Melbourne September 2011 – Philipp's TravelBlog

Another month has passed, and if I hadn’t been before already, I have now definitely fallen in love with this city.

I am continuously working full time and enjoying my free time after work and on the weekends.

I will try to briefly summarize what’s been happening this month. And at the end you’ll get to see this month’s photos.

I went to a free wine tasting in the city with Garry. It was a great location right next to the Yarra river with view over Southbank, Crown and Exhibition+Convention centre. Nice wines, good food, awesome location, all for free – the perfect night!
I have been catching up with friends for movies, dinners and more. I won’t go into all these details.
I had birthday and turned 23! Funny thing happened that day: after work I was fooled by the public transport and went onto the wrong train. Instead of going to Ringwood I ended up in Glen Waverly. I didn’t notice that I was on the wrong train until it was way too late. So when I was in Glen Waverly I called Garry. Because it was my birthday and we had a dinner planned he came to pick me up, otherwise it would have taken me at least another hour to get home.
So while I was waiting for Garry I noticed there was a Dan Murphy’s next to the station. Dan Murphy’s is a huge liquor store franchise, with all sorts of wines, beers and what not. I decided to give the detour to Glen Waverly some sense and bought a slab of my favourite german beer that I hadn’t had since I left Germany in May: Bitburger!
So when Garry finally picked me up I was carrying this slab of beer and had a hard time convincing him that this was not my plan from the start 😉
We drove home where we had a dinner of my choice: Kangaroo steak. Delicious! For dessert Andrew had made me a cheesecake – yum!
Again I had a hard time convincing everybody that I did not go to Glen Waverly intentionally to buy beer 😀
Speeking of beer, Carole and Garry had gotten a selection of 10 different australian beers for me. The beer fridge is well stocked now ^^
My mum had sent me a package with some presents and mail from my relatives which luckily arrived exactly on the day. Thank you!
I caught up with my german friend Steffen who’s been studying at La Trobe University for 5 years now. It was great to get each other up2date again 🙂 Of course we had lots of beer and I stayed over night.
On a nice sunday, mit german friend and former co-worker Roland arrived in Melbourne. I had been looking forward to this for quite a while. I showed him the city and took him to all the places I had been shown in the past weeks here.
The following wednesday we met once more. I had also invited Jess to join us, because Roland had given her and me a night tour through Düsseldorf 2 years ago. We went to Hardware Lane, a small street in the city that is stocked with mostly italian restaurants. There are so many tables outside that only a narrow walkway is left. We had to fight our way through, because every few meters a restaurant guy would block our way trying to convince us to dine at this particular restaurant. This was an extreme experience! In the end we decided on one of the places and had a very good dinner. Actually I don’t have to mention anymore that the food is good – in Melbourne the food is always good!
After dinner Jess took us to a rooftop bar. That was awesome! 7-8 floors above ground on top of a big building, with the different parts of the skyline all around you. This showed in a great way how roomy the city is, because it didn’t feel crowded at all. A perfect evening!
The next day it was Jess’s birthday and her mum invited her and her closest friends to a greek restaurant. Again, the food was awesome and the evening great fun!
The Friday I had organised a small birthday party for myself. I had booked a large table at the Switch Grill Bar at Knox Ozone and invited my Melbourne friends to join me for drinks and food. On the day 2 people cancelled and 2 more didn’t show up, but it was still a group of 12 people that I know from different places. We had loads of fun, I was very happy with the evening. And I got an awesome present: a hot air ballooning tour at sunrise over the Yarra Valley.
The ballooning was booked for the following Sunday. I had to get up at 3.30 am and leave at 4. An hour later we were at the meeting point, one of the wineries. We signed in and were driven to the launchsite. Driving in a 4WD jeep again I felt like back on tour around Fraser Island.
When we got to the launch site, the pilots launched a small helium balloon with a bright red LED and let it go to see where the wind blows in the different heights.
Unfortunately we couldn’t go that day 🙁 way too much wind at the landing site, it would have been way too dangerous. So we were brought back to the winerie, than drove back home.
At least I got to see the lovely Yarra Valley during sunset from the car, although I would have much preferred to see it from the balloon.
We have rebooked the flight and are now scheduled for the 3rd of December.
Back home we had some breakfast. At 10 am I left to make use of the nice day. I went to the Fitzroy gardens and saw Cook’s Cottage, Australia’s oldest building. Why is it the oldest? Because it is originally from Great Britain. It was taken down and shipped over brick by brick and then rebuild in it’s final location.
After Fitzroy gardens I went to see the beach at South Melbourne. I walked all the way from Station Pier to St. Kilda Harbour.
Next I walked around Albert Park, know from the Formula 1 race that goes around it. Very nice!
In the end I made my way back to the city and met Andrew for dinner.
Last big thing for this month was the High Society Cocktail Night of the Monash Orchestra. Same one I had been on band camp with. So I already knew quite a few people and was introduced to more of them. It was a great party where some of us crashed for the night because alcohol makes driving home difficult, if not to say illegal and dangerous. So we stayed until the next morning around 11am.

These were the big things this month. As you can see, quite a lot, and I haven’t even mentioned all the “normal” catch-ups with friends. Especially the night at the rooftop bar and the day at Fitzroy gardens and the beach were the ones that made me love this city.

From 2011-09 Melbourne 🙂. Posted by Philipp Hübner on 9/10/2011 (117 items)