Auckland can't come soon enough!

The trip to Auckland is now just seven days away, and fortunately for me, it really couldn't come at a better time. You see, it turns out that the lovely folks at the Department of Immigration aren't done giving me the run around, and I kinda sorta need to vacate the country for a bit.

It started a few weeks ago. I received a letter from Immigration that stated that my sponsored visa -- the one that I was on with my previous employer -- was about to expire. "Not a problem," I thought. "I already sorted that out in April when I went to the US and reentered the country on a tourist visa. They must have sent this by accident."

Yeeeeaaaahhh, it was no accident. Two Fridays ago, I got a call from a woman at Immigration, who was clearly miffed that I had not heeded her letter and was still in the country. I protested: "But I switched to a tourist visa in April!" Sadly, she clarified, based on a technicality that I won't explain here (and that no one had bothered to explain to me!), I wasn't on the tourist visa for which I had applied, for which I had been granted approval, and for which the Australian government had happily taken my application fee.

"Balderdash!," I thought.* "What shall I do now?" I complained. I started to get a little short. And then paranoia crept over me as I began to picture the Australian Federal Police closing in on my position, Minority Report-style. Were they using this phone call to triangulate my location???

*No, that word didn't actually go through my head. I can't remember my exact thoughts in the moment, although I'm guessing they were more of the obscene variety. But I like that word: balderdash. Good word. Underrated. I don't think I'm using it correctly, but whatever, it sounds like a good, non-offensive expletive. So to very roughly paraphrase U2,** it's a word that obscurity -- or perhaps just good sense? -- stole from society, and I'm stealing it back!

**Coming on the heels of my last post, guess I'm really into "very roughly paraphrasing" these days. And is that redundant, to "roughly paraphrase" someone?

A minute or two into moaning and griping, I realized there was a relatively easy solution at hand: I was shortly going to Auckland! Why not use that opportunity to get off this cursed sponsored visa once and for all and reenter the country on a Work and Holiday Visa, which means (as the name might suggest) that I can actually work? I presented this solution to the woman, and she seemed happy with it. Done and done!

So! Come next Tuesday, armed with the Wallpaper City Guide Auckland,* I fly out and spend five days in and around the city.

*I won't bore you with another entire post on guide books -- and anyway, I have neither the time nor the inclination -- but as you may recall, I also opted for a Wallpaper guide book for my trip to Melbourne last year. I decided to go with it again for this trip, although after looking back at my own thoughts on the Melbourne book, I'm beginning to wonder why in the wide world of sports I went with it for this trip too. Besides the fact that the book is pretty, I found it to be useless! Limited information... inadequate maps... food and entertainment options that are completely out of my price range... you name it. Yet I was suckered into buying it again!! Ahhhh, the beauty and temptation of a well-packaged product.

Don't have much idea what I'll be doing quite yet -- I'm hoping (pretty please?) that Wallpaper will help me out there, although I'm also staying with a distant relative who can point me in the right direction -- but for the sake of my legal status in Australia, this trip couldn't come soon enough.

Me, and the neglect of you

It's Friday? Really?

I have no idea where this week has gone. And I've just realized that I've absolutely been neglecting this here blog. My apologies. But you see, the thing is that my creative fervor these days has been directed towards my daily Movember email. Because the recipients of those emails are paying -- well, "donating" may be more of an apt term -- customers. You people? Freeloaders. All of you!

Anyway, I'm off to Melbourne tomorrow to meet up with the parents* -- have I mentioned on here that they've been in the country for the last week? -- then do the Great Ocean Road**, then head back to Sydney on Wednesday. So if you think I've been neglecting the blog this week, just wait until next week. Of course, if you want to receive each of my daily ramblings and a daily picture of my filthy Mo, simply click here and donate.

*For the loyal readers of this blog, you better believe that I'm bringing along my Wallpaper guide book for part deux in Melbourne. Will it serve me any better than it did the first time around? Will it provide for more awesome times? Doubtful. But will I cling to it like a safety blanket my entire time there? Absolutely.

**This is not only supposed to be an absolutely majestic stretch of road, but we will also pass by Bells Beach. Will I attempt to reenact the final scene of Point Break with some unsuspecting Aussie? I wouldn't put it past me.

Melbourne -- there's an angle in here somewhere

I've just yet to find it.

You'd think there'd be some way I could cleverly sum up my trip in a title for this post, some way for me to approach my recap, but I'm at a loss. So simply stated, I went to Melbourne last weekend, and it was awesome. Hmmmm, maybe that's it? "Melbourne -- it was awesome!"

But that would be quite a simplistic look at the weekend. For there's no way that all 72 hours of a three-day weekend can be awesome, right? And that can certainly be said of the 72 hours I spent there last weekend. For while I had my fair share of awesomeness, some things were only kind of awesome, and others were not awesome at all. (I feel like Jeff Spicoli would be beaming with pride at these words.)

So let's try that approach.

Melbourne -- the awesome, the kind of awesome and the not so awesome

The Awesome

Weather. So this is what summer's like, eh? You know, when it comes to the Sydney vs. Melbourne, the weather debate is generally ceded to Sydney. Sydney's supposed to be the warm city, Sydney's supposed to afford you year-round opportunities to go to the beach, Sydney's supposed to leave you sunburned after every weekend. But after countless consecutive days of rain in Sydney, it took this trip to get this month's fill of Vitamin D. Honestly, what glorious, glorious weather. Thirty degrees (Celsius, that is) and sunny every day. What a novel concept.

Melbourne Cricket Ground. The most hallowed of sporting venues in Australia, this place holds over 100,000 people. And since I've started to get into cricket, Maz and I did a tour. Did you know that the biggest crowd ever to watch a baseball game was at the MCG? Yup, something like 104,000, during the 1956 Olympics. The only time that record may ever fall? Right back at the MCG, if baseball has an Opening Day there, as I've been told is a possibility.

Trams. They weren't awesome because they were more efficient than other forms of public transportation, but damn, the trams in Melbourne are cool. I've lived in two cities (Philly and Boston) with some semblance of a tram system, but that's just what they are -- a mere semblance of a tram system. Melbourne's tram system, on the other hand, just oozes with nostalgia. Just walking down the street, hearing the bells on the trams as they passed, added a very cool and unique je ne sais quoi to the whole experience. I'm really not familiar with San Francisco or Houston, so maybe their trams can match this, but I somehow doubt it.

The laneways. Much of the center of Melbourne is dominated with wide boulevards lined with chain stores. (See "The Kind of Awesome" section below for more on the chains.) But throughout the city, darting off of these boulevards, are these tiny little streets, called laneways. Generally just the width of one car, these laneways have taken up a culture unto themselves and are populated with really cool restaurants, bars and boutiques. So if I ever needed a respite from the city, all I had to do was walk down one of these laneways, stop in a coffee shop or bakery and hang out for a bit. Two awesome thumbs up.

Federation Square. Just a really cool -- I mean, awesome -- complex, right on the Yarra River. Seems like there's always something going on -- there was a sustainability festival there last weekend and an outdoor film to be shown on Sunday night -- and plenty of bars and restaurants to boot. And it's right across the street from Flinders Station, another old school feature to the city, and a really nice, big church.

Eureka Tower. Tallest residential building in the world. Highest public vantage point in the Southern Hemisphere. Fastest lifts -- ahem, elevators -- in the Southern Hemisphere. (Living in Australia for any period of time, you'll quickly learn that it's quite easy to have the biggest/tallest/fastest/etc anything in the Southern Hemisphere. It's like being Ms. Rhode Island or something.) And, obviously, a fantastic view. Needless to say: awesome.

The Kind of Awesome

Food. This could really be split among all the categories, but as a whole, it was merely okay. Which was actually a bit of a disappointment. Take Friday, for example. Breakfast at Mario's (recommended by the Wallpaper guide book -- more on this in a second) was okay, lunch at Gertrude Street Enoteca (also recommended by Wallpaper) was fantastic and dinner at some random Italian place I chanced upon was crap. Then again, the next day, the mushroom, cheese and spinach crepe that I had in the morning, the muffin that I had as a snack and the chili sausage that I had for dinner were all quite good. And in what was an absolutely shocking and bewildering find, the Ultimate Blended Mocha that I had at Coffee Bean was (obviously) outstanding.* So barring some swings and misses on Friday, maybe the food deserves better than "The Kind of Awesome" grouping after all.

*The whole asterisk thing from my last entry gave me a headache so I thought I'd abandon it, but if anything deserves a bit of a tangent, it's this. So let's recap. I was in Melbourne. And I found a Coffee Bean. To put this in proper perspective, I would have been shocked enough if I chanced upon a Coffee Bean in Melbourne, Florida. But in case any clarification is needed, this was Melbourne, Australia. Thousands and thousands of miles away from what I ever imagined was the closest Coffee Bean. Seriously, do any other Coffee Beans even exist outside of Southern California? (About two seconds of research would answer this question, but it's more fun to continue to be ignorant on the issue.) And there's one in frickin' Melbourne??!? And lest you think it was a knockoff of the real thing, believe me, it wasn't. Same menu, same logo, same taste. Unbelievable. For a good six minutes before I went in, I probably stood on the sidewalk, gaping at the storefront and wondering if I was tripping on some drugs that I had unknowingly taken the previous night.

Subway* and 7-Eleven. I have never seen more of either of any chain store in such a small area as the Subways and 7-Elevens in Melbourne.** Honestly, there'd be a Subway on one block, then a 7-Eleven on the next. And I can't decide if this is a good thing or not. I mean, yeah, they're evil corporations taking over the world... but the convenience! Anyway, exactly how pervasive were they? Take a look at the picture to the left. That's part of Federation Square, which as discussed above, is considered one of Melbourne's icons. That storefront at the bottom of what's a culturally significant building? A 7-Eleven!

*Since arriving in Australia in September, I had not eaten at a Subway. For those that know me, this is quite a development, because I love Subway. Love it. If Lonely Planet is my marijuana and maps are my heroin (if you're not following me here, check out my previous post) then Subway... my God, I don't even want to know. But for some reason, since I've been here, I've stayed away. I think that's partly because I've been trying to eat healthier, and although a typical fast food restaurant Subway is not, and they at least claim to be healthy, I've resisted. But then Thursday night at the airport happened, when I gave in and scarfed down a foot-long Italian BMT. And then Monday night happened. And now I fear that I'm on the edge and may black out, come to a month later and realize that I've eaten Subway three times a day every single. And if you don't think that could happen (or that I'd be up to the challenge, a la Super Size Me), then you don't know me.

**Possible exception here, if you wanted to count a small area within a city, would be the two Starbucks across the street from each other in Astor Place.

Booze. When Maz got back to the city on Saturday afternoon, we got right to it. Several beers at his place, several more at Federation Square (from where we made a drunk dial to a friend... at 8pm!), then a giant pitcher of Pimms and lemonade and then, ummmm... and then, ummmmm... well, that's really all I can remember. There were other drinks, yes, but things start to get a little hazy after our pitcher of Pimms at Madame Brussels. (What a great name.) So I called it a night a bit early. Meanwhile, Maz and another friend stayed out, and to my horror, I woke up at 7am to 15 missed calls from Maz. That's right, I passed out in the apartment with Maz's keys, and despite 15 calls to me and many more buzzes to the apartment, I was out cold. And Maz was shit out of luck. Oops!

Casino. Got to Maz's apartment at 11pm on Thursday night, and shortly thereafter, we headed to the casino. We sit down at a blackjack table and immediately drop $50. We move over to a three card poker table and drop $50 more. We split up for a bit and I start with another $50 on what might be the worst blackjack table ever. I really don't like to be a snob about it, but everything you might hate about blackjack, this table had. People coming and going. Dealers coming and going. And worst of all, people not knowing how to play.* So why did I stay at the table, you ask? Well, despite it all, I was winning. But honestly, I hated every second of it. And was actually pleased when I went on a mini losing streak and had an excuse to get up and walk away.

*In particular, there was one guy who was doubling down and splitting just for the sake of it. So regardless of the situation, if he had any pairs, he would always split. And the icing on the cake was when he split two sixes against the dealer's 10. I'll never forget it.

Virgin Blue. It's Thursday afternoon, and I'm in a cab heading to a client meeting. My phone rings. It's the airline I'm flying to Melbourne, Virgin Blue: "Hello sir, I'm calling to tell you that your 8:30 flight tonight has been cancelled." FUCK! My heart hits the floor. My weekend is ruined. Are there any more flights this weekend??? The rep continues: "How would you like to get on the flight scheduled before that, at 8:15?" Uhhhh, you have a flight with open seats that leaves only 15 minutes earlier? Wow, that's not so bad. But I was quite busy at work that day, so I ask what's the next scheduled flight to leave after my originally scheduled 8:30 flight. "There's an 8:45." Uhhhh, so on top of your flight with open seats that leaves only 15 minutes earlier, you have a flight with open seats that leaves only 15 minutes later? That's fantastic!* I reschedule for that and my experiences with Virgin Blue for the rest of the weekend are awesome.

*If Virgin Blue did one of those Southwest-type commercials, where they just scroll through all the flights that they have for a route (say, LA to San Fran) in a given day, the version of that commercial for the Sydney to Melbourne route** would last two minutes. Amazing.

**Dammit, really didn't want to do all these asterisks. Anyway, did you know that the Sydney to Melbourne route is the fourth most flown route in the world (851 flights per week), after Barcelona-Madrid (971 flights per week), Sao Paulo-Rio (894) and Jeju-Seoul (858)? The most flown route in the US? You'd never guess it, although it makes perfect sense when you think about it: Honolulu-Kahului (639 flights per week).

The Not So Awesome

Phaidon's Wallpaper. Ahhhh, the guide book that I had so many doubts about. Let me quote myself:

Of course, there are downsides. The amount of information is limited. That means they have to hit a home run on just about every recommendation. And of even more concern is the map situation. For the good folks at Phaidon 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.

Both of my perceived downsides became reality. A home run on every recommendation, they did not hit. Maybe I'm being a little too hard on the book, because it certainly did steer me in some good directions, but the limited amount of info proved to be, well, too limited. And the map... yikes. Not only was it tiny and not only did it not include many major portions of or major streets in the city, but I quickly discovered that it was situated with West at the top of the page and North to the left!!! What the hell??!?

Maybe I'm being too hard on Wallpaper. It did introduce me to some great places. And it is mind-boggling beautiful to look at. But if the second best thing you can say about a guide book is that it's mind-boggling beautiful to look at, I think that should throw up some red flags.

Drunk food. This is really a problem endemic to all of Australia. The quantity and quality of late night greasy food is appalling. And if you chance upon some pizza, don't even think about it. My God. Stick with the chips -- ahem, fries -- and be happy with them. Melbourne was no different here.

Hangover. This was on Sunday. I don't think any further explanation necessary.

All in all, a really great trip. Which, despite the guide book's failings was not surprising. For just as I said in my last post, while I had concerns about the book, I was sure I'd still have a great time. And I did. Overall, it was (in case you couldn't tell) awesome. But three days wasn't enough. So the next time I have a friend whose company is putting them up in a perfect location in Melbourne and I find super cheap tickets, I'll be back there. And you'll get to hear about all of it again, in excruciatingly long detail.

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.