Here There Are Universes Underwater

Springtime for Hitler and...Melbourne

Well, spring has begun to settle itself into the landscape here. As the sun makes more and more appearances, I can tell time by the elongation of shadows across my balcony, and it's starting to feel like my stay here is coming full-circle. The flowers had long since died when I arrived in Melbourne in the height of February's fever, but when I step outside my apartment there's a feeling--a breeze, the faint scent of dry earth and lemon myrtle and eucalyptus--that takes me right back to where I was the moment I landed. It's the same but different. I'm the same but different.

All over the city nature is beginning to realize the color of itself. Before I came here I never enjoyed the smell of wisteria because the giant vines that crawl up the side of our house (and into the guest room--as in...through the window) always overpowered every other scent in the yard. Now, though, because I'm so far from home, I don't mind it so much. In fact, I might love it.

I've been going on a series of long photography walks through the residential neighborhoods near my apartment and campus. Parkville, which is located just across Royal Parade from the University of Melbourne, is full of gorgeous architecture and curling iron railings and gardens literally spilling through and over their fences. The streets were quiet and the characters ceaselessly amusing. The highlight of my experience was most assuredly a young boy (probably around age eight or nine) dressed in all white, riding down the footpath on his razor scooter screaming the lyrics to "Hey There Delilah" at the top of his prepubescent lungs.

I think in another life I had lemon trees, because every time I see them I'm overcome by an inexplicable nostalgia for a time that I don't remember. I wish I lived in a citrus-conducive climate. While I love venturing to the garden for a handful of snap peas or cherry tomatoes or plump blueberries, I think plucking a lemon or an orange dangling above my head would be so much more satisfying. However, I could do without the palm trees that always seem to accompany the citruses. I never knew it before I came here, but I don't really like them. I feel like they're a cliche of themselves, and especially in a city like this that is so modern and metropolitan and frindy (frigid and windy), I find them to be severely out of place.

You can't tell from this photo, but just beyond the sand and sidewalk is a grassy park bisected by a tree-lined pathway. It's called University Square and it's right across the street from the main campus entrance. I spent the afternoon studying there the other day, and it felt so strange being back on the grass in the sun in a place I hadn't been since my friends were here in the fall. I'm almost gone and I still miss them. I don't think I'll ever stop. There's something about meeting in a foreign country that makes you family in a way nothing else can.

Again, this is University Square without the grass. I don't think the wisteria is blooming anymore--neither are the cherry trees for that matter--but I love knowing the kind of beauty that can exist in a place even when that beauty has crawled into hibernation.

These little spiky poms remind me of the berries that grew at my elementary school in the strips of bark and dirt between the playground and the buildings. They would grow yellow on the bush, then turn a sort of fiery orange-red as soon as they fell. Next to "Indian beads"--tiny colorful plastic cylinders that bulged at each end and for which my friend and I would hunt religiously during recess--the pom berries were the next best find, albeit more plentiful.

Apollo Bay (aka If You've Ever Lost a Sheep, I Guarantee You it Wound Up Here)

For the first week of my spring break, an Australian friend and I spent five days in a small town called Apollo Bay on the Great Ocean Road, sandwiched between koala-populated Lorne and the Otway National Park. Getting there was probably my favorite part (don't tell Mish!), as it was my first time on the V-line (intercity/interstate) train, followed by an absolutely gorgeous 2.5-hour bus ride along the curving cliffs of the Great Ocean Road. It was the same road down which my orientation was held for semester one, and it was wonderful--albeit a smidge heartbreaking--to see all the places I'd been with my friends at the beginning of my time here, back when they weren't my friends quite yet. We passed the beach where I'd learned to surf, passed the Surf Museum and pizza restaurant where we'd gone on our first outing, passed the entrance to Camp Eumeralla--the boyscout camp where we ate and slept and grew into family.

Apollo Bay is a quaint little hamlet nestled along the coastline at the base of miles and miles of green waves of "paddocks" sprinkled with sheep and the occasional white horse that looked like it was straight out of a load of bleached laundry. The town is spread along the length of one main road. Side roads run perpendicular to it but don't really lead anywhere. Everything is on the main shot: the cafes and restaurants, news stands and ice creameries, real estate agencies and souvenir shops. Mish and I spent the majority of our time in town (our cabin was about a 20-minute walk from the excitement so once we neared the shops we were generally there for a while) sitting at a table on the sidewalk outside The Bay Leaf Cafe sipping our coffees (and by coffee, I mean Mish had coffee. I, of course, did not) and watching burly surfers strut along the beach with their boards wedged under their arms as storm clouds shot in from the west. These clouds were the product of the same storm in South Australia that unsettled enormous plumes of dust in the outback that blanketed Sydney and parts of Queensland in dry, powdery red.

Convinced that we were in a different location along the GOR where my friends and I had previously seen a koala resting in a tree right next to the road, I went on a three-hour walk to find the abovementioned koala. Yes, I expected to see the exact same one. Because we were not, as I had suspected, right outside Lorne, I never found my koala. Nothing but waterlogged sand and gigantic puddles and half-crushed snails and signs that read "Beach Access" with arrows pointing in both directions. It was a very nice walk, though, even without the wildlife spotting.

The majority of our stay was meant to be dedicated to writing, but as you can probably guess (and for most people who are reading this, you've already heard this so it's no surprise) I did zero writing. Actually, that's a lie. I copied part of a Skype conversation I'd had with a very intelligent and humorous friend and pasted the quotes into a new Word document with the intention of using them as the basis of a story. That didn't happen. Instead of writing, I went on walks. A lot of walks. I took my camera down the beach, down the road, to the marina, into the grocery store, into the hills. Mish christened me a "camera whore" until I pointed out that if I were a camera whore, I would be using multiple cameras.

Random fact 1: this clothesline is called a Hills Hoist and is entirely Australian. You can't really see it very well, but it has four poles sticking out horizontal to the ground and the line is strung like a spider's web between them. It's brilliant. Random fact 2: In addition to the Easter bunny, Aussies also have an Easter bilby. Check it out: http://www.itsnature.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/bilby.jpg. I want one. So badly. Christmas, perhaps...?

This is basically what the sky looked like for the duration of our stay. I think Zeus knocked over the blue food coloring. And the water was freezing. And not just the water--everything about this vacation was cold. Mish had failed to mention that the cabin did not come equipped with sheets or blankets, and when I showed up at the train station without a sleeping bag, she looked at hers, shrugged, and said, "We'll make it work." Supposedly you could rent blankets from Reception, but we kept forgetting to check. As a result, freezing Olivia was forced to sleep underneath the mattress pad. Laugh all you want, but you would have done the same thing. A mattress pad with Mish's fleece "dressing gown" (nightgown) spread out on top. Very classy.

Apart from our frequent walks, we spent an unhealthy amount of time eating chocolate and popcorn and watching episodes of House, CSI, and Law & Order: SVU on my computer in the cabin's kitchen/living room. On the rare occasions when the sun would make an appearance, we sprinted down the hill so fast that anyone witnessing our mad dash probably thought we feared the sun would burn out the next day.

Apollo Bay has a tiny little marina with a disproportionate amount of crab traps. Those fishermen could have supplied the entire U.S. naval fleet with cages (that is, of course, if the U.S. Navy took up crabbing as a side business). The wind was so strong that I had to steady my camera on any nearby post or cement wall or anything stable just so I could get a focused picture. The sand was whipping so fast and so sharply that I seriously thought it had scratched the lens.

On our final evening we trekked up the road to Mariner's Lookout (signs spelled it with both one and two Rs and Mish and I argued over which it should be) as the sun was falling. It was a steep and exhausting but relatively quick hike, and the view was stunning. The GOR follows along the edge of all those cliffs in the distance--it's one of the most incredibly beautiful roads I've ever ventured down. I won't say it is the most incredibly beautiful road because doing so would mean cheating on my beloved Orcas Island, but it's definitely up there. It's touched by something wild, this road and this town and this entire country. Touched by something raw and savage that stuns and awes and erases your vocabulary. It's this wildness that left me vaguely uncomfortable the whole time I was there. I missed the quietude of Orcas, the sheltered streets and softer tides. And unlike the ones at home, I think the sheep here are out for blood.