Impressions of Melbourne

Last Friday night we went to the Crowded House concert in Melbourne -- which is essentially where that band began. I must say from the beginning I was struck by the contrast of Melbourne versus Sydney. Sydney seems to me a bit dull. The architecture (aside from the Opera House) is 'blah'. I haven't really seen the arts district, if Sydney even has one. To be fair, the parks are nice. By far the biggest contrast was the public transport. Sydney could really stand to learn something from Melbourne here. Melbourne's public transport system is top-notch. During the week, there is a train every 10 minutes; on weekends, every 20 minutes -- even out to the suburbs. Compare this to Sydney, where during the week, the train runs every 30-40 minutes during peak hours and every hour during off-peak; and every hour on weekends. Not to mention Sydney nickels-and-dimes riders for every little distance they go -- but in Melbourne, it's only two zones of fare distinction. Melbourne also allows riders to pay for a full route (as much as you can ride on the train, tram, and buses) during a 2-hour window (this fare is A$5.30).

The city architecture is complete eye candy. Everywhere, it's obvious that the city was built with an emphasis on design. Very few of the buildings are traditional-looking and dull. All creative elements were used: color, shape, texture, and an assortment of mediums (concrete, wood, glass, steel, plastic). I've never taken so many photos of buildings before.

There is a great variety of shops and restaurants. We enjoyed several used books stores, a neat game shop (where we found a Scrabble game done with playing cards instead of the traditional board), tons of cafes and coffee houses, and the obvious assortment of traditional retail. The people are also quite friendly and helpful. I think the food highlight of our trip was the Mexican restaurant we found, called Taco Bill's. It wasn't as good as some of our old favorites in Dallas, but still quite decent. After that we went to the James Squire Brewery and I downed a sampling of six different beers (porter, amber, india ale, red, pilsner, and pale ale).

We stayed at the apartment of some friends we met at Jen's wedding in Brisbane -- Chris and Iris. The funny thing was that at the last minute, Iris' job had her going to Sydney on Friday, and Chris decided to go as well to catch up with some of his old friends. We got to have a wonderful evening with both of them Thursday, though, and will be seeing them again over the holidays. Like Brisbane, we found Melbourne very welcoming and definitely plan to travel there again. So far, it's my favorite city in Australia; however, I did really miss the beaches, cockatoos, and the escarpment near our home.

Jervis Bay: Lots of Wildlife, Beer, and F*cking Flies

Last weekend was the Chemistry Department's annual retreat to Jervis Bay. All the first and second year PhD students are required to attend and present their work. The weekend basically consisted of presentations all day, a big dinner, fun and games, and lots of beer at night. Most everyone arrived around 2 p.m. Sunday afternoon. After a brief period of settling in, the group went right into the first presentations. Around 6 p.m. those finished, and the beer came out. Once dinner was done and it became dark, the bonfire was lit. Although the fun, drunken revelry lasted quite late, I went to bed at about 11:30 p.m. A bunch of people were getting up to surf in the morning, and I had a brand new wetsuit that I bought a couple months back and not yet used. My supervisor was up around 5:45, and we left in his car with one other professor at about 6. We went to Cave Beach, which has a long and very gentle slope into the sea -- so if the waves are good, they will ride for a long ways. Since I didn't have a surfboard, I was stuck just swimming (but that was still fun); the waves were a bit flat for surfing, anyways. I was very glad to have the wetsuit, as the water was cold. My feet were numb, in fact, by the time I finished swimming.



Breakfast followed when we got back, then another marathon of presentations, lunch, and a long afternoon break. Most people went to the beach during the break; I went on a short bush walk with a handful of professors. The scenery was quite nice. The path followed the coast a bit, then went upwards until we were high on a cliff overlooking the ocean. At that point, the vegetation was sparse, sort of Texas-like. A bushfire had started spreading earlier that day, and we could see it from our vantage point. Along the walk, we saw a kookaburra and some wallabies, and could hear black cockatoos. During the daylight hours, there was also a pestilence of flies -- lots of fucking flies. And that's just a normal part of summer here (do a search on the 'Aussie salute'). Out in the bush, there will usually be several hundred flies harassing each person. Never have I hated flies so much. We all had to wave broken twigs around our heads non-stop until we finished the walk.




After the bushwalk, the group of us went to a different beach (Cave Beach was closed due to the bushfire). Most everyone else was already there, and it was nice to get another swim in. When we got back to the base station, we had a huge hamburger dinner, and of course, more beer. After dinner, I went with a handful of other students to a nearby field where we saw kangaroos grazing. At about 8 p.m. the trivia game began. The questions covered all kinds of topics, from rare music tracks to random oddities. One question was how many beers were consumed the night before (the answer was 230 bottles -- about 6 per person since we had a number of non-drinkers). When the points were added up at the end, my team won. The prize was a couple of bottles of nice wine, a bottle of port, and some chocolates. Not long after that, I found a couple of people feeding a possum that had wandered into the camp area. Possums here look quite cute -- nothing at all like the disgusting, nearly hairless creatures in North America. We fed it bread, bits of banana and an apple. It would walk up and take the food from people's hands, then sit up on its back legs and nibble away. I stayed up until about 2 a.m. that night, and had a number of great conversations by the bonfire.



The next morning wrapped up the presentations, and awards were given for best presentations, best posters, and most outrageous drunken revelry (this one was called the Cheeseman Award, and was won by one of the professors). I was told my presentation got an honorable mention and was in the top ten. We had a big lunch, but there were still tons of leftovers that got handed out. The remaining people at that point all pitched in to clean up, and I got back home around 4 p.m.

Such an event would never be sanctioned by a university in the States, and certainly not with alcohol being served so freely. Altogether, though, it was a lot of fun, and a great atmosphere for mentoring, exchanging ideas, and relaxing together. I'm looking forward to next year's event.