Destination….Ordinary
Adelaide was the next available flight and being that I have unanimously been told “don’t go to Adelaide”, it, along with its price tag didn’t appeal to me either. The cheapest flight out turned out to be to Hobart for $244, one way, so I took it. After a glass or 2 of the airports finest house red, they called my flight and we all queued up. I had already been to Hobart though. This didn’t really feel like the adventure I was hoping for and the thrill of it all was wearing off. I watched everyone enter the plane and when everyone was almost boarded, I went to the counter and told them I wouldn’t be getting on the plane and went home. The funny thing about this whole thing to me is that I asked the lady whom I bought my ticket from if people often get a “ticket to anywhere” and she said it was very common. “People just like to get out of town no matter where it is”. Fare enough. I took the week off of work and hit the road instead. The Antique Road that is!
I spent the next 2 days lying on the couch watching television. Show of choice? Well, I hinted to it already, the Antique Road show! I don’t know why but I couldn’t stop watching it. It’s a BBC show that’s been airing since 1979 where a travelling circus of brilliant English appraisers who specialize in various disciplines from paintings, pottery, to furniture, travel around towns in the UK, where the average Joseph Bloke can bring out things from his or her attic and have an expert tell them what it is and how much its worth. My favourite thing about it all is the fact that you will have an old person bring in a plate or statue they hate that their grandparent had and have the appraiser then tell them the detailed history of it and the person that made it followed by “how much do you think this is worth?”, they normally shrug and low ball it. When the appraiser tells them it’s worth ₤1000 ($1760 US) they will grin and mildly say something like, “Oh I think I will keep it then”.
Apart from this program and the shamefully occasional episode of Opera, the adventure on my couch continued with another favourite of mine, called “One Day in History” (or something like that) where they tell the story and do a re-enactment of some of the bloodiest days in history. The first of the 2 episodes’ I watched was the storming of the Bastille in France 1789, where locals stormed a prison, then chopped off everyone’s heads and put them on a stick. Who chops people’s heads off? All that was missing was a good old fashion cannibalism there. The second episode was Cortez and his escape from the Aztecs. I’ll paraphrase for you. Cortez and a bunch of Spaniards came into the Aztec capitol, they got spooked, killed some Aztecs, took Montezuma hostage, the people turned on Montezuma, Cortez and company tried to flee at night carrying as much gold as they could, got ambushed, and had their hearts ripped out of their chest whilst they were still alive. All the re-enactments are done in German with English subtitles, which I find amusing.
On Wednesday night my work had a wrap up party for a recent project we finished and so we all went to a very nice venue on Greville Street called the Moroccan Lounge. In Melbourne it is very popular to have lounges or other designer party places that people can hire out for parties or other events. This one is decked out in full Moroccan flair with long couches, hookahs, ornate lamps, and cloth tapestries strewn about. I don’t like parties as they are always awkward for me, but the highlight for this night, besides the open bar, was the Antique Road show discussion that erupted amongst a few of us. Apparently I’m not alone in my love affair of this fine BBC programming and what started as a quiet one on one confession to a friend of mine flared into a small crowd of animate devotees. A girl walked up to a circle of us guys and asked what we were talking about and when I filled her in she got all excited and started telling us about her most memorable appraisals on the show. What a party!
I finished my venturesome week off with some laundry, a death defying trip to the market, some calamitous soup, lots and lots of turbulent television, and a night or two out with some friends for some perilous pasta. What a thrill seeker I turned out to be. Aren’t I glad I didn’t leave Melbourne.
* No I was not really wearing a beret.
Yes that’s right folks you heard me correct. A guy at my work told me today that he was waiting for a tram in the city when all of a sudden he heard a loud roar of about 500 zombies yell in unison “What do we want!?!” with a roaring reply “BRAINS!”, “When do we want them!?”, “BRAINS!”. This Saturday was a very terrifying day for the 3 million people living in Melbourne, Australia as the city was invaded by over 500 zombies. Well I don’t think they were all zombies, a lot of them were just people dressed up like zombies, but it was scary all the same. Throughout the city zombies would lurch through the public covered in blood and chewing on different fleshly parts of the human body. Apparently this was the third annual zombie shuffle but similar events have taken place in London, Oregon, New York, Sydney, and Adelaide. If you really wanted to see zombies though, walk down the south end of Fitzroy Street at 1am on a Friday night. Now there’s some real horror for you.
I have been sleeping anywhere from 30 minutes to 3 hours a night this past week due to that pesky insomnia that flares up from time to time. Last night though, after 3 hours I woke up from some fun nightmare I can’t really remember and a magical thing happened, I fell back asleep for almost 2 hours. I awoke to 10am to a cramp in my calf. With a look around and a deep sniff to the new day, I took a groggy shower and walked to work. Tonight was the big night of the cocktail party I had been invited to. I needed to get my haircut desperately. There was no way I was going to mingle with my cane and top hat, holding a fuzzy porcupine in my hand talking to the ladies in the mop I had on my head. So I ventured into work to check my email. My boss was there and we decided to go into the city to get some dumplings at a Chinese restaurant he liked. We parked in the QV parking lot and wandered into a back alley of China town to a restaurant I never would have discovered on my own. Let me tell you white folk, this was some GOOD food. I had a steamed/fried pork dumpling combo with vinegar along with a chili chicken noodle dish. Descrumptious!
On the first Tuesday of November, most people in Melbourne get the day off for the public holiday. What holiday you ask? Is it the Queens birthday? Boxing Day? Australia Day? No friends, today is a holy occasion where a little over 100,000 people dress up, get drunk, and bet on a bunch of horses as they run around a track. Basically, everyone gets the day off for a race that only lasts minutes.
My headache went away…sort of. After meeting, I went for one of the longest walks of my life. I was extremely hungry. It was noon and I hadn’t had breakfast. I didn’t eat a proper meal the night before either so, I walked down Fitzroy and went to The Sea Baths on the beach, which is like this small cluster of foo foo restaurants where you can eat outside on the patio. While walking in I saw Elmo. Some say it was a man dressed as the
