Melbourne

Erin and I loved Melbourne. It was a nice place with lots of coffee, which made us quite happy. We stayed a few nights in a former convent, called The Nunnery. It was in a neighborhood called Fitzroy. There were plenty of cafes and shops in the area, and the Nunnery was across the street from the Melbourne Museum. While we were visiting the Museum, they fed the chameleon which was awesome.

After a few days, we moved to a new neighborhood called St Kilda. Kilda was also pretty cool, but the hostel wasn't as nice as the Nunnery. Kilda was an interesting mix of suburb and weekend away spot. There was an outdoor market and there is a beach, which loads of folks visit on the weekends. Melbourne's river walk is also quite beautiful at night.

Our Melbourne visit can really be summed up by saying that "we lived there." We really tried to experience the city in the way that a local would (except that we didn't have to commute to work). We rode the tram to various places, and we walked through the neighborhoods to find things off of the beaten track - certainly things which were not listed in the tour books.

One such item that I particularly enjoyed was finding graffiti. Erin and I have had many debates about the artistic expression versus destructive defacement qualities of graffiti. I agree that graffiti does deface property, but some of the images are so expressive that I do enjoy it. Erin says that as long as the graffiti is in a reasonable place (not on a storefront, home or fence) and that it is more than just a simple name or "i was here" message, it is ok - sort of. Below are some examples of the good stuff that we saw.

We also visited some of the churches. Melbourne has a few cathedrals which are open to the public, and we really enjoyed touring them. I'm a huge fan of stained glass and some of the other decorative elements of old churches. Hopefully, the images do them justice.