Arrival in Melbourne

The short flight over to Melbourne went by quickly. I’d never flown this direction from Sydney before, so it was interesting to see the landscape below. Australia is really a fascinating continent and I’m glad I’ve been able to explore so much of it. We flew over Canberra, which is Australia’s capital, a planned city. It was very geometric looking from above, and I will venture down there sometime next month to see it first hand. When we started to approach Melbourne, the clouds hid the city, and from what I had heard, the winter is quite cold here. However, upon descent from the clouds, I was surprised to actually see how green it was. The landscape looked lush, wintery, but lush.

After I arrived, I headed for the skybus which connects you to the city from the airport. The woman who happened to sit next to me was also American, traveling on her own from Chicago for her school vacation–she was an 8th grade science teacher.

Once I arrived in the city, I started to tour all around finding it quite easily to keep my bearings. I wandered to Bourke Street Mall which is familiar with Pitt Street Mall in Sydney, and saw all the find shops. Stopped and had some amazing soup, and I bought a scarf to keep warm. It was 10C, not terribly cold, but enough to start feeling it after a while.

I got a map to see some places of interest, and continued wandering around. I took some shots around the city especially the Flinders Street Station, which has some good traffic in front. I then walked all along the Yarra River to see the great scape of Melbourne at night.

All in all, my first impressions compared to Sydney are:
There are more smokers on the streets here.
The food is better, and less ‘hit or miss’
The fashions scene is higher
While planting palm trees to line the streets, it still doesn’t and won’t ever have a ‘beach feel’ like Sydney.

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