Oh that’s right. I
promised a post to slag off
Melbourne following our
southern sojourn a few weeks back.
I’m so
lazy (slaps forehead and says
d'oh).
Coupla things:
1. WTF all the shops were
closed on Easter Sunday!?!?!
No Melbournians, this is definitely
not normal.
As a young retail slave I
strongly recall the opportunity to skive off from family functions on
Easter Sunday in favour of earning triple time and a third at work selling sneakers to
brats high on their body weight in chocolate.
So the one time I have the
retail trifecta (being that I a) have money, b) have time, and c) have an urge to
spend them both in clothing shops), everything is shut.
Bastards.
2. A word to the ‘spruikers’ on
Lygon Street who attempted to ‘tempt’ us into their restaurants with
aggressive body language and
inappropriate personal contact: “shut the f*ck up and stop upsetting my wife before I
punch you in your large, pasta filled belly”.
Or something.
Seriously, does that
spruiking crap actually work?
The effect it had on us was that we deliberately chose a restaurant which
didn’t feature a fat, balding, smoking,
smelly, aggressive, hairy and mafia-esque thug out the front trying to shoe-horn us into his den of
dietary despair. I know I know, we have
strange tastes.
3. It was
day three of tram travel before we realised that you don’t have to
validate your tram ticket every time you get on a tram. Boy, did we
not feel any embarrassment about that. Despite the haughty stares and
sniggers from locals. Meh.
4. We found the highest concentration of
wankers on the planet. It was called Prahan.
For
StinkTown Canberra locals, it was like the
Academy nightclub was on steroids and had taken over a
whole suburb. Not that I've ever been there. Honest!!!
5. Y'all need to take
spelling classes:
6. There are lots of
helpful signs around the CBD, including this one, warning you to be on the look out for a man with a
giant hand dealing out wedgies.
7. The Swans
beat Carlton. Ha. Take
that, predominantly Carlton crowd.
8. Look out, here comes the
obligatory complaint about the weather.
It
rained just about the whole freaking time we were there.
That horrible
cold rain that comes in
sideways and all torrential like so you can’t even
open your eyes to see where you are going (no great loss, in some cases). As
Keisha-Marie would say, "your weather was
shit, Melbourne".
The sun came out
briefly on our last afternoon there, which allowed me an opportunity to test out the ‘
atmospheric’ setting on my camera.
9. Five star hotels continue to grow on me as a
desirable way to waste my fat-cat public servant salary.
10. Fitzroy seemed to be a bit over rated. But then again, I
couldn’t see anything while we were there because it was raining so frikkin’ hard I couldn’t open my eyes (see 8 above). Plus it shows the first signs of
suburb ruination (being the presence of a ‘Dangerfield’).
11. The vendors at the
Queen Victoria markets can be more than a little scary in their appearance and general demeanour.
12. The best thing about our trip was a brilliant café in St Kilda called
Superbo. The waiter appeared to be the long-lost twin brother of an old family friend of the LovelyWife’s and he was playing original ‘50s
jazz diva recordings on an antique record player. Ripper stuff.
13. No, actually, the
bestest thing about our trip was this
mug, which I also picked up in
St Kilda:
That’s about it really.
Oh no, wait. How could I forget!
Melbournians,
sux to be you with that whole
Federation Square thingo. Boy, someone has had one helluva a good joke at your expense with that thing. Ooooo-wee. I would laugh, but I’m still
perplexed.
