There and Back 2005

First I'll back up a second, as some of you might be sratching your heads thinking "I thought those musketeers were going to Western Australia and make their way north to Darwin from Perth"? Well, your right we were going to do that initially and it was with a great sense of loss that we opted out of that plan in favor of a less harried itinerary. Our time in New Zealand, while amazing, fantastic, memorable beyond words and one that we wouldn't change for love or money, was intense and rushed. We packed and un packed far to many times and were in a new city or town nearly every other night.

Lesson learned? Take your time. Slow down and grow some roots, get a real feel for a place, or at least as real as a humble American tourist can with just a week or two per stop.

So, as the time wore on in Australia, it became odvious to us both that we ought to take the slow approach. While we resigned ourselves to the sad thought of all that we'd miss in WA, we new we'd return to Australia and next time we'd pay proper attention to the barren and exotic west coast.

So, back to Melbourne. We touched down at Melbourne-Avalon airport, a delightfully entertaining 45 mintue bus ride from the city center. The colorful comentary provided by our gem of a coach driver kept us amused and chuckling the whole time.

Although we hadn't paid the extra $5 for our bus tickets, the coach driver in his infinite generosity, dropped us off at the Melbourne Metro YHA instead of the central station where normal ticket holders are supposed to disembark, thus saving us the trouble of navigating the dark and not straight streets of North Melbourne at night.

Hungry, we sought counsel from the receptionist, who advised that we walk several blocks to the hub of North Melbourne. Which we did. We ate at an Italian cafe who's dinning room was set up on the enourmous sidewalk, well most off the dinning room. You could if you were boring and reclusive sit inside. But we were neither, so we ate outside. I had a spicey penne dish which helped clear up the sinus headache that had been pestering me since departing Sydney many hours earlier, and Kate dinned on pasta with creamy somethingeruther sauce.

The refreshingly cool autum air was invigorating and we were compelled to follow up dinner with a few beers at a local pub. Australia, and New Zealand for that matter, are infested with trendy cafe's, and wine bars, catering to endless young people dressed as their favorite cast member from Friends. So for the most part, we, being slovenly dressed and instantly recognizable as "backpackers", felt somewhat out of place in these establishments. However, it was with great relief that we stumbled upon a unique and rather eccentric bar called The Town Hall.

Seeing its rock and roll motife, as well as a crowd of people sipping cheap Aussie beer, dressed in second hands and clearly not impersonating Chandler, Ross or Monica, we new found a home for the night. Inidentally, its worth noting that I had to do a Google search in order to find out the names of the characters from Friends. Am I wierd?

We cozied up to the bar just as preparations were being made for the nights main event, Sumo! The MC, a long haired, former rocker, who had thick lensed glasses, a way too small red Van Halen shirt, and a look that says "I can play every AC/DC song and you can't so fuck off", had made several announcements instructing patrons to ready their Sumo teams, let him know the team names and so on.

I, becuase I'm instantly reclusive when it comes to strange Japanese derived games in strange rock 'n roll bars, and becuase of a fear that I'd have to don one of those Sumo suits that make the average skinny guy look like an 800 pound Sumo legend, dismissed this game and continued staring into my half empty pint of Carlton. (Kate was in the bathroom so I couldn't stare at her.)

However, I noticed 8 1/2 by 11 sheets of paper circulating the room, so I was compelled to ask the couple next to us what the game was all about. They showed me the paper, which had 8 sets of Sumo matches showing each opponent in their grandure as well as their records and a brief bio, and expained that during each round, the MC would ask each team to chose which guy would win, making their choice know by shouting the impossibly hard to prounce name of their champion.

It went something like this:

"TEAM PJ'S?", the MC would shout, and we'd respond desparately encumbered by our American accents and the difficult to pronounce names, "WE'LL TAKE HA..HASH..HASHI..MOTORI..OTO, HASHIMO..TORIOTO." and he'd respond "WHAT?", and we'd say "HASHIMO..MOTORIOTO", and he'd say "WHAT?" and we'd finally say "The Fat Guy" and he'd say "OK". The matches would pitt one hugely obiese guy against an ever so slightly less obiese opponent so it became sufficient to just shout, "THE FAT GUY", rather than Hashimotorioto, or Itaroichinoko, you get the point.

After each team submitted its choice, the match would be displaid on the flat screen tv at the far end of the bar. If you chose correctly, you won a free shot of sake. So naturally I ask the young couple "How much does this affair cost"? They said nothing, and in stunned astonishment I made a bee line to the MC to request a sheet of paper and let him know our team name, the PJ's (after PJ Harvey whos virtous music career we were analyzing before Kate dashed off to the bathroom).

The game boiled down to a fifty fifty chance of drinking free sake. Not bad, not bad at all, unless of course you don't like sake, or Sumo. And, to top it off, the team with the most correct picks won a trophy. Now, for two people, Kate and I, who hadn't won a trophy since being given the "coaches award" in eighth grade for participation in recreational basketball, the thought of being able to suppliment our meager collection with yet another was far too compelling.

To my surprise it was harder to chose the winner than I first imagined. The fattest guy doesn't always win. Who knew?

After the second round, in which we were one for two, we were approached by three guys inquiring about the game. One guy looked like Joey from friends (honestly), and the other two looked Swedish but had Irish accents, maybe the sake was messing with my hearing. We invited them to join us in the game and our team of two instantly became a team of 5.

Noel and Kevin are brothers and are from a town in East Cork called Killa (not some Swedish hamlet as I surmised initially from their appearance) and an electrician and carpenter respectively, and Billy (or Joey) is an Aussie originally from Perth, but who's mom is a Yank from Oregon, and seemed to have a new job everyday. Fate was smilling down upon us that night as they turned out to be mighty specimens of gentlemen, not only by offering to house us in an empty room in their apartment (unbeknownsed to their Italian mafia landloard Joe) but also becuase they took us under their wing and showed us a great time on many nights to follow.

Well, we didn't win the trophy, but wid did manage an honorable mention and after the game we found a table and continued blabering on about the sorts of shit stangers blaber on about when they've had too much sake. In a way, its a good thing we didn't win. The winner, clutching his newbegotton award in a half passed out, sake induced stooper, looked for the world to have been a participant in a real Sumo match, beaten and bruised, sweaty and delerious. Sake is a dangerous thing and shouldn't be freely dispensed.

After the first night in Melbourne we knew we would have a great time. The potential for arts and music, as well as our new found friends assured us that we would have plenty to occupy our time.

Melbourne is a walking city, and we occupied countless days just cruising the city taking in the sites. Highlights include the Victoria Market place, the Melbourned Gaol, the Melbourne Museum and the Dinosaurs from China exhibit, as well as the numberous suburbs, arsty and trendy streets on the outskirts of town, a great music session at The Corkman, and the easey realaxed feel of those living there.

I found the Victoria Market especially captivating. Housed under a vast corregated roof top, the market is home to hundreds of vendors selling everything from fruits, veggies, chickens (live) and beans, to kangaroo pelts, digeridoos, and boomerangs, as well as rip off designer lable t-shirts and pants, to Ugg boots and pro sports team apparell. And for the kids, a huge sellection of pop guns, squirt guns, noisey piss-your-parents-off-and-those-around-you guns, as well as all maner of plastic action figures, dolls, dinos, dingos, darts, and everything in between. In summary, you could buy most anything there and as such it attracted a huge diversity of people.

I could just stroll around the stalls for hours looking at poeple from all corners of the globe, buying and selling, bartering, inspecting, and wandering, just like me! And I did. At any chance I could get I'd make the market part of my rout.

The place brought a smile to my face. Except the time when an old lady stepped on my heals, repeatedly, without saying sorry. She did apologize when I spun in anger and glared (not smiled) at her, which means she new what she was doing. Damn her, I hope her tomotoes and bok choi were rotten.

So, our days were spent wandering the street, and our nights we're either spent eating sushi (Kates new found passion) and reading our books back at the hostle, or going out on the town with the North Melbourne Lads, Kevin, Noel, and Billy.

The nights spent out with those guys were priceless and it would take me hours to relay to you the events. In brief they included, Gay bars, rushing ungrateful French guys and their drugged out lifeless girlfriends to the emergency room, upstaging the local rock 'n roll gigster, being towed around the city at wee hours by a 45 year old mom and her 37 year old sister and a whole host of other such debauchery. And always, I mean always, finishing off the night with the five of us sitting around the kitchen table, listening and playing tunes and singing songs on the guitar and reliving the unbelievable events of the night.

We had a bunch of very relaxed nights with them as well, usually checking out a local band at The Town Hall, followed by some music making of our own back at their apartment.

During our last week in Melbourne I developed a pain in my stomach not unlike that you get when you are too full and have to burp. The pain intensified and started to wake me at night. I put off calling my brother Matt, MD, but Kate insisted and its a good thing too. It sounded to Matt like a case of gallstones, and suggested I stay away from fatty food and alcohol and that I go see a Doctor.

We left Melbourne, I, in a high level of discomfort, and made an appointement to see a physcian as soon as we arrived in Darwin. Dr. Watson came to the same conclusion as Matt and I'm awaiting confirmation of the diagnosis. I'll find out tomorrow after the doctor has time to review the results of the ultra-sound as well as blood tests.

And that is why it was a "galling" experience.