Melbourne, VIC, AUS

I was familiar with Melbourne as the setting for the fun Netflix TV series Fisk. Melbourne, pronounced Mell Burn, through the bus window looks prosperous and functional. I see only late model cars in the city center and no empty storefronts. The skyscrapers seem modern and the sidewalk, erm pavement, is free of dog droppings and broken glass. 

We followed the herd to the Queen Victoria Market, a huge open air arrangement of stalls. The prices are not flea market low, but there’s a sense that local shopping is entertainment and community for all. The meat hall was indoors, with A/C and pink light.

I especially liked the meat hall, where kangaroo was on offer. 

Our grandma used to buy only fresh meat from Shopper’s Corner, where she could talk to the butcher and get exactly what she wanted. She was suspicious of supermarket meat in plastic and styrofoam. Who knows how long it has been out? What about the “B” side that one can’t see? I thought of her as I saw the wares attractively laid out, under pink lighting, and actively hawked. They have different standards for sanitary conditions. They sell organ meats. Generally meat here costs less than half the price in Santa Cruz. Australian beef is pastured on large-scale farms, which accounts for the cheaper prices.

Then we walked to the Melbourne Museum to see more bones: dinosaur bones.

We also stumbled in to Antopia, an interactive multimedia exhibit about ant life. It was filled with frenzied children. 

We’ve only just scratched the surface of Australia, so it is presumptuous to extrapolate from just a few days. We have another two weeks of Australia. The Aussies, pronounced Ozzies, I’ve talked to seem a bit like Texans: confident, expansive sports fans willing to accept multi-cultural society if it’s good for business, or bidness in Texan. Although they sound like Southern England, they shorten words and drawl like Texans. Also, I have not heard the typical understatement common in England. But then on holiday everyone is cakes and jam. Australian slang sometimes draws from indigenous terms, so words like billabong have history. My favorite Aussie term so far is “Mozzies” for mosquitoes. In Texas they’d be “skeeters.” I am listening for colorful words I don’t understand. That makes travel interesting.