Days 21 and 22: Melbourne foot rubbers, Redhead matches, art deco cinemas, animated poo

Sometimes it sucks to be a female solo traveller. As I reported in my last entry, my flight to Melbourne was delayed by more than three hours, although even if it had been on time, the airport bus stops running to St Kilda, where I would be staying, at 7 pm; not very helpful at all! 

Anyway, I considered getting a taxi, but was urged at the Airport Info desk not to waste my money; instead to take the airport bus to the city centre and then a tram out to St Kilda, where it would stop right in front of my hotel; total cost under 23A$. All went well until I got to the tram stop and asked this dude if I was on the correct side for St Kilda. Yes I was, and he said a tram was coming in just one minute, which was good because they were running maybe once an hour at that time.

On the tram there were maps of the system too small to read (and paper maps which I only noticed as I got off) and no announcements either on the screen or out loud of what stop was next. It was also difficult to see out the windows, but my guy told me that he knew where my hotel was and that he was getting off at that stop too. He asked the usual friendly tourist questions - where was I from, where had I been, where was I going - and kept letting me know how many more stops we had to go. 

So we both got off where he instructed, and I was a bit puzzled as I did not immediately see the hotel. The guy said he would make sure I found it; that he knew it was on this block and also that it wasn't a good neighbourhood to wander about in. We walked down to the end of the block and there was no hotel. The next block bordered a big park, with no hotels on the other side. I was approached for money by a woman, and when I said sorry, I could not help, the woman just stood there and would not go away. In the meantime my travel companion asked a taxi driver where my hotel was and learned it was another mile or so down the road; I should have stayed on the tram!

The dude suggested that I get a taxi, that it would only be about five dollars, but I didn't really want to spend more money when I shouldn't have had to, so I said I would walk. (Also, at this point I did not think the hotel was quite as far as it turned out to be.) Then he insisted  that he would pay for the taxi and we could get a coffee once I got there. I said I was not going to have any coffee; I was planning to go straight to bed - alone, of course - once I got to the hotel.

Now the guy started offering to give me a foot rub. ("Surely you need a good foot rub after all this travelling? I give the finest foot rubs in all the southern hemisphere!" or some such blather...) I got in a cab, mainly to get away from the prospective mad foot rubber, and had to shell out another ten bucks (not five!) to get to the hotel, which, as I said, actually was much farther than I had thought! At least you don't need to tip anyone here. And yes, the tram stop was just outside the front door.

When I booked my round the world flight I booked hotel rooms for my first and final nights in Australia. I chose the Cosmopolitan partly because it was in St Kilda, but mainly because it looked like a very nice place for a reasonable price. Turned out it was only the "From" price that was reasonable; my room was more than twice as much, and although not awful, it was nothing to write home about. It wasn't half as nice as most of the places I had stayed in New Zealand, and I found it a bit shabby, not in a chic way. However I was only in it from 1:30 am until 10:00 the next morning.

No photos of the hotel, but I had a very nice breakfast at the Galleon Cafe across the street once I had checked out. My first Australian Flat White:

And my rather impressive (and healthy!) breakfast bagel...

I then trudged down the road to my Air BNB place, passing these musicians...

Yes, it was a record shop, but it was always closed it seemed.

I also saw a hedgehog...

And a more sad than scary clown hanging with the RCA (or HMV) doggie.

I would be missing Nick Cave, and Ant, by a few weeks:

But this show was tonight! When I posted that I was considering going - I don't believe it was sold out - people on Facebook all urged me to go, but even though it was in St Kilda, it was not so close to where I was staying, wasn't that cheap, and I was tired. Of course the next day I wished I had gone. Oh well!

My Air BNB was a huge bedroom in a 1930s art deco flat owned by a Kiwi lecturer. She was not a redhead, but all her matches were.

A friend of hers did this painting:

Yes, it's a kitten playing with an abstract thought. Or it could be a coat rack from IKEA...

Also on the wall:

And on the settee:

Another sort of redhead:

I really liked that part of St Kilda. All the houses and buildings were quirky and different. This one was on the main road:

Turning the corner to "my" street...

The light was harsh here. In real life this avenue looked a lot greener..

Above average (IMHO) graffiti art...

What I did do that evening was go to the cinema. My host told me about this most fabulous 1930s venue in the neighbourhood, the Astor. I saw a Simone Signoret film which was part of a series called Les Blondes, Casque d'Or. I went back in the daylight to take a shot of the exterior; the nighttime version following it I stole off the Internet.

Day 21: Leaving the land of the Kiwi

Today, after a big buffet breakfast we were taken to Dunedin Airport, with one last smoko stop. (In case you are not familiar with the lingo, although the word arose from a smoking break, ours were mainly for coffee and the toilet...)

Here are some other Kiwi words and expressions:

"TO MUCH" makes no sense to me, but I hope they did not mean "TOO MUCH"! And "chilly bin" seems to be missing.

Being a linguist, I tried to learn a bit of Maori while I was there, but even the place names were difficult to remember, and many were very similar. There are a lot of "K"s, "W"s, and "P"s, and every other vowel seems to be an "A"... It is similar to, and related to, Hawaiian, but seems to have a lot more vowels.

Speaking of place names, when we were on the North Island, I was disappointed that we did not make it to:

Taumatawhakatangi­hangakoauauotamatea­turipukakapikimaunga­horonukupokaiwhen­uakitanatahu

as I had wanted to take a photograph of the road sign. (I grabbed this one off the Internet.)

In case you are interested, there are even longer versions of the name, and it means, roughly translated:  "The summit where Tamatea, the man with the big knees, the slider, climber of mountains, the land-swallower who travelled about, played his nose flute to his loved one".

Back to my photos, here was our last smoko stop:

Next to the coffee place... I sort of collect names of hairdressers.

At Dunedin Airport I had a long wait for my flight to Auckland. More coffee, and a lot of Lepidoptera exhibits to look at:

This book was intriguing, but far too heavy!

I had an even longer wait (flight delayed three hours) for my next flight to Melbourne. Before I exchanged my New Zealand dollars, I photographed them. They are so pretty!

When my mother went to Hawaii in the 1950s, she met someone from Dunedin and they kept in touch for the next fifty-odd years. I had been sent a little Maori doll (with a feathered cape) when I was small, and this woman and her husband visited my parents in the States a couple of times. In 1989, my parents made their first and only visit to New Zealand and stayed with these friends in Dunedin, and before they went, were given a Berlitz guide book by some other friends. I took this ancient book with me.

This is meant to be a typical Aucklander. Somehow, I did not see him.

Nor did I see any aspiring young Coppertone models sunning their back sides in the square...

E noho ra, Aotearoa! Ka kite ano! (Farewell, New Zealand! I'll see you again!)