Marvelous Melbourne

Melbourne is home to the Formula 1 Grand Prix, the Australian Open Tennis Tournament, and the 31 sporting Stadiums, including the Melbourne Cricket Stadium which holds 100,000.  The city is just plain nuts for sports of all kinds. For a city of 4 million people, it still has a nice, tight feel to it.  The downtown is a pure rectangle with easy navigable streets (if you are on a bus or a tram, that is.) The driving is chaotic at best, and we were quite happy to leave the driving to our tour bus driver.

The town was established in 1842 with a few of the lovely late 1800's buildings surviving, though not nearly enough for my tastes as the modern styles that replaced then are often bizarre at best.  

The building areas are often separated by water or lush, green parks. There appeared to be more high-rise living accommodations than we had ever seen in a city of this size.  They call them vertical communities and not apartment buildings. While the rest of the world has been teetering on the brink of financial meltdown, Australia, and Melbourne in particular, is thriving. Real Estate prices have increased 23 % in the past year with the average price of a house $520,000. The average salary if there is such a thing is around $60,000.  There is construction everywhere. 

We were fortunate to visit the Parliament of Vistoria and sit in the gallery while they were in session. The topic for discussion was permitting another high-density project in the precinct of Williamstown. Were it not for the names and the lilt of the Aussie accent, we could have been anywhere USA with a similar discussion. We were not allowed to take photos inside the building, but suffice it to say, it was gorgeous.

Visiting the Shrine of Remembrance was a solemn experience. This commemorates all those from Australia who were lost in WWI. At the time there were only 3 million in Australia and 114,000 went to war with 19,000 not returning. The monument was designed so that on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, a natural light would shine through a pinhole and illuminated the remembrance stone. We saw a reenactment of this happening.

We ended the day with dinner with long-time family and consumer sciences friend, Barbara Stewart.  Barbara has lived here in Melbourne for 5 years, while still teaching for the University of Houston.