Off to the Big Smoke

Melbourne.
Wow.
Just...wow.
It's a 20 minute walk to the train station and then an hour long journey from Frankston to Flinders Street. All along the route into town are posters of "Dumb ways to die" characters, an extremely catchy ad campaign that Sophie has been singing for a very long time. We finally clued in that "Metro" is Melbourne Metro.
Here's the link - watch it if you dare:Dumb Ways to Die

Once we navigated the Flinders Street Station, we attempted to do a tour on the free tram that circles the downtown core but only lasted two stops before deciding it was too crowded and smelly. And I'm so glad we did because the tram doesn't go down all the incredibly cool laneways which are chock-a-block with street art (the rest of this post is going to be graphics heavy - be warned). Our first stop was the State Library of Victoria.

Yes, those people are lounging around in beanbag chairs. Want.

Reading Room Panopticon (thank you, Alice) with no-one at the controls in the middle

A display of campy book covers - if you can't embiggen, there are some fabulous titles like "Floozie out of Focus", "Widow is Willing" and "Stripper you're Stuck"

From there, we wandered searching for art.

Sophie, passive aggressively flouting the authority of the signage

We popped into the Australian Centre for the Moving Image which is just like Science World for for film buffs.

That's Sophie in front of a filter that changed your shadow into weird shapes - there's a Dreamworks exhibition opening at ACMI on April 10th so we will be back. Best of all - it's free!!

Finally, we did a brief tour of the lobby of the National Gallery of Victoria (again - FREE!) but only the lobby because we were all tired by this point. This is for all my crafty friends:

This bright and colourful sign greets you when you come in 

And you think What an odd thing to put on display. Old school afghan, desecrated Picasso and odd pouffs

Until you get closer and realize everything is made out of ICING!! Absolutely all of the decorations. And wallpaper. And the tea cup on the TV.

And for some reason, we were all craving something sweet so we walked back to one of the many many chocolate shops we had seen, stopped here and had one of these:

San Churro Ice Cream Sundae - Oh my lord-love-a-duck. Those are warm oozy dark chocolate brownies with 3 kinds of chocolate ice cream and chocolate drizzle that goes are hard and crispy when its cold. I gave myself a hematoma when my hand slipped trying to chip the chocolate off the side of the glass.

And now I must clean the drool off the keyboard.