Our stay in Port Campbell was brief, but beautiful. We chatted with a Canadian girl we bunked with who was traveling solo and also spending nights in her car and living off of peanut butter and crackers - so we felt instant kinship. The morning in PC consisted of a run from one side of town to the other (3 miles at most), a walk along the mountains bordering the ocean and a stop for ridiculously overpriced coffee for which we had a coupon from our hostel the night before. Back on the Great Ocean Road we saw a whole lotta road before stopping in Lorne, which was great. Lorne is only about an hour outside of Melbourne and this beach side town provided us the opportunity to sit on the beach without proper protection - a decision I am still regretting - and to dine. Jackie chose to have the Parma that is evidently a native Australian dish not to be missed - but looked and smelled an awful lot like Chicken Parmigana to me! Despite the lack of individuality she claims to recommend it for those cheese lovers of you. We were back on the road and in Melbourne in no time. It felt like coming home - as this has provided our longest residence thus far. Having opted for the luxury of eating meals the past couple of days we knew we would be staying in Casa de Auto the next couple nights and found ourselves back at the nice little spot by the ocean we had booked just a couple nights earlier. Luckily, tonight was movie night at the hostel, thanks to Jackie's Mac book Air, and we got to watch the uplifting flick 'Beautiful Boy' front row center. 'BB' is basically the telling of what the parents of the Columbine or Colorado shooters deal with in the aftermath of their progeny's carnage. So, uplifting it was not- but interesting for sure - and worth bit part played by the one and only Meatloaf for sure!
Fast to sleep and early to rise we had located Bikram Yoga South Melbourne as our morning activity and location at which to bathe. Having just risen from 8 (or so) hours upright in the driver's seat with the steering wheel lodged between my thighs, we must have been less than cheery because the proprietor did not seem to think the rude Americans, or girls from the Bronx as she later referred to us, were all that cool. That is until Jackie pulled her inner bitch out, which she does from time to time and which I always thoroughly enjoy unless it is directed at me - and essentially called the lady on it. Good vibes were had after that. Good vibes and buckets of sweat. After Byron Bay I thought I would never experience a more liquified practice - but I was wrong. We made it through and immediately headed to breakfast as Jackie is a post-workout-eater and I am an anytime-anyone-else-is-eating-eater. No wonder she is Cindy Crawford and I am Cindy Williams.
We made our home at a little cafe called Blah Blah in South Melbourne on Coventry where the WiFi was decent and the food was good. Fruit salad enough to feed a small country and toast for me along with some work on the computer and a long overdue letter writing session and we were both drained. The next move was down to Westbank where you can sit quietly by the river that separates the city and watch any number of people partaking in physical exertion you yourself should be partaking in in a pretty park lined environment. Watching the rowers for the couple of hours we spent there left my deltoids sore and we had to move on. Over to Southbank for an electronics charging session and some alone time for me to watch the sun set below cityscape and, with the exception of a boisterous group of children who had not been properly muzzled by their parents, be still.
Lucky for us, our very exclusive hostel was showing a movie yet again this evening and as we dried our morning yoga clothes on the rear-view mirrors we were entertained by the likes of the entire female population in Hollywood in 'The Women.' You hear the occasional rumbling about the movie biz providing no good opportunities for actresses and this movie would be evidence of that. Painful from soup to nuts, Eva Mendes in her underwear was the highlight for me and with the theater's integrity being significantly compromised by some noisy passerbys clearly ignoring our jurisdiction over the public space, we called it a night.
Becoming accustomed to the gentle sounds of the waves lapping onto shore and the warm sun bursting through the clouds and shining down upon my sleeping face as God's alarm, I will say that the meter maid tapping on our window to move it or lose it lacked a certain serenity. Over to yoga again, as we got a 10 day pass for only $19 we knew we had our workout and shower taken care of.
Today was Valentine's day and over my very first breakfast of Muesli I was delighted to receive an adorable card purchased in Sydney and presented to me in Melbourne by my travel companion, Jackie. Not a huge fan of V-day in general, especially not when still longing for a love lost it was a nice surprise from a girl's who enthusiasm would be contagious if I weren't so damn crotchety.
Jackie had just returned from a 6 month sojourn in December, where she crashed on my couch for a month before us heading down under and her travel mates from her journey arrived in Melbourne on the 14th so she was off to meet them and I was on my own.
I wandered down Fitzroy Street in what is supposed to be a hip part of town to find funky boutiques, book stores and painted walls at every corner. The graffiti in this neighborhood is breathtaking and when I see a friendly face, like KRS-ONE staring back at me rep'ing my hood I can't help but love it. Solitude at its best, I took my camera along for company and landed here, where I sit, eating eggs that most certainly have some ingredient that I dare not inquire into and drinking spirulina juice in the attempts to balance out my 2 weeks of cracker and candy consumption.
Sometimes, being alone feels good.
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