sun and graves

Things have slowed down a bit on the photo-front, though life is going well. On Wednesday, we got to meet Peter Singer at a talk at the university.

On a sunny day, while Colin was teaching, Naomi went on an exploration of the Carlton area (a neighborhood that borders the University).

This is the Royal Exhibition Building in Carlton Gardens:



We had seen this statue on an exploration during our first week, but it is also by one of the entrances to the Royal Exhibition Building. We thought it was pretty cute for an official statue.

Just north of the University is the Melbourne General Cemetery. It is an historic cemetery, (apparently) with several famous/historically significant graves. This photo shows some of the diversity of Melbourne's inhabitants (look closely):

This is a more general view of the cemetery.
In the distance are some mountains - not sure which ones. They may be the Dandenongs? We will go there someday.

Today, however, is not sunny. A reminder that it really is winter here (despite the 50s-60s F temperatures). Sorry to all you east-coasters suffering in the heat!

Lecturing, lamington and beer

This was the first week of the university's Semester 2, and today was Colin's first day lecturing to Australians. It seemed to go well - Melbourne undergrads look a lot like NYU undergrads.

A couple differences between NYU and Melbourne jumped out, though. First, there seem to be significantly more continuing ed. students (i.e. people older than 25) in classes. Second, the basic teaching facilities here are noticeably nicer. Lots of move-able whiteboards, a load of dry-erase markers already in the room, and a nice AV setup. They've set up a nice system for recording lectures - one just fills out a form, walks in, and a little after the lecture a recording appears online. That allows students to take the class who have a conflict with one of the lectures. Pretty sweet...

Speaking of which:

This is called a 'lamington.' It's much lighter than it looks - the cake part is sponge cake. It was tasty, though not as good as the last dessert. But maybe this is more of a summery dessert. When it warms up, we'll try another while sitting outside with a drink.

Speaking of which: we haven't tried much Australian wine or beer so far. Colin tried two animal-themed beers. One was called 'Fat Yak,' the other 'Mountain Goat.' Both were good, tasty ales.

Today, Colin went to picked up some beer on the way home. Since we're still kind of on a budget, Colin went for the cheapest Australian beer that didn't look too suspicious. Here's Naomi's reaction:

It wasn't actually bad... it just tasted a lot like Bud Light. Actually, on further tasting, we decided it was better than that, mainly in having a good, clean aftertaste. So better than Bud Light.

But Colin will look for Mountain Goat next time.

(One last thing: most of our knowledge of larger Australian culture has come through the television. Our latest show is a combination dating/cooking show, hosted by a lumbering guy with a heavy French accent named 'Manu.' Manu just won the Australian version of "Dancing with the Stars." It's as good as it sounds... except that the sleazy guy beat the nice guy tonight. Bleh.)

The birds and the trees

Here is a community-built playground in Albert Park nearby. When we went by it, there were no children playing - but we thought it was a pretty amazing playground (the photo doesn't quite do it justice). Think 'castle.'
It was built as a community project in the '90's.

This weekend, we walked to the Royal Botanic Gardens. On our way, we took this picture. We've been noticing these beautiful flowering plants all over the place and wondered what they were. At the botanic gardens, we learned they are camellias (the same family from which tea is cultivated).

Across from the botanic gardens is the "Shrine of Remembrance," a large shrine built in honor of the lives lost in World War I. It is an impressive building (here is an artistic shot looking up from the courtyard outside the visitors centre).
You can also walk up to the top balcony to get good views of the city. Since the building is also on a hill, the added height makes for good views. Here is a view looking towards the center city.
The tall building on the left is, according to one of our books, the tallest residential building in the world - called the Eureka Tower. According to wikipedia, it's not the tallest, but it does have the most number of floors. There's some building in Dubai that has 2 fewer floors, but is 30% taller. Mysterious... maybe the Eureka Tower is 31% underground?

We then spent a couple hours at the Gardens. They're huge - it will take another couple trips to really see it all. We thought this tree trunk kind of looked like a dinosaur. Or an elephant's leg. Or just a pretty tree.


Below is our new favorite type of tree - it looks like a cross between a fern and a palm tree. (If you look closely you can see the actual name on the sign in front of it).



And a note about Australian birds: they are loud. We went for a walk in the nearby park the other day, and every third palm tree was blasting with bird noises. Imagine 100 swallows screaming at each other. We couldn't see them, so they weren't attacking each other or anything. Just screaming...

Quick update

We're starting to get back to something like real life. Naomi's updating her resume, and Colin's getting ready to start teaching next week. So we've had a little less time for keeping up things here.

One highlight:
-Colin doesn't have a permanent office yet. But his temporary offices (he got booted out of the first one, since they decided to start painting it) have been great. He's currently in some fairly high-level administrator's office, with a secretary out front and majestic ceilings. It will only last a couple days, though.

Here are a couple photos.

In St. Kilda is a series of cake shops. We went into one and got this.

It was called a 'Coffee Vienna Ring.' The filling tasted like rich mocha ice cream. Really good.

Colin bought this at a local supermarket. His thought was, "wow, an exotic Aussie cereal, on sale!"

Back home, he realized what 'sultana' means. It was still a good deal - $5 for 820 grams.

Animal Post #2: Kangaroos, koalas, cassowaries, crocodiles, etc.

As promised, we are posting for you some photos of Australian animals. We went to the Melbourne Zoo yesterday. There were lots of animals at the zoo and we had great guides (thanks to Greg and Zachary!).


I suppose a kangaroo in a zoo isn't proof that we're in Australia. But for now, it'll have to do. This is a female red kangaroo (which are grey-ish - the males are red, though). It's amazing to watch them move.


You might not have recognized it, but this is a koala. As they spend most of their time sleeping, it was no surprise that is what all the koalas were doing when we saw them. They seemed peaceful.

Not all the animals were native to Australia. Some were flashy, and seemed a little fake. Speaking of which, this one reminded us of Donald Trump:

Really, it looked like a fancy gold toupee.

These birds, though, are native to Australia. We can't remember all of their names:


And this is a cassowary, seen from above. The zoo had an amazing aviary, with a raised walkway that went through several landscapes. Cassowaries live in the rainforests of northern Australia. They're big - almost as big as an emu (and just as flightless). Their heads are very colorful, though - not only blue, but also bright orange, with a weird thing on top of their heads. We've heard that they can be kind of dangerous if provoked...


And, speaking of dangerous:

There are many very dangerous snakes in Australia. This one is called a "death adder." It lies partially hidden, making its tail to look like a caterpillar to lure in prey.

And here is a very little freshwater crocodile.


We didn't have space for all of our pictures. Some of the other highlights we saw included a beautiful butterfly house, dangerous spiders, wombats, a lion feeding, giraffes and zebras, elephants, and a free-roaming peacock.

Animal Post #1: Local penguins

It turns out that there's a colony of Little Penguins near us. Apparently, after the St. Kilda pier was built, the penguins moved in. It takes about 20 minutes to walk from our apartment to their colony.

They come home a little after sunset. Part of the area where they live is fenced off, but some of them live on the near side of the fence. We watched the sunset by the fence as we waited for them. Really beautiful:



After it had gotten pretty dark, the penguins started appearing. They're a little hard to see because (1) they're little (a bit smaller than a big chicken), (2) it's dark and (3) for the penguins' sake, no flash photography is allowed.

So most of our photos didn't come out. But one did (it's probably better to look at the larger photo):

The penguins were extremely cute - they didn't seem intimidated by humans, though they kept a little distance. They made noise too - Naomi thought it was like chirping, and Colin thought it was like a purring snore (so imagine something in the middle).

The next day, we were given a guided tour of the Melbourne Zoo...

Pictures of two walks, and descriptions of what's not pictured

We've been exploring outside for the past couple days. The first walk was along the bay - we'd gone south before (to Luna Park), so we wanted to see what happened if we went north.

Walk #1

The weather changes really quickly here (that was another thing we were promised before coming). Beautiful sunshine one moment and cold rain the next. This will give you some idea:


At some point, we're going to go explore Tasmania. It's supposed to be an overnight trip on a boat. One of our books recommended renting an RV there, and driving around. We're not sure when we'll go there, but we're pretty sure this is the boat one takes:

(Colin thought the dark cloud you see here about the boat looked like the bottom of a giant ship.)

There was beach all along the part of the bay we walked on. It's pretty, and I'm sure it gets busy once the weather warms up.


Walk #2

Our second longish walk was around the city center. On that walk, we officially decided that Melbourne was, overall, an attractive city (we love New York, and it has some beautiful spots - but it's not generally a good-looking city). In what we've seen so far, it seems like a city where, at pretty much every stage, someone added just one bit of art. Even the street art is just that much nicer than it is in most places (and sometimes a lot nicer). And it really adds up.

The Yarra river runs through downtown, and there are a good amount of pedestrian walkways and bridges. The bridge pictured below used to be a railroad bridge which was turned into a pedestrian bridge. Along the side are metal sculptures representing the different phases of immigration. Then there are tall transparent plates for each of the major countries Australian immigrants came from, with a description of the reasons why they came to Australia, during which periods they arrived, how many immigrants there were, and how many descendants of the immigrants there are now.


We crossed the river, went through Federation Square (we'll have a post about that later), by the Melbourne Cricket Grounds (more on that later), and into East Melbourne. Really pretty. The more traditional houses looked like this:


Going a bit west, we went through the Fitzroy Gardens (which was very pretty and very lush! A nice respite in the city).

Not pictured: a couple skateboarders who were photographing each other. We think they took some pictures of us too, so we tried to look cool (also not pictured: us looking cool).

The park had a lot of open lawn, but a lot of artsy-cute touches. One was a miniature Tudor Village (not pictured). Another was a tree trunk that had been carved in 1931-32 by a children's book author, with faeries and animals (it is aptly called the "Fairies' Tree"):

The carving was dedicated both to children and to faeries.

Going northwest from the park on our way to the neighborhood of Fitzroy, we went by a big Fire Brigade building, with this mosaic on the side.

The idea seemed to be Prometheus giving fire to humans, with the good stuff coming out of fire on the left, and the bad stuff on the right. Appropriately enough for a fire brigade building, the right side extends farther than the left.

We then went by the large St. Patrick's Cathedral:

A large Anglican church and an old-ish looking synagogue were on the same street (not pictured).

We then headed east a bit, then, north, then west, then south. Then home on the 96 tram. This is the official safety sign for the trams:

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Additionally, there are a few food-related things we've started to become obsessed with:

1. Tim Tams. Tim Tams are a sort of chocolate-covered cookie. The real magic, though, is that you can bite off two corners and then use it like a straw for your coffee, tea, or hot chocolate. Then it melts... from the inside. That leaves you about 10 second to eat the increasingly gooey chocolate mess you're suddenly holding. It's at least as good as it sounds.

2. Masterchef Australia: A reality-TV cooking competition. They are currently in NYC , cooking and meeting with famous chefs, etc. Besides being entertaining (and yummy looking!) it has proven to be useful in helping our transition from NYC to Australia.

Whew. Yes - it was a lot to take in. We're still processing it.

Chinatown, commie bike helmets, custard apples, and cold

Many small things happened in the past couple days. Most of them were good.

On a search for cheap soy sauce, we went to Chinatown (or, at least, what looks like the Chinatown part of downtown).

We only had to go a couple blocks before we succeeded in finding not only cheap soy sauce, but a delicious chili oil (also infused with peanuts and MSG, which we found out upon closer inspection at home) and cheap sesame oil. Plus, we managed to make a whole round-trip on one public transit swipe (they last for two hours, rounded up from the nearest hour).

Even before getting here, Colin had been visualizing a bike. He's had one when he was in Portland and another in Berlin, and had been asking around. Tyke, a philosophy friend from Pittsburgh, had put him in touch with a ex-philosophy bike guy named Tris. Tris not only pointed us to a good place for recycled bikes, but helped pick one out.

Very, very exciting to roll up the right pant leg again. Today was Colin's first round trip from the apartment to the university. 0 collisions with cars, 0 collisions with trams, and only 0.2 turns down the wrong side of the street.

The helmet in the above photo is socialist. Take a closer look:

There's a law requiring all bikers to wear helmets, which is apparently quite strictly enforced. In connection with that (possibly funded by fines?), the city has a thing set up where subsidized helmets are easy to find. Colin got this helmet at a 7/11 for $5.
(There are about ten 7/11s per Melbournian. Far, far more than anywhere we've seen in the US.)

Naomi has been figuring out the market scene, in particular, the big Queen Victoria market. We'd heard about it before coming here, and had looked through the list of produce on their website. Most of it was familiar stuff, with a couple exceptions. This was one of the exceptions:

It's called a 'custard apple.' We're not entirely sure what we'll do with it, but at least we don't have to guess whether it's ready to eat.

So things are good. It's not all custard apples, flowers, and socialist helmets, though. The downside is that it's winter and (as various people told us), Australian houses aren't really built for heating. Of course by east coast standards this is quite warm -- the highs have been in the mid-upper 50s (lows at night into the 40s), but it still feels chilly! We could crank up the heat, but our cheapness means that instead, we often go around the house like this:

To St. Kilda Beach

One of the selling points (or subletting points) of our current place was its being a few blocks from the beach. Yesterday, we walked south along the beach to the edge of the St. Kilda area.

This is Colin trying to look like a palm tree:


When the sun came out, the colors were beautiful. A few degrees warmer and it would have been fantastic beach picnic weather, though they seem to prohibit public drinking after 8pm. Very civilized.

This is not the beach-beach - it's the edge of the bay, which only has a small passage to the ocean, but there is a very nice walking path all along the beach. The waves are pretty calm, so serious surfers must have to go further south. (We did see one person wading in the water - brave soul!)

The guidebook said there was an old amusement park here called 'Luna Park' - based on the Coney Island one. Here is the explanation:


This is an artsy shot of their wooden roller coaster...in surroundings very different from those of its namesake:


Walking back through the St. Kilda neighborhood, we saw a very pretty house. Many of the older houses we've seen so far around the city have similar wrought-iron detailing, but most are smaller than this one.


And... our first encounter with weird fauna:

These were seen in the pond at the large nearby park (our substitute Prospect Park) called Albert Park. So far, no kangaroo or koala sightings, unfortunately. But don't worry, we'll make a post when we do!

Some first impressions

There's so much to take in. Parts of the city are very familiar. It feels a bit like a British version of Portland (Oregon) with palm trees.

This is the view from one of our front windows:


This is a street view in the Central Business District (the 'CBD', as they call it). It took about an hour to walk here from our apartment. We managed to be hit by none of these cars (dutifully following the cross signals - we're still not sure which way we should look before stepping into the street).


These are all 5 cent coins. We noticed that the portrait of the queen changed over the years. Maybe this happens in other Commonwealth countries? Not sure. But it certainly doesn't happen with portraits on US currency - in the US, you are only monetized at your most flattering.


A sampling of Australian produce. Everything is colorful (or 'colourful'), and some of it is cheap. Notice the gigantic leaves on the mint and the $1 pineapple. The Timtam cookies are very tasty - chocolate between two biscuits, dipped in chocolate.

The thing that looks like a turnip is a 'Tasmanian Swede' (their words, not ours).

And last: this is the quad in the middle of the building where the philosophy department lives. Flowering trees in the winter...