Activity level: 🌶️🌶️🌶️
Modes of transportation: 👟🚊
We got an especially late start because our only stop on the agenda was to enjoy the great foods Melbourne has to offer. After enjoying the lazy morning, we loaded up our “myki” cards for the tram and headed out into the heart of the city.
Our destination was the Queen Victoria Market, a mainstay in Melbourne of eclectic stalls, excellent entrees, and delicious desserts. It’s been there since 1880, and many of the vendors have been consistent for 50+ years.
We did a quick walk around the market; though, since we got started too late, we had to get some food fast. We got some chicken satay skewers that were honestly just ok—though they held us off long enough to be more picky.
Next stop: we wanted to find the famous borek shop where they made polish pastries. We got the spicy lamb, which was… also just ok. We were starting to get a little worried, and decided to start just trying foods that looked good.
We both got a coffee (shout out to piccolos, Sarah’s new favorite coffee drink) to go along with another borek (cherry this time). Finally, we just decided to split up. Eric got a “toastie” (grilled cheese) with blue cheese, cheddar, and gruyere, and Sarah got a spicy bratwurst with all the fixins (mustard, cheese, tomato onion jam).
Both were A+. The cheese was a perfect blend of sharp and creamy, and the bratwurst had great spicing and texture.
The other major food that everyone says to try is the hot jam doughnuts, so we made our way to the cart called “American Doughnut” selling them and bought a few. Sarah much preferred the unjammed ones, but both were pretty good. I mean, it’s fried dough. How could it go wrong?
Sarah was thirsty for juice, so we went searching through the myriad of produce stalls in search of something fresh. We came across a stall making pure sugar cane juice, with many proposed health benefits. The machine was gnarly, like a mini wood-chipper, with a guy feeding whole sugar cane shoots into it, and pale green juice dripping out. We ordered some with ginger and lemon; and, although we weren’t believers in the healthiness of it, it was delicious.
Not satisfied with the pure amount of sugar already consumed, Sarah decided she needed some cotton candy in the shape of a koala. The workers seemed sort of amused that a grown adult was ordering a bear-shaped puff of sugar, but Sarah didn’t mind as she devoured it.
We shopped around a bit just to see what was for sale, since there were dozens of stalls. Sarah ended up getting a cool jade rock to rub on her face, but nothing else was too interesting. They did have a lot of board games, and we thought about buying one; but we figured it would be a lot to carry through 8 more countries.
Satisfied, full, and sugar-crashing, we took the tram back to our hostel for a quick nap and some blog action.
That night, we found out there was a beer pong tournament at the hostel—and Eric never misses a chance to play beer pong. We signed up for the tournament as “The Honeymooners”. Immediately, people were extremely friendly and we met everyone at the hostel bar. The first person we talked to told us he hadn’t been there long, “only three weeks”.
We learned that night that, although 60 days is a long trip in the US, Australians and Brits will still shame you for not taking off long enough. Just kidding, everyone was extremely nice; but they definitely had much longer time horizons than we did. Most of them were working in the hostel while they spent months or years traveling, many of them on work-holiday visas where they had to work to stay in the country. It was fascinating hearing their perspectives and very different stages of life. We even spent time trying to convince a Canadian guy to quit law and become a programmer, as is tradition.
Of course, we won the beer pong tournament handily (just kidding: every game was literally as close as it could be) and enjoyed our free beer and a “mini Guinness” shot. They told us we had to win to “bring it home” whatever that means, since it’s an American game.
After the tournament, we all gathered to go to the bar next door: Freddie’s—a dive with live music and billiards. The live music was 100% American music, which was sort of funny, and we basically spent the night telling stories, joking around, and drinking copious amounts of Australian beer. We even met a girl who had strangely met Christina Aguilera in a bar in Dublin—or at least we think that’s what she said, as she had an extremely thick Irish accent (that Sarah could listen to all day).
On the way home, we grabbed a kebab and devoured it before climbing into bed and passing out, our (drying) bags strewn everywhere in the room.
Leave a Reply