Hello once more!  We're back in Canada, semi-healthy and maybe now we'll get caught up in this thing.

Oct. 28 Friday: The Melbourne Immigration Museum- Terrific!

Up we got and off we went, along a nicely non-twisty road to Melbourne. After a long detour caused by the lack of washrooms near Australian highways we were back at Pete and Brian's place sans Pete and Brian. With an afternoon stretching before us, we decided to become adventurous and head downtown.

We walked down the local street until we were in front of a college with others waiting for the bus. We checked with the driver that the bus did indeed go to the train station and also took his recommendation to purchase a day pass for getting around. After that we easily(and quickly) took a train to Southern Cross station and took a quick look around downtown Melbourne. We strolled by the main square and another train station that Meg heralded as being truly important. The big square was odd, as it didn't have large open spaces as these huge camouflage-coloured cubes jutted up from it (museum, we found out), making it hard to visualize its space.

Hunger dominated, so we headed up a nearby street and looked where the locals were eating. This guided us to a tiny counter that made yummy sandwiches cheap so we gobbled them up. Next, we strolled down the street to check out the Immigration Museum. We found out that they had a free tour that started at 3, so we waited a few minutes until it started. A few people joined us late and we had a small group when our guide got going. He spent a good 30 minutes going over the significance of the courtyard and by that point all but 4 of us had wandered off to explore the museum before it closed. The yard was where groups assembled but also contained an interesting area where people from various countries identified their relatives. Apparently cultural festivals were held there at various times of the year and it was an informational gathering point for many diaspora communities.

Finally back inside the building, we were shown the research centre where people were investigating their family trees. We then headed up to the museum proper, where he went over the structure of the place focusing on the largest room, which used to be the main processing hall when the building was a government office (Customs House). It now was dominated by a large ship-like structure where you could walk through room simulating cabins of passage and their features over the centuries.

With a little over an hour left before closing, our tour ended and we were free to explore. The floor he left us at had a montage of immigration history of Australia. The next room expanded on this with a huge time-line and artifacts from issues over the years. The ship room had computers with statistics and profiles of countries all over the world relative to Australia. The last room had an application interview simulation and display on discrimination and other issues surrounding immigration. The floor also had a rotating-display community room which held several television monitors displaying middle-eastern immigrants telling their stories.

The top floor had two separate displays. Their temporary space had a big thing on British WWII child immigrants, which was well set up. They had overviews and personal anecdotes and I hadn't realized it was so widespread. They had shipments until after the second world war and often the children weren't orphans but taken from their parents and shipped away. Tales of abuse and indentured servitude were abundant and there was a lot of information about Canada, which received lots of there kids. The other half of the floor was on how we perceive others and how that effects discrimination and racism. They had displays about responses to accents, cultural values, depictions in media and advertising etc. A museum well worth visiting.

We closed the place out and the skies were dark and threatening by this point. Meg wanted to check out the local YHA Hostel before we went back. You had to access it by elevator, so we waited longer than usual and could hear music playing. When the elevator door finally opened, it was full of drunk guys holding open beers with a blaster cranking tunes. This told us enough about the hostel, so we beat a hasty retreat.

We got caught in a little bit of rain but heard a huge downpour pounding the roof of the station while we tried to get advice about which platform our train departed from. We made our way back and were a little confused about getting back to the house, as the nearby university had two campuses and only one was close to Pete's place. Our travelling savvy got us back safely and Pete was soon home after us. We grabbed some pizza from a local place. Opened a few bottles of wine and had a fine, lazy meal with good company until we fell over late that night.

Saturday – Deadly Sins Brunch and Cousin Ted's Family History

Up late again, we went to one of Pete and Brian's favourite brunch places. The place was packed and we had a long wait in an upstairs throne room until we got a table. Their menu was based on the seven deadly sins and that translated into a really good, filling breakfast for all.

This was the weekend before the Melbourne Cup and all sorts of people were walking around in “derby” attire. Meg got great amusement watching gussied up women obviously not used to elevated heels tottering around, trying to strike a teetering sexiness. Pete and Brian drove us around the part of the city where someone rents their apartment and hung out and did some basic shopping.

Meg and I then went off to meet Cousin Ted, whose name was given to us by Terry. Our GPS did not like the address we were given, but got us close enough to find his place after ringing just one incorrect doorbell. He was an energetic fellow who had a real knowledge and interest in the family. His partner had the family tree largely worked out and on-line and they shared a book with Meghan about one branch of the family, of which she copied some relevant pages and mailed back later. We had a lively visit and found out many details, particularly about the political comings and goings of the family. Most significantly, Ted had has recently seen Meg's Uncle Paul and thought he could get his contact info. After a few drinks and some finger food we said goodbye and headed back.

A good night out.

It was our turn to treat for dinner, so we went out to a Thai place and had huge amounts of excellent food. We strolled trough a trendy coffee strip after eating and picked up some good gelato. Meg had enjoyed some wine at the restaurant and was strolling along talking to strangers, who were looking quite frightened about the whole situation. We packed her off home and fed her some tea, and she was reasonably calm in time for bed.

Sunday – Sunday Unitarians, Museums, and Zombies...

Pete whipped us up a gourmet breakfast and we all pigged out and cleaned our plate, some kinda omelette I think. Then we had to take off so that Meg could visit the Unitarians. I parked close to the church and went off in search of a coffee place to kill an hour. I found an empty pizza joint that served coffee where there was a kid whipping up dough balls for later. He didn't mind me nursing a coffee and just kept cranking old AC/DC hits while he did his work and waved to friends walking by.

Meg was only a little late and we found that we were right next to the downtown. We headed down to the main square to check out some museums. The parking rates were atrocious, but the museums were free so it balanced itself out. The Ian Victoria museum is a big modern irregular jagged building with quite a good collection of stuff. The ground floor had pretty much the best collection of Aboriginal art we'd seen. It had pieces from the original workshops in the 70s where painting was introduced to a northern community. These actually fit in with much of the collection, not being as raw or tentative as you'd expect. They had a good variety, with the classic dot paintings being mixed with arial map-like works and more variety in colour and styles than we'd seen elsewhere. The rest of the museum went through Australia's history pretty much in sequence. There were the standard Victorian portraits and landscapes working through to modern art installations. They had a room devoted to clothing through history, with the most interesting pieces being brash 70s suits.

We decided to get lunch and looked forward to another sandwich at the place we visited the previous day. The road was crowded and partially blocked due to the Melbourne Zombie Walk, which was much better attended than Toronto's. Several hundred people walked by us, from folks with just a bit of blood on their head to others who really looked like they'd just crawled out of a mouldering grave. The most bizarre couple were giant Lego people made into evil zombie Lego creatures, complete with green blood oozing out of their mouths. After struggling against the zombie crowd, we found that our sandwich place was closed. “Subway” had to suffice and we headed back to the square to see the bloodied hordes slowly disperse at the end of their trail.

Meg wanted to see more of the first museum and I went into the Visual Museum to check out the history of film and television in Australia. Here they have displays on perception, with a shadow puppet theatre, a computer that adds sinister extras to your shadow and distorted projections onto 3-D surfaces. They let you pick the music for a clip, make your own stop-action video and booklet and used a strobe light to make a spinning animation come alive. The film area featured famous Australian actors, directors, cinematographers, writers, costumers etc. each with their own areas with extensive video resources. They analyzed how Australia has been portrayed and had a brief history of media with changing priorities, from trends in film to viral internet videos. Most of the TV stuff was unfamiliar but the portrayal of the Aussie accent was interesting.

Beware the zombie Lego.

We met back at the first museum's gift shop and then headed back. Pete was doing the gourmet thing in the kitchen again and cooked up some succulent couscous. More eating and drinking etc. and then to bed.

Monday – Frightful Ferry Night Towards Transcendent Tasmania

Meg got us up super early to say goodbye to Pete as he had an early shift. We saw Brian at breakfast and spent the day getting organized. Shopping, phone calls, internet research, wasting time, that kind of thing. Pete actually came back before we left, so more goodbyes.

The drive to the ferry was short and the GPS got us right there. Then we sat in a disorganized parking area and actually got waved on ahead of cars who had been waiting longer than us. A few more stops by customs inspectors asking about fruit of vegetables and we were parked on the ferry. We found our recliner seats and explored the few floors that tourists were allowed onto. The top floor had the best views but didn’t have a functioning bar. It was also the meeting place for a rowdy high school group (whose teachers had to page several times to get all of its students assembled in one place). It was cold on deck but we had a nice departing view of Melbourne with the sunset glinting off skyscrapers beneath the dark sky.

Back on the ship we wandered some more and considered dinner. In the overpriced cafeteria most people were getting stew over noodles that may have tasted as grey as it looked. We opted for the posh restaurant which meant we had to wait until seats opened up. I couldn't understand the wait, as many tables were untouched when we showed up and were given a seat outside of the main area. This allowed the staff to easily forget we were there and service was extremely slow, but the food was fine (excellent appetizers, okay mains and desserts). Everything had a link with Tasmania, including some nice wine.

At the end of the meal, I hurried off to grab seats for the 10 pm movie while Meg paid the bill. No one noticed her motioning with her credit card, which was amazing as there were lots of staff and only a handful of diners at that point. She eventually approached them and got the bill settled. (One assumes that if they were working for tips then service situations like this would be less frequent).

Melbourne from the ferry.

The movie was the Lincoln Lawyer, more tolerable than I thought it would be but not worth staying up late for. At the end of the movie the ship started to lurch quite a bit and Meg went a bit green. We headed back to our recliners. Meg found that they hurt her back but I found them comfortable enough. The problem was this big old guy who was one of the worst snorers I've ever heard. This wasn't regular, loud-breathing type snores. It included loud vocalizations, sudden snorts and all kinds of hacking and hawking. Of the 70 or so people in the room, only one was a problem snorer. (It only takes one, though.) We both had a rotten sleep and vowed to try for a cabin on the way back...