Grampians

This is about the Grampians in autumn.

It was raining when we left.

Sun showed her face only for a couple of minutes in the evening.

We arrived when it was getting dark.

Next morning – little walk before breakfast.

Someone is taking shower.

Well, we look funny there.

Jurga looked too attractive for this little bird wearing her blue hoody.

After the walk we sat in the nice forest picnic ground, enjoying breakfast. Someone was too busy with making a sandwich, someone was just looking elsewhere. That was the moment when no one looked at the food.  Then I heard a growling noise and saw wings just in front of me. Shit, the bird felt in my hot tea – thought for the moment. Then I understood what happened. The cheese was stolen from my hand. Fat kookkaburra was sitting nearby and laughing at us.

  

So we spend the rest of the day climbing up and down.

 

Yeah, you climb and then wait in the queue to take a picture.

See the girl on the left. It is very high.
That’s all folks!

Magic cinema

One evening we went to the cinema. It was a modern one, but all walls were covered with red curtains and silver ones were hiding the screen. Somehow it reminded me Twin Peaks. Now this doesn’t look impressive, because we went to old Art Deco Astor cinema.

This is in the toilet! Little fireplace-heater looks like a tiny doors in the wall. You can still smell cigarettes there although it is non smoking for a long time.

I don’t know what is in the middle. And I saw the detailed frames only in the photo, I didn’t realise it when I was there. Next time I should be more sensitive to the details.

Oval balcony.

A mural on the wall.

 

 

A relief decoration.

We were watching Arrietty and Howl’s moving castle – a double feature evening. During the second movie we noticed a cat walking down the stairs. Finally he or she spent half of the movie on Laurius’ lap sleeping and purrrrring.

New friends reuniting again in the corridor.

Brunch, vinyl and other weekends

It is so fashionable to go for a brunch. Actually this means somkething – let’s go and have a very expensive sandwich instead of making one at home. Of course we go too! Many lovely places. Like this cafe on a tram stop. Someone is waiting for the breakfast. Others – for the tram.

 

Interior.

Another day we went to a free comic day to pick up our free comic copies. We ended hiding from the rain in a vodka bar and tried potato pancakes here. As it is very popular thing in Lithuania we felt like experts discussing the taste of the meal.
-Too much of lemon juice.
-Yes, too sour.

Well, we didn’t have way too big glasses or moustache and jeans were too wide, so in this place we had to hide behind a burger. Thankfully, it was enough big, so noone didn’t notice our shame.

Who killed the burger?

Actually, our most favourite thing for weekends is a hunt for the records.

Sometimes we get lovely finds and sometimes feel a big shame that we don’t know a lot about music and have to disappear quietly.

This picture is for Mini fans.

We went to a garage sale. Very conceptual one. The DJ is playing and the things they sell are… few (a bike helmet, two books, a pair of shoes and a couple of blouses).

Underground toilet in the city centre. Can you imagine 7 ladies doing the make up here?

Religious discussions inside the toilet cabin. I didn’t expect this. We are all probably used to see some anatomical or less detailed drawings and texts like “Kate loves Jake”, but not this. Some people believe in Jesus and some in Santa.

At the end of a day we go to some beloved place for live music. Here we find a Baltic dark beer and feel very suspicious if it is Lithuanian one. Of course not…

A little bit of Melbourne’s architecture

When I came to Melbourne I was very happy about it’s architecture. And I still am.

It’s a pretty young city, so there is no old town, the one we are used to see in European cities. Though, there are some great examples of Victorian and Art Deco architectural styles.

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This is what I call Australian old town. There are lots of streets like this – two-three storeys houses leaning each to other. Also, there are suburbs with individual houses, with old trees or without them. Actually Melbourne is very green city.

  

City centre is full of skyscrapers, glass towers, it looks nice from all sides. Sometimes, if it is good weather, you can see the city skyline from far far away, like 50 km or more. I’ll post a picture in post about Mornington peninsula.

Part of a street mural.

The actuall street.

One of contemporary art exhibition spaces.

Amazing, isn’t it? I should come back to this house to take better pictures.

Social houses. They are very different from all architecture. Seems like soviet architecture. Every second suburb near the city has a one tall the same looking building like this. All other houses are much smaller around. It is a pretty strange look.

For the trains crossing the city.

In the CBD. Street art street full of street art 🙂 Some old theatre entrance lights.

Glass skyscrapers and great Art Deco building.

The city doesn’t look very tall from here, does it? More like a little cosy town at the river.

A tooth fairy lives in this little house.

What a special effect!

This is St Kilda again. Note that house on the right picture.

St Kilda in the rain. When the autumn came it got very green. Even on a very cold day, when I look at those palm trees swinging in the wind, stormy wavy sea (which on normal day stays calm and still like glass), even then I don’t feel like winter, it always seems like a tropical storm.

This building on the end of a sea jetty used to be an ice creamery. It was in those days when St.Kilda was a resort place for Melbournians.

Every time I pass these house I wish I lived here, it gives me that cosy feeling.

Our street on a rainy day.

The same street. Well, this part is not about architecture. One night we woke up because of big noise. We live here only a couple of months but there were two false fire alarms in a hotel just in front of us. and firemen came with 2-4 cars. This time in that lovely house with round corners was a fire. Luckily, it was empty apartment and no one was hurt. So, firemen came with 6 big cars, ambulance and police was there too – big noise in the middle of the night.