Date: Sunday, 9 March, 2008, 11.00pm
Location: Pier Street, Altona
It has been a long day. I didn't wake up until 10.30, but today was the day to take my last Zone 2 train trip on my last monthly ticket left over from my yearly replacements, which Connex obligingly replaced with both zones even though my yearly was only Zone 1.
I decided to go to Werribee, the end of the line, near Port Philip Bay. The map in my 'pocket' UBD shows national park wetlands. When I got to Werribee, it turned out the bus I was planning to take to the wetlands doesn't run on Sundays, but after some pressing the driver suggested I walk to Werribee Park, where there is an open-range zoo and a mansion. He said he though it would be a 20-minute walk. It turns out the area is also home to the Victorian Natural Rose Garden and Shadowfax Winery and it takes more like an hour to walk to the park from the train.
So, yes, it was a very long walk, and hot, and while still getting there I was wondering if I'd be game to ask someone for a ride back. The mansion is beautiful. It is in the process of being restored and the library and drawing room, main bedroom (downstairs), the enormous kitchen and pantry, a couple of bedroom suites upstairs and the balconies were open for inspection. The hall-entranceway mosaic floor is very beautiful and the upstairs hall is a wood-floored salon/ballroom. A small ballroom. The mansion apparently had 19 bedrooms. It was bought in the 1920s and turned into a seminary, then bought back by the city for restoration. The original mansion is enormous and the Catholics built a whole 'nother mansion - an extension - which now serves as a Sofitel Hotel and Spa. The many areas of grounds include a farm and homestead, a patterned garden in front of the mansion, a pond and grotto, many swathes of green grass and pondy paths, a sculpture walk and river and forest trails. Everywhere people are allowed to picnic and play, which is very un-American. It is a very beautiful and impressive place and I'd love to go back - with companions and a car or bike.
I had a lovely honeycomb and chocolate slice at the mansion cafe that tasted just as chocolately and rich as it looked. By the time I got to the mansion I was starving. It's been a beautiful day. Hot but totally bearable and sunny and beautiful.
After exploring the mansion grounds and very much enjoying the sculpture, I took my tired feet to the massive rose garden, wth international varieties of roses. The garden wa designed in a 5-petal pattern, complete with a 'stem' path and small circular 'leaf' garden. Not that I noticed this pattern while walking thouhgh - I saw it on the map. Some of the roses smelled lovely , but I was too tired to enjoy the garden lesiurely. I started back for the train stations around 6.00 and kept hoping that someone in the fairly constant stream of cars might offer me a ride, but no.
Then, around 7.00, when I was still nowhere near the train station I got bit, once on each leg, by a dog. I was walking on a dirt road by a fallow field on the side of the road. The road to Werribee park has no pedestrian pathway and I thought it would be safer and more pleasant to walk away from the road. I had walked on the dirt road on the way to the park but as I was leaving the dirt to go back to the bitumen a dog came silently out of nowhere. It didn't bark, just trundled up, bit me and trundled off. Fortunately there were men at the house the field belongs to and I said, 'Excuse me, your dog just bit me, could you help me clean myself up?'
This is as far as I got with the blog at the cafe. I wrote notes about the cafe: 'Big open space, concrete floor, flat stone-piled pillars in the front. A brown couch facing outdoors, a couple more couches inside, poor service.'
I remember waiting almost an hour for my glass of red. I was about to leave when the young boy finally brought it to me.
The dog bite had a lasting impact. Aside from the ugly scars on my leg, I am now a bit hesitant when dogs run up to me. I never had any fear of them before. The man who owned the dogs was very unpleasant to me. He thought I was going to sue. Of course, I was polite and conciliatory to him, though a little annoyed when I explained that I wasn't going to sue him I just wanted my leg cleaned up. I wish I'd grow out of this misplaced niceness.
His father was much nicer and offered me a towel and a hose while we waited for his son to get disinfectant and bandaids. The old man drove me to the train station. I think he was Italian. He had a thick accent, but cannot remember now for sure where he said he was from.
The bites themselves didn't really hurt that much. More messy than anything. I was just profoundly sad at being so alone.
I was still bleeding a lot while sitting on the train so decided to disembark at the beach. I figured all that salt water would be a good disenfectant, and after such a stressful time I deserved an ocean.
I texted J, who advised that I should be fine and needn't go to the hospital.
A was lovely when I got home. She took pictures of my very black and blue and swollen calf and doused me lovingly with a disinfectant solution. She was the best substitute for Mom I could have had.
E wanted me to find out about justice and the law and whether the dog could be put down.
I did finally call the local council and a woman told me that if you trespass on somebody's property a dog can legally kill you.
I did get a tetanus shot in the end.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Monday, September 29, 2008
Cafe #32: The Terrace
Date: February, 2008, 4.15pm
Location: Melbourne Botanic Gardens
Coffee: $3.20 - latte, average
Reading: On Beckett
This is a dark cafe resembling a corporate cafeteria all beige and grey. The food is expensive and its outside surrounds lovely, but it is cold, cold, cold, cold for summer. It depresses me.
Despite the chill at my back, I walked through the very large garden with its multiple swathes of green grass. There are ponds and streams and miles of bitumen. The garden is much more public than the New York gardens - no entry fees or security staff and many wedddings (poor cold brides).
There is a free Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert at the outdoor stage tonight. I am pondering hanging around for it. It has been a long, long time since I've seen a classical music concert but I don't think this one consists of music I am particularly keen on.
And here is how I plan to spend an evening getting work done and then don't. There is always tomorrow.
I don't have much to report. I've been working in E's office, reading grants. Her workplace is lovely and relaxed and friendly but I am over the full-time thing. It makes me tired and hence not very productive. What I do like is the Friday after-work drinks.
I've gotten what could be my ideal job - 20 hours a week working from home, project managing, community consulting and report writing for one of the secretariats that report to the Office for Women. I can't wait to work from home. At the office I am hungry and snacky all the time. It can't be healthy. And I'll get flown around the place for meetings. First off - Sydney. Hopefully I'll manage to put full effort into the thesis at the same time.
Anyway, cafe closing so should go.
Location: Melbourne Botanic Gardens
Coffee: $3.20 - latte, average
Reading: On Beckett
This is a dark cafe resembling a corporate cafeteria all beige and grey. The food is expensive and its outside surrounds lovely, but it is cold, cold, cold, cold for summer. It depresses me.
Despite the chill at my back, I walked through the very large garden with its multiple swathes of green grass. There are ponds and streams and miles of bitumen. The garden is much more public than the New York gardens - no entry fees or security staff and many wedddings (poor cold brides).
There is a free Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert at the outdoor stage tonight. I am pondering hanging around for it. It has been a long, long time since I've seen a classical music concert but I don't think this one consists of music I am particularly keen on.
And here is how I plan to spend an evening getting work done and then don't. There is always tomorrow.
I don't have much to report. I've been working in E's office, reading grants. Her workplace is lovely and relaxed and friendly but I am over the full-time thing. It makes me tired and hence not very productive. What I do like is the Friday after-work drinks.
I've gotten what could be my ideal job - 20 hours a week working from home, project managing, community consulting and report writing for one of the secretariats that report to the Office for Women. I can't wait to work from home. At the office I am hungry and snacky all the time. It can't be healthy. And I'll get flown around the place for meetings. First off - Sydney. Hopefully I'll manage to put full effort into the thesis at the same time.
Anyway, cafe closing so should go.
Saturday, January 5, 2008
Cafe #31: Degraves St Espresso
Date: 28 December 2007, 7.30pm
Location: Degraves St, City
Coffee: $3.30 - latte, weakish
Reading: The End of History and the Last Man
This is a well-frequented and very popular cafe. Degraves and Flinders lanes are cute, funky, very Melbourne, though I'm not sure of the tourist-to-local ratio. I'd assume it's more local as I don't know if the tourists would find the lanes (I didn't when I was a tourist). Degraves is supposed to serve one of the best coffees in Melbourne but mine was pretty crap. In any case, in the city of coffee there is never any reason to pay more than $3.00 for a cup of coffee, particularly if it isn't fairtrade, in my opinion.
On another note, I suppose you've noticed that these blogs have been much less frequent lately. That is partly to do with spending more time studying, partly frustration with dial-up internet, and a lot to do with my poverty, which means I'm drinking my coffees at home rather than spending money at cafes. But I'll try do at least one a month, so do check back here every so often if you continue to be interested in Rachel's Melbourne Adventure. Now that it is summertime, I'll try to head out to the ends of the trainlines for walking explorations of the suburbs, and that should definitely involve cafe blogging.
I have spent the day at my flat, thesis writing, a little bit of cleaning, a tad of a nap. I am cat-sitting for E and am engaged in a battle of wills with the kitten (teenager) over going outside and shitting in the litterbox rather than on the floor. I will win, being human and in control of the front door, but he only halfway defies me, i.e. runs out the door then comes to a standstill so he can be picked up and brought back inside. Dumb cat. He could try shitting all over the place instead of just in the bathroom. Most likely that would do me in. Well, more likely would get him locked in the bathroom. He whines and kvetches loudly at me to be let outside, so getting away from him for the afternoon was nice. But he is also very affectionate and sweet to go to sleep with and wake up to. The other cat is very lovely - a cat with dignity.
Cat-food handling makes me rethink wanting a cat of my own.
Christmas with K's family was quite satisfying. I was hesitant to go, thinking I'd be reminded that it isn't my own family and maybe would feel like I was circling around the fringes of a group of people who hadn't seen each other in a long time, but K's grandmother especially made me feel welcome, making quite a fuss over me. I had good chats with her mother and her cousin's about-to-be-husband, who was a chef and is now a photographer. I participated in the Secret Santa and played a bit of badminton. Mostly, though, I ate. Y, the fiance, made beautiful bruschetta, a cool and addictive soba noodle and seaweed salad, grilled yellow zucchini and eggplant and then sundry barbequed meats and mussels that I did not partake of. There was also an excellent potato salad and a decadent salad of baby spinach, pumpkin, feta and roasted pine nuts with pesto dressing. There was homemade Christmas pudding for dessert and Y made proper espresso lattes. I had two of those. After days of storms and intense rain, the sun was out for a beautiful pleasantly hot blue-skied day. So thank you to K's family for making my first Christmas completely familyless one to remember fondly.
Over the holidays I also spent some time with S, who left back for Canberra today. I really wanted S to experience the Nova so we went to see Couers, a French adaptation of an Alan Ayckburn play about loneliness and sexuality. It was alright - psychologically unsurprising people that one doesn't really get to know enough to appreciate. There's much that is hinted at and alluded to that possibly would have been more interesting out in the open. It wasn't a movie that either of us were dying to see, but there wasn't much to choose from, which is unusual for the Nova. And a shame, since there is much that I wanted to see that was out just before Christmas and missed and that I want to see and is coming out just after and may miss. I don't really have enough money to see the movies I want to see, let alone the one's I don't particularly...
I haven't taken a break from studying but am using the holiday time on my own (A2 is in NZ) to write without the distraction of domestic sociality. And there's a lack of non-domestic sociality as well, as E is also in New Zealand and uni is out. It isn't a drought, though. Before Christmas I went to see a beautiful little puppet show about death, bad will, ageing and lovewith L, called Apples and Ladders (shadow as well as handheld puppets with handles on the backs of their heads and the puppeteers in full view and part of the performance and even a couple melodramatic songs the puppets were choreographed to) ; and yesterday I had drinks with A3 and took him to dinner with K and her mum at their Collingwood housesit. A relaxing and friendly evening.
I've decided to inflict Ulysses on myself as it is an imprtant modernist text. I don't understand most of it, but I will treat it like a piece of art and not worry about understanding it. Just try and appreciate its form. Maybe one day I'll read the fully annnotated version (if there is one) but the 900-page clean version is long enough. Mom sent me David Sedaris's Santaland Diaries for my birthday and N her copy of the Modern Jewish Girl's Guide to Guilt, so I have some light reading to get onto once I finish Fukuyama. My goal this couple of Christmas weeks without any work is to get heaps of reading done, but unfortunately I get sleepy...
On that note, you might be getting sleepy....
Location: Degraves St, City
Coffee: $3.30 - latte, weakish
Reading: The End of History and the Last Man
This is a well-frequented and very popular cafe. Degraves and Flinders lanes are cute, funky, very Melbourne, though I'm not sure of the tourist-to-local ratio. I'd assume it's more local as I don't know if the tourists would find the lanes (I didn't when I was a tourist). Degraves is supposed to serve one of the best coffees in Melbourne but mine was pretty crap. In any case, in the city of coffee there is never any reason to pay more than $3.00 for a cup of coffee, particularly if it isn't fairtrade, in my opinion.
On another note, I suppose you've noticed that these blogs have been much less frequent lately. That is partly to do with spending more time studying, partly frustration with dial-up internet, and a lot to do with my poverty, which means I'm drinking my coffees at home rather than spending money at cafes. But I'll try do at least one a month, so do check back here every so often if you continue to be interested in Rachel's Melbourne Adventure. Now that it is summertime, I'll try to head out to the ends of the trainlines for walking explorations of the suburbs, and that should definitely involve cafe blogging.
I have spent the day at my flat, thesis writing, a little bit of cleaning, a tad of a nap. I am cat-sitting for E and am engaged in a battle of wills with the kitten (teenager) over going outside and shitting in the litterbox rather than on the floor. I will win, being human and in control of the front door, but he only halfway defies me, i.e. runs out the door then comes to a standstill so he can be picked up and brought back inside. Dumb cat. He could try shitting all over the place instead of just in the bathroom. Most likely that would do me in. Well, more likely would get him locked in the bathroom. He whines and kvetches loudly at me to be let outside, so getting away from him for the afternoon was nice. But he is also very affectionate and sweet to go to sleep with and wake up to. The other cat is very lovely - a cat with dignity.
Cat-food handling makes me rethink wanting a cat of my own.
Christmas with K's family was quite satisfying. I was hesitant to go, thinking I'd be reminded that it isn't my own family and maybe would feel like I was circling around the fringes of a group of people who hadn't seen each other in a long time, but K's grandmother especially made me feel welcome, making quite a fuss over me. I had good chats with her mother and her cousin's about-to-be-husband, who was a chef and is now a photographer. I participated in the Secret Santa and played a bit of badminton. Mostly, though, I ate. Y, the fiance, made beautiful bruschetta, a cool and addictive soba noodle and seaweed salad, grilled yellow zucchini and eggplant and then sundry barbequed meats and mussels that I did not partake of. There was also an excellent potato salad and a decadent salad of baby spinach, pumpkin, feta and roasted pine nuts with pesto dressing. There was homemade Christmas pudding for dessert and Y made proper espresso lattes. I had two of those. After days of storms and intense rain, the sun was out for a beautiful pleasantly hot blue-skied day. So thank you to K's family for making my first Christmas completely familyless one to remember fondly.
Over the holidays I also spent some time with S, who left back for Canberra today. I really wanted S to experience the Nova so we went to see Couers, a French adaptation of an Alan Ayckburn play about loneliness and sexuality. It was alright - psychologically unsurprising people that one doesn't really get to know enough to appreciate. There's much that is hinted at and alluded to that possibly would have been more interesting out in the open. It wasn't a movie that either of us were dying to see, but there wasn't much to choose from, which is unusual for the Nova. And a shame, since there is much that I wanted to see that was out just before Christmas and missed and that I want to see and is coming out just after and may miss. I don't really have enough money to see the movies I want to see, let alone the one's I don't particularly...
I haven't taken a break from studying but am using the holiday time on my own (A2 is in NZ) to write without the distraction of domestic sociality. And there's a lack of non-domestic sociality as well, as E is also in New Zealand and uni is out. It isn't a drought, though. Before Christmas I went to see a beautiful little puppet show about death, bad will, ageing and lovewith L, called Apples and Ladders (shadow as well as handheld puppets with handles on the backs of their heads and the puppeteers in full view and part of the performance and even a couple melodramatic songs the puppets were choreographed to) ; and yesterday I had drinks with A3 and took him to dinner with K and her mum at their Collingwood housesit. A relaxing and friendly evening.
I've decided to inflict Ulysses on myself as it is an imprtant modernist text. I don't understand most of it, but I will treat it like a piece of art and not worry about understanding it. Just try and appreciate its form. Maybe one day I'll read the fully annnotated version (if there is one) but the 900-page clean version is long enough. Mom sent me David Sedaris's Santaland Diaries for my birthday and N her copy of the Modern Jewish Girl's Guide to Guilt, so I have some light reading to get onto once I finish Fukuyama. My goal this couple of Christmas weeks without any work is to get heaps of reading done, but unfortunately I get sleepy...
On that note, you might be getting sleepy....
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