finally can post my itinerary!  i have no idea on specifics for most of it, i'm just going to try to "go with the flow" which will be difficult some days.

here it is:

• May 20- fly to Sydney



• May 21- bus to Melbourne



• May 22-26- Melbourne



• evening of May 26- ferry to Tasmania



• May 27-June 2- Tasmania (where I am renting a car, and wish i was spending more time)



• June 3- fly to Adelaide from Hobart



• June 4-5- take the Ghan (train) to Alice Springs



• June 5-10- Alice Springs, including three day Uluru, Kings Canyon camping tour



• June 11- fly back to Sydney



• June 12-18- Sydney



• June 19- return to Nelson!

whew! i hope that is a readable itinerary!  i will have my phone on me as usual, but i will be roaming, so all incoming calls and texts won't be free.  and i am going to do all of this because i wanted to use my australian visitor's visa, which cost me all of $10!  lol!   

snippets

they guy to my left here at the internet cafe has a receding hairline, nearly bald head, and a rattail.  attractive.

i arrived in auckland, gross, seriously jet-lagged, and confused six months ago today.  which puts me halfway through my visa.  (today i'm not feeling homesick.  i think it's because i started following the primaries again, and read a newspaper article about some seriously scary right-wingers supporting hillary.  and because we've been packaging fish for publix in a very wasteful manner and it has me off being american with our very wasteful ways.)

planning the australian getaway, a full itinerary will be posted shortly, when i finally make all of my bookings.  hopefully for the right days, as i mis-booked my tasmanian portion for three days after i actually want to arrive.  i hope i can get that fixed.

lastly, i tried to attend a talk on edward lear on sunday at the public library (at which i am a very enthusiastic member), only to be turned away because there were far too many people for the room they chose.  i can't say that i expected that!

halfway home

right now i am supposed to be doing research for my trip to australia.  i've been on the computer for over an hour, and i have to say, i think i've made decent progress.  i mostly just have to decide on my itinerary now, and then i can start booking my tickets.  fortunately, most of the travelling i want to do (ferry to tasmania, train to alice springs) run at night, thus giving me extra sightseeing time.  i bought my tickets last week, for may 20 to june 19, return nelson to sydney.  and this week i heard on the radio that air new zealand is raising airfare again because of another rise in jet fuel prices--they've already raised them once, recently.  (petrol is $1.82 a litre now, or at least it was last time i checked.  that's over $8 a gallon.)

anyway, amidst all of this, i am coming up on six months in new zealand on thursday.  time is so warped sometimes, and it goes faster the longer i am here.  i remember distinctly my first day in auckland, and it doesn't seem like that long ago.  (and i remember one month gone, it seemed to take forever!)  but now i am realizing that my initial thoughts were right; one year is not enough.  especially with one month in australia, and i'd like to go back a second time before i leave to do more travelling there.  but in six months, i'm realizing how little i've actually seen.  i haven't done much at all here on the south island, and on the north island i'd like to go back to half the places i've been (wellington, the east coast, napier) and i still haven't hit the northland yet.  *sigh*

this just reconfirms that despite rising travel costs and increasingly worsening exchange rates, i'm never going to be through with the south pacific.

(oh yeah, just to make you all feel better: it snowed on the mountains across the bay last night.  i have yet to see it with my own eyes, but paul saw.  it was 5C/41F last night, so i don't doubt it.)