Catch-Up, Part One

Sometimes it feels like it was just last week that I stayed up all night packing until my bones had been thoroughly marinated in exhaustion and I stumbled, bleary eyed, down the front steps and into the car to head to the airport.

But other times this picture feels like the memory of a distant moment years ago. The kind of moment you squint your eyes and tilt your head just slightly to recall.

And in a way, I guess it’s a bit of both.

We’ve been getting settled into our new apartment (translation: spending all day cleaning, scrubbing, vacuuming, re-arranging… nesting) and though it feels like we left home just yesterday, we’ve been in Melbourne for almost a month!

Here are some of the highlights of our trip so far – a sort of disjointed photo-blog style catch-up post, if you will.

Target. Oh, sweet, sweet Target. I remember wandering about the city on day two, feeling disoriented and out of place, and stumbling upon this beautiful, familiar sight:

We bought a liter of Target-brand sunscreen yesterday for $11.99 (Australian Dollars). To put that into perspective, the first day we went to the beach I scoured the local pharmacy for the best deal and bought a 150ml bottle for $13!

Street Entertainment. I could—and will—write an entire post solely on Melbourne’s unbelievably vibrant street culture, but for now I’ll just touch briefly on the subject. You can’t walk anywhere in the CBD (central business district, the main part of the city) without bumping into various people painting, acting, dancing and singing on the streets.

This beautiful oil pastel was drawn right onto the sidewalk and remained there for days, faded hand outstretched, waving goodbye as each passing rain washed away a layer of color and exquisite detail.

And here, age doesn’t seem appear to matter much in street entertainment. One evening walking home around 11pm, we saw a woman who was at least 80 years old, her long grey hair cascading over a humbly bent head right down past her wrinkly fingers, which danced beautifully across a portable piano.

And the week prior, when I was out doing some much-needed window shopping, I passed a kid who couldn’t have been more than 10 years old, just givin’ her on his chalk-drawn dance floor.

The best part was when he stopped for water and… his inhaler. He was either asthmatic, or really, really smart, because the amount of people dropping coins into his bucket must have doubled after his little breathing break.

The Year of the Tiger. Melbourne’s Chinatown, the longest in the world, I’ve been told, was positively exploding with people and color and excitement and, well, explosives, on Chinese New Year.

The dragons (two gymnasts each; one standing on the other’s shoulders) spent all afternoon prowling up and down alleyways, stopping in front of restaurant doorways to “eat” a suspended cabbage and then light a round of small explosives. Does anyone know what this means? I’m thinking it symbolizes the desire for prosperity in the upcoming year or something…

Whatever it means, it was pretty cool to watch.

Alrighty… I’m getting a bit tired writing this post, which means you are definitely getting bored reading it (if you’ve gotten this far). We’ll call this Part One, and I’ll continue with Partie Deux tomorrow.

I hope you enjoy the photos!  Miss you all…

the traveling stahr.