Sunday in Melbourne

Full day #2 started around 7:45am indicating that I have essentially completely adjusted to Melbourne time. The first order of business for the day was to look into church options. After a brief internet search, I found that St. Patrick’s Cathedral held a 9:30am mass. So, I quickly showered and got ready to go. Since the cathedral is about a mile and half walk from the Graduate House, it took a little more than 25 minutes to walk there. I wasn’t sure what to wear. I have heard that Melbourne is definitely one of the more formal cities in Australia, so I decided to go with kahki pants and a nice shirt instead of kahki shorts and a nice shirt. I arrived at the cathedral about 5 minutes before the start of mass.

The cathedral itself is quite impressive in size. The English-gothic architecture strikes quite a contrast to the surrounding buildings. This was only my second visit to a cathedral (St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City being the first) and this was the first time that I attended mass in a cathedral. Upon entering the nave through the narthex I was amazed by the size and architecture of the cathedral. While, clearly much younger than many of the gothic cathedrals of Europe (St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne was completed more than 500 years after completion of Notre Dame in Paris), there still exists an enormous amount of detail. The ornamentation was stunning and the light shining through the stained glass windows filled the church with a warm and inviting glow. I chose to sit near the front and positioned myself such that I would be able to follow others for communion. People continued to fill in the seats in both the Nave and the northern portion of the transept until the massive pipe organ filled the church with the opening processional song. From where I was sitting, I could see the bellows in the organ open and close through the course of the songs.

Naturally, mass followed the standard Roman Catholic format, but there were a few differences. Instead of saying ‘brothers and sisters’ they said ‘those presently gathered’ and there were some other slight differences in wording throughout many of the prayers. In all cases, the meanings were the same. It was nice to have something familiar to do after the past few days of being surrounded by so many different and foreign things. After mass, I wanted to go look around a bit more and explore the church. But, I hadn’t eaten anything since the night before and hunger got the better of me. I figure that I’ll leave the exploring for another week.

I stopped at a 7-Eleven on the way home from church and bought a pre-made sandwich and bottle of water for lunch. I also bought a tram/train pass for the month. That was rather expensive. I don’t think I have ever spent even close to $120 at a 7-Eleven before. In any case, I ate my lunch sitting on a park bench in a small memorial park right near the Graduate House. It was a very peaceful lunch. The shade and cool breeze made for a pleasant environment to relax after the long walk back home.

I started the afternoon by lying low and relaxing for a while. My feet have been rather sore from all of the recent walking and I felt it would be best to give them a little rest. Eventually, I started getting hungry again (since the 7-Eleven sandwich wasn’t very big). So I decided to try out my new tram card to take the tram down to the mall to get some food.

The tram experience was pretty easy, but I am still not sure I completely understand how it works. I boarded the tram expecting to need to pay a fare or swipe a card right then and there. Apparently this is not the case (as evidenced by other passengers who just got on and sat down. Some people went and paid at the onboard ticket machine and others did nothing. It looked as though maybe you were supposed to swipe your card before getting off the tram, but no one did this either. So, I just sat there and then got off at the appropriate stop. We’ll have to see how things work during the week when I am going to CSIRO. In the mall, I found a grocery store and I decided to buy some food items for my room. Technically, we aren’t allowed to have food in our rooms, but I am so sick of having to go out somewhere every time I get hungry that I am deciding to break the rules. I’ll just keep the food hidden in my desk and I don’t think there will be a problem – especially between now and when housekeeping starts back up on the 18th.

I walked around the store and picked out a few items including granola bars, apple/strawberry puree (apple sauce), shampoo, toothpaste, peanut butter, and bread. I figure that will give me enough to hold me over at least for a while. The store was significantly smaller than most grocery stores in the U.S., but I was able to find the basic things that I was looking for. In most cases, they had a pretty good selection of products and the prices seemed reasonable. I checked out using a self-checkout machine and was on my way back to the Graduate House.

The bread I bought is excellent. It is the same bread that was used in making the sandwich that I had for lunch. It is very soft multi-grain bread and I really like it. It was so nice to be able to have an easy quick snack here in the room as getting food has been somewhat of an ordeal over the last few days.

Take two of ‘Dinner on Lygon St.’ went better than last night. I think the combination of going earlier and tonight being Sunday night probably helped. In any case, the Lygon St. area near the Graduate House was once the heart of the Italian quarter in Melbourne. Though, strictly speaking, the Italian quarter no longer exists, much of the Italian influence has remained in the area mainly in the form of cafes and restaurants. I began my stroll at Grattan St and proceeded to walk south on Lygon St (yesterday I explored the northern portion of the street). I came across a pizza place that was very busy, but had a few tables open. I was seated promptly and I began to read through the restaurant’s extensive list of pizzas. I decided on their Lygon St. Special and within a short period of time, I had a pizza topped with sauce, mozzarella cheese, ham, spicy salami, mushrooms, black olives, pineapple, sweet red peppers, and shrimp. The pizza was excellent! I probably would have never thought to put those ingredients together, but it worked really well. I think that the pineapple really helped to tie everything together. The crust was lightly buttered and cooked to a lightly crispy perfection. Furthermore, this was one of the first meal experiences I have had here where I felt that the food justified the price. The pizza was about $9 (USD) and I think that was a pretty good deal all things considered.

Following dinner, I walked around a bit more passing many restaurants and cafes along the way. The whole area has an extremely relaxed and romantic feel about it. It is not uncommon to see many couples on dates, but there are also many families as well. I made my way down to a garden near Argyle Place. The setting sun was illuminating the park with a nice relaxing glow. I then made my way back up the other side of Lygon St. and back to the Graduate House.

As I get ready to settle in for the evening, I find myself reflecting on the past 2 and a half days. I think it has been amazing to see how much I have learned and discovered in such a short period of time (and Australia is an English speaking country – for that matter). Patience and enthusiasm have certainly been two key components of the time I have been here. I can see that things are coming together more now as I am becoming more familiar with the way things are done here. I am looking forward to starting work at CSIRO tomorrow morning as it will be nice to meet the people there and start getting to know people here in Australia.