Melbourne and guide books

As I briefly touched on in my last post, I'm taking a day off of work tomorrow and flying to Melbourne* for the weekend. And I'm quite excited. Supposed to be a great city with a very different vibe from Sydney. In the past, I've heard comparisons to LA and San Francisco: Sydney (as LA) is a warm beach city that's very suburban and Melbourne (as San Fran) is smaller, more dense, slightly colder and has a more cosmopolitan feel. So there is an analogy there, although from what I know about Sydney and the very little I know about Melbourne, I don't know if it's perfect.

*For the record, Aussies pronounce Melbourne as MEL-bin. I know, makes no sense. In fact, when Dave and Jack called a month or two ago, I left them absolutely bewildered when I referred to MEL-bin and not MEL-bourne. Well, no, we're not talking Jason Bourne here (or even Mel Bourne), we're talking the name of the capital city of Victoria, Australia. And that's MEL-bin.**

**For some reason, Aussies don't seem to pronounce the "r" whenever it's followed by a consonant. At least that's the rule that John seemed to unearth when he was here in December. Melbourne is pronounced MEL-bin, Forster is pronounced FOS-ter and Cairns is pronounced CANS. Maybe there are exceptions to this rule -- or maybe it isn't a rule at all -- but I haven't found one yet.

***I should also comment on this experiment with the asterisks, which is actually a bit of an homage to Joe Posnanski, who's quickly becoming my new favorite writer. In his blog, Joe loves using the asterisk as a device to allow him to go off on tangents, which are often quite long. I'm not sure this is the best way to handle the tangents, as it can often get quite confusing to follow the main point (as I'm sure it is here), but damn, it's kind of fun.

Anyway, Joe's a fantastic writer. Definitely not for everyone, but if I had to describe his style and the content that he covers, it'd go something like this: take a massive scoop of baseball, toss in a slightly more seasoned version of Bill Simmons, remove the Boston-related saliva, add just a dash of love for Kansas City and the Midwest, drop in a moderate portion of a retarded Bill James and mash it all together. That, my friends, is Joe Posnanski. (And by the way, the "retarded Bill James" comment is meant in the nicest way possible, and I bet that Posnanski would agree with it wholeheartedly.) So if the above appeals to you, check out his blog. You won't be disappointed. Now, if you're not remotely interested in baseball and don't know who the heck Bill Simmons and Bill James are, then stay far, far away.

Anyway, my buddy Maz works for PricewaterhouseCoopers and they've been flying him down to Melbourne every week for the last few months to work for a client. And being the behemoth that PWC is, they've put him up in some swank corporate housing. Which means I have some affordable accommodations.

The plan right now is to get down there tonight (Thursday) and head straight out, possibly to the casino.* But then Maz is at work Friday and then flies back to Sydney for about 24 hours for his weekly cricket match** before he comes back on Saturday afternoon. So I'm a bit on my own for almost two days.

*I know, I know. You're thinking, "LAME!", right? Well, Maz's place is a few minutes away from the casino and my flight doesn't get in until 11pm, so what else am I going to do that late on a Thursday night??!? Plus, unlike the casino in Sydney, the one in Melbourne is supposed to be really cool and one of Melbourne's best attractions, so in a way, I'm getting to experience a key part of the city, right?

**Talk about devotion!

This is where the guide books come in. You see, I'm a bit of a guide book addict. In fact, I love guide books. Sure, I can understand how some people just want to go to a new place and find things on their own, but I need a little more structure than that. I need to at least know what the key attractions are, what parts of town are worthwhile visiting, what cafes/restaurants/bars I can't miss and, most important of all, I need a map.* And for years now, my guide book of choice has been Lonely Planet. I might even go as far as to call myself a Lonely Planet Whore.** Their books have helped me for many purposes in many countries and have never led me astray. I highly recommend.

*If I'm addicted to guide books, then they're just my gateway drug. Maps are my heroine. (Does that make sense?) I absolutely, positively must have a map so that I know where I am at all times, what's in each direction and where I came from. My God, I love maps. You know how we joke about people reading the dictionary or encyclopedia? Well I would read a map of books. Correct that -- I have read a map of books. And back in LA, I've often gotten lost in a Thomas Guide. My God, it's fantastic.

**Wouldn't be surprised if the good folks over at Lonely Planet sprinkle each of their books with a little crack cocaine.

So with these two days on my own, I made the decision yesterday that I needed some guidance. And Lonely Planet was calling my name. So I headed over to the bookstore, found the travel section and there it was -- the Lonely Planet Melbourne City Guide. I reached down, leafed through it and it was just as I expected: a thorough breakdown of the city I will shortly be visiting. Perfect. And then I flipped the book over and saw a price tag for $34. Now first, I'm pretty sure Lonely Planet's opus on Europe doesn't sell for much more than this. So that price was quite a shock. But normally, that would be okay; I'd be more than happy to pay the price for information that I know will prove to be invaluable. In this case, however, I'm going to this city for three days. That's 72 hours. So to spend $34 on a guide book seemed a bit crazy to me.

There was, however, an alternative. And that was Phaidon's Wallpaper City Guide Melbourne. Now, I've seen the Wallpaper series before, and it has always intrigued me. Each of the concisely-edited books in the series feature the best that the city has to offer in a colorful, image-rich format.* In the past, I've paged through versions of these books on cities with which I'm familiar, and generally, I feel like their suggestions have been solid. So I have some confidence in them. Plus, there's a suggested itinerary for 24 hours, which will be perfect for me. And most important of all, the book sold for $13.

*I'd go as far to say that irrespective of the information these books provide, they're a piece of art; like my maps, I could page through them for hours with a glaze slowly coming over my eyes.

Of course, there is a downside to the Wallpaper series, and that would revolve around the limited information provided in each book. With so few options provided to their readers, there can be no mulligans; they have to hit a home run on every recommendation. And of even more concern is the map situation. For the good folks at Wallpaper decided that one simple map of the city, on one of their tiny spreads within the book, would be sufficient. And for me, that's a problem. Where's the detail? Does this map really include all streets? And what lies beyond the end of the page??!? What's out there??!? The uncertainty is enough to give me an anxiety attack.

So we'll see how this goes. Right now, I'm cautiously optimistic. For the book, that is. The weekend, I'm sure it will turn out fine. Which is the crazy part: I'm nervous about the book but completely confident that I'll have a great time in Melbourne. If anything, shouldn't it be the other way around? Maybe I don't need the guide book after all.