To Melbourne with Love.

Ah Melbourne, the city of love and excitement. Of nature and concrete. Of art and goddamn pretty ladies.
I went down to Melbourne over a extended weekend with my friends from university for a typical boys weekend away.

The first day was all about the compulsory touristy things. We rode the trams, we went to Federation Square, saw the sights of which when it comes to it, aren't really that many. Whilst entertaining and a worthwhile experience, its nothing to write home about. Melbourne is like any other city in the world with a plaza full of buildings designed to attract tourists. It is a very tidy city however and the trams really are quite helpful in moving passengers. Lunch was at St Kilda beach and dinner was at the wonderful Man Mo restaurant at Docklands. As usual SOMEONE had to have their baggage lost by Qantas, so we spent a portion of the day playing console games at the apartment whilst they delivered the bag to us.

At night we decided it was time to go out and appreciate the Melbourne party scene. We were lucky that it was drizzling so that the crowds were down from a typical Friday night. Otherwise there is no chance 5 non-white guys without girls could get into as many clubs as we did. Our night started off at GPO, the Trader Bar, the Long Room and finished at the Gin Palace. Hersh's place was in the center of the city and bars are so close by that barhopping is an easy exercise. Out of all of them, the Long room was easily the most amazing. I'd compliment the easy to reach bar, the good music, the refined decor, but when it comes down to it, its because of the amazing number of stunning women. Even in Sydney bars, I've never seen that many gorgeous women (though the female of the night has to go to the foxy librarian stunner at the Trader Bar.). By the Gin Palace we were exhausted from the long day and the alcohol, so we politely declined a friends offer to visit the Spearmint Rhino and went back home at 4am. Considering the early morning flight, that was 24 hours straight of being awake.

Saturday was our 'random activity' day so we decided, lets make it a fishing day.
We went to a trout farm in the ridiculously flat Victorian countryside (so about only an hour out of central Melbourne). Admittedly fishing in a trout farm is like shooting a barn with a shotgun point blank. You can't really miss. They must be starving the poor fish, since they go to bite on the lure within minutes.
Catching the fish was only half of the fun. The second part is cooking them! The entire gang got together and cooked up a storm and had a meal fit for kings, or at the least Barons in a wealthy duchy. There was no way we could finish all of it, though Kieran gave it a good try to finish an entire trout by himself to score a bed for the night. Sadly the fish got the better of him.




Even though we finish dinner and cleaning up at around midnight, we were determined to visit Crown Casino at least once before we left. It was a easy 10min walk from the apartment. I'll tell you now, it is not much better than Starcity. There is a mild stench of corruption in the air as in all casinos and all my friends lost out in their betting, which is probably a good lesson. There were a few good lookers, but most were young and somewhat skanky. Realistically, a night back in the apartment playing Settlers of Catan would have been far more entertaining.

And to fill in the 'nature' component of a holiday, the gang decided to take a drive along the Great Ocean Road. Melbourne's sprawl is nothing compared to Sydney's. Just like the day before, it wasn't long before we were out in what was basically country. Even Geelong felt more like a large town than a city.

After you hit Tourquay, the drive is breathtaking and we only covered some 10% of the entire Great ocean road. Cliff faces tower over endless stretches of sandy beaches. Halfway to Lorne, there is a quaint lighthouse which has a panoramic view of the area around it. Unfortunately we had planes to catch so had to go home, but not before we cut across the picturesque rainforest/bush on the mountain side back up to the Prince's Highway.

So all in all, I had a ball. Melbourne isn't somewhere where I'd clamber for an opportunity to line in, but I certainly wouldn't complain about being dropping in now and then.