Melbourne 'The Intense Pleasure of Unique Tasting Moments**'

** The Intense Pleasure of Unique Tasting Moments: This phrase is taken directly from the box of the Nespresso machine I see in the department store in Melbourne as I am inquiring about a set of wireless Apple EarPods. This phrase brings me joy but doesn't make me want to drink coffee or have a Nespresso machine. I think the phrase is a grammatical error confined to the box I am looking at, but it seems to be the tagline for Nespresso because it is on every box and model of machine. Can this be? 

Melbourne CBD from The Cullen

It's been interesting trying to put my thoughts together and write about my time in Melbourne. So much happened during this leg of the Walkabout. I had the opportunity to reconnect with friends, to connect and make a new friend, and to really feel relaxed for the first time during this trip.

On my last visit to Melbourne five years ago, the only people I knew were the team at 100 Story Building, the 826-inspired organization in Melbourne. It was also the Christmas holidays and many people were out of town so Melbourne was a bit of a ghost city except for us tourists. I stayed at a hotel in Melbourne's CBD, right across from the Southern Cross Train Station. Imagine staying across the street from the Port Authority Bus Terminal in NYC or what used to be the Transbay Terminal in downtown SF. You get a perfectly nice hotel but you are staying across the street from a place where people are coming or going and not staying for long periods of time. At the time, there wasn't much happening in downtown Melbourne so, though a nice city, I thought it was a bit of a dud. To steal a line from Charlie Murphy, "WRONG!" Melbourne is all about the suburbs, which I learned during this trip.

Downtown Prahran

I stayed at two different hotels on this visit. The first hotel, The Cullen, was in the suburb of Prahran, pronounced Pran, like bran. People kept correcting me the entire trip. Prahran use to have a large number of gay bars and clubs on Commercial Street where my hotel was located. All that's left now is the Beat Adult Bookstore which proudly advertises it's upstairs men-only cruise space. It looks sad on the outside, the rainbow flags on the window do nothing to brighten it up. Gentrification has made Prahran the destination of hipsters, couples with kids, and hotels like The Cullen, which smells like vanilla and luxury with lighting that makes everything seem like you are looking at it through a gauzy filter. 

My second hotel, The Laird, is above a leather/S&M/bear bar, located in the suburb of Abbottsford or Collingwood, depending on who you ask. Think bed and breakfast but instead of muffins, china and doilies, you get beer, Tom of Finland posters, and a 24 hour gay porn channel. You do however get the nice older couple that runs the place but the couple at the Laird is two bears who are handy with wrenches and fixing keg lines.  Tradeoffs. 

The Laird has six rooms, three rooms with their own bathrooms and three that have a shared bath. In my younger, more adventurous days I would have gone for the shared bath. At age 49, I want to my own bathroom without my next door neighbor asking to see my man parts. Like I said, tradeoffs. 

Abbotsford

The Laird has a sign on the door giving it an exemption from being a co-ed establishment. It is definitely men only. This is the first time I have seen anything like this on my travels. My friend Sue tells me it is a holdover from the old days. There used to be a women's only bar and hotel close by but it has since gone co-ed. The department the city has on anti-discrimination and gender equality (Melbourne has that!) ensures that discrimination doesn't occur in the work place, at events, at establishments, etc. I have mixed feelings about the mens' only designation The Laird has been able to get. I am reading it as gay men only which I am okay with yet in the states in my younger days this kept my lesbian sisters out of gay bars. However with LGBT spaces slowly disappearing, I am feeling okay with this place that is strictly for the gay men that like leather, being tied to a rack or being peed on . You are now thinking you are having a TMI moment with me and you are not. Behave. Yes there is 24 hour gay porn.  Still, behave. 

I spend my time in Melbourne with friends, so feel like I am experiencing the city differently from every other stop on the Walkabout. Everything is through a local lens. As I look back through photos, I see that I have very few photos of Melbourne. It makes me feel like my time in Melbourne is less tourist and more of something I want to keep to myself.

On my first night in the city, I go dancing with my friend Jess Tran of 100 Story Building and her friends at a party called Shimmy Shimmy #9 with Mohair Slim, Lady Blades, Dusty Style and Coco Brown. The drinking age in Australia is 18. Hold that in your brain for a second. Because of the starting age of attendees at the bar, I am expecting to enter a room with a DJ spinning trance-hypno-pop-rock-ear-bleeding tunes. Instead I get a room with people in their late 20's and older, dressed in 60's attire, grooving to Nancy Sinatra and Dusty Springfield. The 18 year olds are either sequestered or kept, I am unclear on which one, in a separate room listening to music of their liking, away from everyone else. I accidentally enter that room as I search for the toilet and instantly feel ancient as only drunk 18 year olds who are dressed like we did in the 80's and 90's can make you feel. I listen to a young man talk about the new acid wash denim outfit, complete with pants, jean jacket, and bandana around the leg, that he has purchased. He is having this conversation with a young woman, her highlighted hair up and in rags, bra on the outside of her dress, tule mini skirt and bracelets draped over both arms. I feel like I have entered a time warp and gone back to high school, or I am in a Madonna video, or I am having an aneurism. Any is a viable option.

Big ass Tree Foxes

On my tour with my friend Sue, I learn a lot about the city of Melbourne. It is 100 miles in any direction, that includes downtown and the suburbs. Each suburb has their own local council but all make up the city. There is dedicated green space, parks everywhere which means no matter how many buildings and hi-rises are built, there will always be parks throughout the city. You can bike everywhere in Melbourne, the whole 100 miles, because there are dedicated bike lanes, many separate from the flow of car traffic. Yarra Park has giant fruit bats which they call tree foxes. The fruit bats are the stuff of nightmares with large wingspans that give them the size of medium sized dogs. Bar/hotel combinations like The Laird are common, going back to the horse and buggy days when people would have to work in the city during the week then head to their far off suburban homes on the weekends. Or they drank too much after work and needed a place to crash, or both. We take a scenic drive up to the wine country and sample delicious wines at the Red Hill Vineyard. I buy a port. Melbourne is a city known for its murals which are on the sides of buildings everywhere or adorning their laneways. In the states, we call laneways alleys but our alleys more often than not smell of urine, motor oil, and regret. In Melbourne, Banksy's art adorns the alley walls next to a cute restaurant.

I mean fruit bats!

Sue Hendy and me

When people in Sydney talk about Melbourne they get this wistful look in their eyes and say how wonderful their sister city in the north is. It's the way people in Los Angeles talk about San Francisco. People in LA will routinely tell you how lucky you are to be going to SF and how much they love it. The reaction of people in Melbourne and San Francisco when you tell them you are visiting their sister cities is the exact opposite. It's always an audible 'Ugh.' The feelings of wistfulness do not work both ways.

I fall in love with Melbourne on this trip. It is how I felt when I encountered San Francisco for the first time. I found San Francisco beautiful, scary, intimidating, and exciting all at the same time. I get the same feeling as I explore Melbourne. Like I am peeling back the first few layers of the onion and excited to learn more and hopefully not cry. It is one of the few cities I encounter where I feel I could set up shop and live. The unexpected happens in Melbourne, taking me completely by surprise. Melbourne is where I feel like the decompression that I have been searching for happens and allows me to be open to possibilities. 

 Next stop: Tokyo!