Last Days of Melbourne

I fly home tomorrow. My how the year has flown.

My sojourn in Australia will come to a close tomorrow as I fly out of Melbourne at noon. I'm really not ready for this moment and I don't think it's dawned on me how this trip is really ending. It's as if I'm just getting ready for another big trip but will be coming back. By this time tomorrow, I'll be sitting on a jet plane over the middle of the Pacific. How do you leave a place that has become your home for the past year?

Today has been filled with packing and last minute shopping at the Queen Victoria Market, the bazar-like market located about ten minutes from my flat. Just yesterday, my online advertising for my furniture paid off and I sold off my desk and futon. With those pieces of furniture gone my room is quite empty, and it's a bit sad to see it all go. It's as if my Australian life is being carried or packed away bit by bit until it's either some else's or crammed in a suitcase. It's odd to think that almost a year ago, I arrived in Melbourne, a city of strangers to me and now I'm leaving the place feeling like it's mine.

Home is a fluid concept and after leaving home for college five years ago, my 'home' has fluctuated quite a bit. For the past year, though, Melbourne has been my only home. The city has been my dwelling place for eleven months straight and I feel quite settled here. It's what I've come back to from the amazing trips around Australia; the place I've met some amazing people and made life-long friends; the place where I've explored ideas that have challenged and broadened my perspective; the place where I've learned about the world and the people in it. A city full of strangers has become my home. And leaving home is always hard.

Melbourne, I will miss you.

An Aussie Thanksgiving

Last week I celebrated Thanksgiving with a few friends in quite the unusual manner. Four of us met up in Richmond, a suburb of Melbourne very near the city center, that is known for its high concentration of Asian cuisine. Victoria Parade, the main road running through Richmond, has the most Asian restaurants down its strip, one after another, I've ever seen. My housemate, Rob, and I rode our bikes down to Richmond to meet up with the others. Rob commented that I seemed to know my way around Melbourne pretty well as I was pedaling ahead of him and making a few suggestions as to how we get there. Funny how the unfamiliar can become so familiar with just a little time. I remember when I arrived I had no clue where anything was. I knew I was in Australia, in a city called Melbourne... that was about it. How things change.

We met up with my friends Mark and Rob (another Rob). Mark and I had decided we wanted to go for the scene in 'A Christmas Story' where they head to a Chinese restaurant and order some duck only to have the entire cooked animal brought out to them, head and all. I thought it was a smashing idea hence a Thanksgiving dinner out in Richmond. Mark picked out the place, making sure they served up whole ducks. It was BYO friendly (bring your own beer), and very plain, but the place had character - and did I mention they served up whole duck. The Thanksgiving meal was great: spring rolls, egg drop soup, garlic bok choy, a big serving of rice, and the pièce de résistance - heaps of peking duck. Mmm, mmm, good. All eaten with chop sticks and big smiles on our faces. When they brought out the duck, though, they had already cut it up into large bite size portions. So we asked if the cook could bring out the whole thing. So they chopped up the neck and other bits, brought that out, but a crucial piece was missing. "Where's the head?" we asked. "Oh, you want the head?" asked the server scratching his head. He spoke some Chinese to the kitchen and soon came back with a cooked duck head. Scene complete. Happy Thanksgiving.

After a scrumptious and filling meal complete with a few lagers and being thankful for such an interesting Chinese Thanksgiving dinner in Melbourne, we all headed to a nearby pub for a few more drinks and laughs. What I love about Melbourne is rocking up to a completely different area of town and finding the cool little bars and restaurants that make Melbourne's night life the envy of the South Pacific. With our stomachs full of duck, we parted ways and Rob and I pedaled back home. It dawned on me as I crossed into my home suburb of North Melbourne - I have just a couple more weeks in Australia. As I biked along the parade, trams rolling past, passing the Queen Vic market, and all the sights and scenes of the city I thought, "Man, I'll miss this."