Aussies were celebrating the Super Bowl which inconveniently falls at Monday lunchtime. The bars and pubs capitalize on this.
Stands were set up in the street so people could skip work and watch on the big screens. In fact, there are multiple screens all over town for people to watch sporting events. As one older Aussie fellow told me, "Melbourne people would come out for the opening of an envelope!"
After the game was over, they played Tom and Jerry cartoons. People just hang out in Federation Square, lounging in the sun, capitalizing on free wifi. Melbourne has planned its public spaces well: they're well used.
After sushi in the square and an Aussie ice cream bar I'd been dying to try, I bought a pass to take the tram to St. Kilda beach. This was the beginning of the end, the last day of solo travel, my last evening in Australia, etc etc, so I thought it should end on a high note!
It was memorable.
I asked the Tram Man where I catch tram 96.
"Oh don't take that one, take the 3. It will get you there faster."
Mistake one: I listened. After half an hour trying to figure out where I was (the older trams don't announce what stop you're at), I asked a girl if the Luna Park stop was soon. She told me I was on the wrong tram.
"But don't worry, just get off the same stop as me and my mate and walk right. You'll hit the beach in ten minutes."
Perfect! I hop off and walk right. And keep walking right. And then somehow must have taken a left because I ended up in a suburb. I had walked down a beachy downtown, confident I was just moments from the sand. When I found myself in a quaint neighbourhood, I realized I made a blunder en route.
When you're directionally challenged, you can't be shy asking for help. I saw two ladies heading to their car so I asked them where the beach was.
"The beach? Well it's over that way! You can hear it!" They looked at me like I was a true foreigner.
Perhaps some people can hear it, but definitely not my ears. I had effectively walked away from the beach about forty minutes earlier. At this point I was hungry (aka grumpy) and when I found the beach, I could see I was at the boring non-beachy end.
I walked along the lovely boardwalk to the main beach spot. I checked my watch.
Mistake two: I bought a two hour ticket. Because I spent a half hour on the tram and then an hour looking for the beach in a beachside town, this left me thirty minutes. When I realized I didn't know how to find the tram spot back to the city, I gave myself fifteen minutes to find it. Quick math told me I had fifteen minutes to spend on St. Kilda.
After my hunger turned into delirium, I found this hilarious. I took one picture, grabbed a snack from a beachside spot, and went up the hill to find the tram stop.
Victory!
I also saw a race advertised that I might return for. I figure if you just turn around after a minute of running, you've technically hit the finish, if I understand this correctly...
So, the beach was lovely. The neighbourhoods far away from the beach are also nice, and I'm guessing not many tourists have seen those.
I toasted the end of my Australian adventure with a drink and a burger back in the city. This town loves, loves, its burgers.
And then I knew exactly how to finish off this chapter.
I'm off to New Zealand in the morning and by the afternoon will be reuniting with... Lacey!!!
