First Impressions of Melbourne

  • The Spencer St. train station isn’t much of anything.
  • I’ve seen more Porsches in 5 minutes than I have so far in Sydney (though I did see a right-side drive Corvette there. That was weird.)
  • In Sydney, the NSW plates carry the slogan: “The First State.” The Melbourne (Victoria) plates answer back: “The Place to Be.”
  • There’s an extensive tram network, with a casual ticketing system that reminds me of Amsterdam (i.e. one could ride for free fairly easily.) I wonder, do any American cities (not least of over 3m people) have trams anymore? Are they on the honor system?
  • The street signs are either charmingly idiosyncratic or freaking irritating, depending upon how lost you are. Some major streets aren’t labeled at every intersection — but some alleyways are.
  • The street names are also a trip: they have plenty of “little” streets here, which are prefaced by “Lt” on the signs. Thus “Lt Bourke St” is Little Bourke Street, not to be confused with Lieutenant Bourke St (which fortuntately does not seem to exist) or just “Bourke St,” which is like a block away. Little doesn’t seem to have anything to do with length or prominence. Or maybe I just haven’t figured it out yet.

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