Penny (and Hoosier) Lane

Yay, another post from Andy!

After Aliya’s basketball game on Sunday morning, Alexi had booked herself a date to see a movie with her friend Tierney. Which meant that I had to babysit the girls … uh, I mean perform my  “parenting duties,” and keep an eye on Alanna and Aliya for the afternoon. But what to do with the time?  Well, with it being a Sunday, the girls and I quickly settled on a plan to go in search of our traditional donuts-and-smoothies, which is not nearly as easy as it sounds, since donuts are not all that common in Melbourne, and there is really only one smoothie chain in the city. In the end, we agreed that it would be fun to take the train into the city for our treat, since we could get donuts and smoothies right next to Flinders Station. But what to do after that?

Much pondering ensued before Alexi remembered that we had purchased a quiz/trivia/guide to the shopping arcades in the central business district (downtown) of Melbourne.  Now, when I say “arcades,” I don’t mean pinball and videogames.  In Melbourne, the arcades are narrow, pedestrian alleys filled with unique stores, restaurants, artwork, architecture and history. So, that sounded promising.  Get a little exercise walking in the city. See a bit of history. Learn a bit about old Melbourne. Use the clues to solve a riddle. And find more chocolate treats, to really amp up the sugar level.

Naturally, the girls wanted to bring friends, so on rather short notice, we started calling around to everybody on the class lists.  We had absolutely no luck with Aliya’s friends, but we did score with one of Alanna’s friends, Lara. I talked with Lara’s mom, Tammy, and she agreed to let her daughter join us for our little excursion into the city. In fact, she sounded rather happy to off-load one of her kids for the afternoon. With that settled, we gathered up the quiz/maps, coloured pens, backpack, jackets, water bottle, money, and MyKi cards for the train ride. But before heading out, Aliya was firmly determined to bring her Razor scooter along, desperately complaining that she was too tired to walk, and sobbing that I was being mean, and she hated me, etc. Sigh. I refused to load the scooter in the car, since I didn’t want the hassle of carrying it around the city. And off we went to Lara’s house, with a rather morose Aliya sulking in the back seat.

After grabbing Lara, I realised I needed some cash, so backtracked a little to the ATM.  And I caved. Yep, I changed my mind, and did the one thing that I shouldn’t have. I drove the car back to the house to pick up Aliya’s scooter.  I should have just stuck with my first decision, and held firm. But no, I tried to placate Aliya, rationalising that Alanna had a friend along, so Aliya should get something … a scooter to ride in the city. Bad parenting on my part. Doh!

Anyway, with all the prep work done and dusted, we headed to the station and caught the next train into the city. Easy ride, except for the few seats on the train. The crowd, we realised, was due to the Formula 1 Grand Prix race happening in the city.  I would have liked to take the girls to see the F1 cars and races, but tickets for the day started at $100 each. Ouch. In any case, we were in the city in about 15 minutes, and heading for our first clue at the Young & Jackson Pub and Hotel before grabbing our smoothies and donuts. 

I should explain that our map had a number of questions we had to answer about curious and historical places in the city. For example, “Search around the exterior of the Young & Jackson pub and find out how much the site was sold for when it was first purchased in 1837?” The answer is 100 pounds, which we had to spell out and enter in a crossword, which we were to use to find the answer to a riddle.

Anyway, once done at Young & Jackson’s we headed to the donut shop and the smoothie place replenish our energy stores. Chocolate-glazed donuts all around.  

Then off we trekked through the first of many arcades, trying to identify the names of buildings, the number of stained glass windows, the words that complete a motto, who Matthew Flinders (famous explorer in the early-1800s) was apprenticed to, etc. The route took us past several places I’d regularly seen on my commute into the city, but had never noticed before. Very cool stuff for me, but not so interesting for the kids. So we stopped at a fine chocolate shop to spice up the walk. Unfortunately, the chocolates were so rich, decadent, and unusual, that neither Alanna nor Aliya particularly liked theirs. Lara had her own money from her mom, so she bought two pieces to take home.

We continued our walk, with Aliya starting to complain more and more about how tired she was, even with the scooter. But I persisted, determined not to turn around and cut the trip short. The furthest point of the walk was right next to my office building, so we had a pit stop and a bit of a rest before heading back toward the train station. Along the route, our map/guide instructed us to find the public men’s toilets on Elizabeth Street which were first constructed in 1810, adjacent to the first public women’s toilets which were constructed in 1827. Naturally, the girls asked what the women were supposed to do when they didn’t have their own toilet. I couldn’t resist, and said “Cross their legs, I guess, for 17 years!”

 At one point, we had to stop to try and figure out our route, and a nice, older couple noticed me looking at our map while surrounded by three girls, and we got to chatting. Turns out they were on holiday from Victoria, British Columbia, and exploring the city just as we were. They were most interested in what Alanna and Aliya had to say about living abroad and going to school in Australia.  The girls were open and polite, and clearly enthusiastic when describing their school and life in Melbourne.

Next we headed for Hosier Lane, a famous cobblestoned alley decorated with “urban art,”  i.e. graffiti of a political nature. Take a look at a few of the photos to see if you can discern any political meanings in the graffiti. 

  The best part of Hosier Lane was coming upon a group of artists who were restoring some of their previous graffiti, by painting over the tagging that somebody had painted on their work. Graffiti on the graffiti, that is. Quickly realising the potential in this, I asked if the girls could help out, and they readily agreed, and handed us a couple of spray cans so each girl could take a turn spray painting graffiti over the tagging (see photos of our budding “urban art” crew).  Pretty cool of the artists to let the girls have a go.

 Finally, we reached the end of our walking/eating/graffiti tour, back where we started at the train station, which called for a bit of a celebration with some French fries from a placed called “Lord of the Fries” before we boarded the train for the trip back to our neighborhood.