marvelous Melbourne

I'm staying at the Nunnery in Fitzroy, a hostel I stayed at the last time I was in Australia in 2002(!). Then as now, Fitzroy was ridiculously hip.

It's posher than I remember, but the world has grown a little smaller and more sophisticated thanks to 20-somethings with Instagram.

If I had a month, I wouldn't have time to sample all the food recommendations from upscale vegan to Sri Lankan to a romantic spot that specializes in duck....

In that regard, Fitzroy reminds me a bit of Plateau, the neighborhood I call my own in Montreal.

Awake at 5 am (it's 5 hours earlier here, tomorrow), I helped myself to toast with vegemite and walked over to Queen Victoria Market.

It's very late spring, which means ripe tomatoes and luscious apricots and local peaches and cherries.  I'll go grocery shopping for real when I have a car in a few days, so today I limited myself to cherries.

 

Of course I had to stop by the statue to the 8-hour day and organized labor. (The top says 888.) Australian unions first supported an 8-hour day in 1856. 

Sydney is one of San Francisco's sister cities, but Melbourne could be its twin. Not geographically (that would be Wellington, NZ) but historically. 

Modern-era Melbourne found itself a banking capital after a gold rush in 1850. There's a lot of gorgeous decorative architecture left over from the era. It's a well-situated port with mild but not terribly warm weather. 

Over the years, it's become known for its characterful neighborhoods and wide variety of restaurants, with immigrants from all over Asia and the world. 

Fitzroy and the area around the Nunnery have gone through prosperous times as well as hard times. The nuns used to hand out sandwiches to the hungry. Now they just have free barbecues for tourists, and tomorrow morning, pancakes.

You can see why I'd feel at home here. 

There's a park with clay tennis courts across the street, and old and new streetcars they call trams. Also the excellent Melbourne Museum, which was newly opened last time I was here. 

Seems like a perfect way to fight off jetlag and visit an old friend.

Trivia: I wrote the last paper of my college career on Patrick White, the first Australian writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

It's a fine collection of Australiana as well as natural history specimens. And some glorious aboriginal art. These enormous sails are from what today is Papua New Guinea.

 Aboriginal tribes make these hand-painted human-like creatures out of wood.

 Baskets can be woven from so many different materials.

In this room, the wooden keys undulated, with a creation myth projected upon them. The story of the land and the people who lived here, before.

Since I was in Melbourne last, they've built what seems like hundreds of skyscrapers. Really tall ones. I took the free tram out to the docklands where they've built a whole new city. It reminds me of the new part of Toronto, the smart city with some controversial infrastructure by Sidewalk Labs. Or Vancouver, where they've already responded to growth with modern solutions.

There's no rhyme or reason to the shapes and colors of the structures. Some of them are delightful. I'd guess they've added a million people to metro Melbourne since 2002.

But if you stroll through the neighborhoods, you can still find some fossils.

I ran across this elegant sculpture, dedicated to women's suffrage.

Twins who've grown apart over the years

This modern apartment building with chartreuse balconies even matches the Brunswick streetcar color scheme.

I'm off to explore. We're expecting a heatwave Monday (90s!). For now, I'm loving the long almost-summer nights, hoping tonight I can stay up late enough for the sunset.