Reflections on Melbourne

Starting off with: why the hell do people clap when a plane lands?

It's not something I've encountered all that often in my flying experience, but it does happen occasionally, and it did when we landed in Sydney after a rather uneventful trans-oceanianic cruise.

I know it was uneventful because I was in the very back row, a.k.a. the whiplash section when it IS good and turbulent. I slept as much like a baby as one can when one is crammed into a teensy space next to a crabby woman who couldn't get a seat next to her husband and was thence committed to sighing, very loudly, at least once every five minutes at the injustice of it all.

Or maybe I misread her - maybe her sighs were heavy breathing induced by sitting so close to me?

Anyway, hardly a wobble for 13 hours and we land in Sydney to a big round of applause. I looked around at the people thinking, "have you lost your minds?" It would have been one thing if the energy would have been one of "woohoo! we're in Sydney! rock!" But it felt more like "praise Jesus we landed safely!" I've experienced kinda crazy landings, like in Hawaii when it's seemed for all the world like we'd scrape a wing on the runway for sure, by the tilt we'd hit just before the wheels made contact. If we landed safely in the midst of a lightning storm and hurricane-force winds, I'd understand it, too. But a routine landing after an uneventful albeit very long flight? Don't get it, and it seems almost like an insult to the pilots' skill level to applaud that. But maybe I'm weird.

Perhaps I digress. So: a quick stop in Sydney to change planes and head thenceforth to Melbourne.

It's a really nice little city! It is winter there now, so that was pretty interesting, switching seasons so abruptly, but it wasn't too odd, San Francisco weather being what it is and treating its fair residents to a blustery chill in the midst of June and July. But some of the trees being bare did token a definite change in seasons, as did the sidewalks of people with scarves and gloves even on days when in the sunshine it felt a full 65 degrees. That was interesting.

Their internet situation is not the same as it is here; it is neither ubiquitous nor cheap. So odds of going any old place and seeing people all zoned into their laptops are low. While for my first day when I was on the hunt for an internet cafe that was a sight that dismayed me in my desire for a web browsing fix, it turned out to be refreshing to be in an urban situation without people being plugged into their gizmos at every turn.

The exchange rate of Aussie dollar per U.S. dollar is quite nearly 1-to-1. But prices for things, in Melbourne at least, are quite high. For instance, my last dinner at a not-very-fancy-restaurant there I had a beer and a bowl of soup = $18.

So I'm glad I had arranged to stay on the cheap in a dorm on the campus of the University of Melbourne. The university is HUGE! I was over the moon at all the gothic architecture. I also loved the old-school feel of all the different colleges - it's different from how it's arranged here. Here, you've got the college of liberal arts, of sciences, etc. They might have an academic arrangement similarly there, too, but the colleges I speak of now are things like Queen's College (where I stayed), St. Mary's College, St. Hilda's College, etc. And these are something like different, gated, residential facilities - think something like the different houses in Hogwarts. It might be, though I don't know, that to be a student assigned to a particular college carries information such as that you're a liberal arts type or a science type. But it looked so interesting to see all these different colleges, all with their own assortments of dorms and dining halls and castle-y looking main buildings, and then, separately, the university itself.

I learned that the kind of coffee drink I like the most (no-foam latte) has a special name in Australia (a flat white). When I asked the difference between a flat white, and a regular latte, the answer was "a latte is a flat white, with foam," and the difference between a flat white and a cappuccino is "a cappuccino is a flat white, with foam." As I learned it, back in my barrista days, "latte" means "milk," period. Tenley, you must have trained me weird.

Did a LOT of walking. That being the case, the whole phenomenon of getting used to driving on the opposite site of the road, in the opposite side of the car, from what is standard here affected me only indirectly. It gave me pause to be extra careful when crossing a street because I never felt exactly sure in which direction traffic would be coming from and didn't want to become a traffic fatality because I only checked to the left before crossing when the traffic was coming from the right, or vice versa.

What was funny, is that their leftward (and our (U.S.) rightward) tendencies express themselves in places I didn't realize. For instance, in places where there'd be moving walkways, at first I'd catch myself just in time before trying to walk forward on the walkway on the right which was turning in the direction toward me. In other words, to move forward, you take the walkway on the left.

More frequently, the Australian leftward tendencies were apparent from the near-collisions I'd have with other pedestrians on the sidewalks. I'd see someone approaching, and in accordance with habit, I'd veer over to the right side of the sidewalk. The approaching Australian, probably working the same kind kind of impact-avoidance habit, would likewise veer, but to his or her LEFT. Which put the person right back into my pathway, at which sight I would nudge further to my right. Which would trigger the approaching person to nudge further to his or her left. I'm not kidding! This happened couple times before I finally noticed the pattern - winding up with both of us being squished up alongside a building and heading straight for each other. And then there was that time in the jam-packed full of people Queen Victoria's Market where in heading to the right got me caught into a flow of people moving in the direction opposite to that which I wanted.

After becoming conscious of it, I'd deliberately move leftward in the face of another oncoming pedestrian, and didn't have another problem with it. The experience led to an interesting conversation I had with a fellow, who happened to be from Melbourne, when I was in the security line at LAX on my return trip. I mentioned something about this "pass to the left" thing and he had an "aha!" moment, when he said that explained the difficulties he had experienced walking about here in the U.S., in nearly colliding with other pedestrians as well. A pleasant bit of unexpected strangeness.

Took pictures of things that caught my attention (see my "Melbourne" album if you're interested). But also learned that in a trip that involves me working, the time prior to my official presentation of labor is largely consumed by (over-)preparing for my official presentation of labor. Which is to say, I don't think I got to enjoy Melbourne as much as I could have; would that I have had time afterward to really relax and take in more sights.

But the workshop went very well and I met some excellent people. And I definitely want to go back to Australia again, but maybe in a warmer month, and hopefully one with some clearer nights. Didn't get to see the Southern Cross for the first time; nights were consistently overcast. And though I could hear that the birdsongs were different from what I'm used to here, I should very much like to see more of the wildlife than I got to in a city.

So: things for the future. Return to Australia, in the warm weather, and get more into the country. And the beaches. Oh, and don't get sick, or stay long enough that if I do, I have time to get over it and enjoy the country in full health!