Melbourne. The final destination. The grand finale of my Australian trip (haha). The least Aussie city I’ve visited that felt strangely like a homeland. The intro:
Melb is the real capital that everyone wishes for themselves. Everything you need in life is available here: art, events, shopping, multicultural food, nature, beach, three seasons. And what have I done from all this? Nada.
I spent the most surrealistic, shocking, exhausting, transforming and uplifting 10 days here. The only beauty flaw of the story that it was not because of getting mind blown by the city.
If you have to screw yourself, you have to screw yourself!
When I first arrived here, I was truly intrigued to explore it to the last bits. But when the time had come, my mood shifted entirely, and I couldn’t do anything to awake my interest.
My base was in St. Kilda, and I barely got out from here. I literally spent the first three days with sleeping, gardening and sipping George’s crazy-amazing cardamon cappuccino.
Let me spill some T about George (my HelpX host). He’s the most ironic, mean and grumpy person I’ve ever met. I loved him! He’s just so raw and honest and to keep the balance, also the best best best cook. Seriously, I’ve never eaten this delicious tempting mouth-watering meals that he prepared. I also learned some kitchen tricks from him that make me even more grateful for his hospitality.. and for the universe to put me in the right place during my heaviest struggles (drama queen here).
His culinary sophistication was one reason why I didn’t feel the urge to immerse in the food Canaan outside of the house. The only place I visited – a recommendation from him – was the Shanghai Street Dumpling in the Little Bourke St. Maaan, that was delicious, and it has to be as people are always waiting in line to get inside.
One more thing about George. Under the grumpiness, he’s a truly caring person; when I got super sick, after dropping his typical sweet comment “You look terrible.”, he cooked a divine Thai chicken soup for me to heal.
To summarize my personal drama: after I made the decision, to dive in and release my shadows, and to finally feel everything I avoided feeling (for a good reason), it happened in the blink of an eye. Really hard to describe because I felt everything at the same time; anger, fear, relief, inertness and strength. All repressed feelings surfaced in a trembling, roaring sob, without the need or chance of rationalizing them. It was gross and beautiful. And how that blink happened.. Universe, babe, you nailed it. Here’s the recipe: stand in the deal, try not to die on the highway, go on a date because you want to, then leave the guy naked, call an Uber and finally try to close the car door behind you before your break down. Applause!
The heart can’t break. Ego can (and dat bitch has to die). The hardest part was the feeling of failure. It was a tension between the illusion I had told myself and the truth I had always known. Oh, and the imagined pressure that matters what people might think. That I’m a loser. In my head, I identified Australia with the failure and at that point, I was not able to face and accept and undertake my decisions. Also, to enjoy and appreciate the blessing and my courage to come here and make this through. I had to leave, just wanted to escape. With this trip, I kinda chose a detour to the inevitable (the long-needed family healing) and it simply took time to understand and accept it. Looking back, I’m really grateful for these purging days, to prepare the ground for way deeper healing than I could have hoped for, and at the same time taking care of me and my belly.
It could be worse.
After getting over myself, I took the bare minimum effort to walk out of my suburb to finally see some street art. Oh gosh, Melbourne gets me. I walked (and trammed) miles for a whole day, just to scratch the surface. I was already in love, but after this day, I died and drifted in heaven. No words needed, here are my favourites:
Besides my obvious worship for street art, the botanical gardens stand on 2nd place (Chinatown on the 3rd). The Royal Botanic Gardens is definitely better than the Sydney Royal, but still not on the Brisbane level.
As I didn’t have more time (yeah, self-care and bitching consume a lot), I missed all the cool places outside of the central parts. But, my senses of choosing suburb worked very well; St. Kilda is the best in town.. beside reasons, it also has the beach with sunset penguins. Such a tourist attraction but those little fellas are super cute.
More or less, that’s all folks. No fireworks, no groundbreaking explorations, just an emotionally exhausting closure. I am 100% sure that the time will come when I want to go back with an open heart and open mind to indulge all the crazy experience of the land of OZ. I’m just not there yet.
These 5 months were incredible. Even if I would say nothing special happened, that’s not true. So many amazing people I met, the beautiful places I visited, the surrealistic things I saw and the unreal experiences I lived.
Aussies also showed me how different we are (and believe me, if you come from a society where everyone hates everyone, this is a big thing). Even though I don’t like how they treat aboriginal people (Australia – New Zealand 1:5) and that they live in a nonsense-expensive society where everything is about ownership, they are the most genuinely generous people I’ve met in my life. Oh, and I live for their humour.
Cheers mates.
The Flux in Paradise 