Hi, I'm Michael, a raging introvert, challenged creative and uber-German (estimated to be 120% German). Born and raised in Northern Germany, my journey has been continually south - Regensburg, Munich and now Melbourne. I like all things photography, web culture and efficiency. If Sheldon knocked on my door three times, I'd let him in.
#28 – Beat the Tan Track – Sunday, May 26 2013
One of my good intentions when coming to Melbourne was to exercise more regularly. Being close to the beach helped and getting the excellent tip to “get a good rub down” for my calves did wonders to my injury problems. With this re-discovered love for running, it was clear that I had to put Melbourne’s prime location for jogging on the list, the Tan Track.
#56 – Take overexposed food photos of your breakfast at St Ali Coffee Roasters and immerse with Melbourne’s most colourful people – Saturday, May 25, 2013
Since the 111 things to do in and around Melbourne (or The List) is an epic list by definition, it is intimidating just starting that list. What is the best first of 111 steps to get to know Melbourne? Why wander around in the distance, when good things lie nearby? i.e. why not start in the neighborhood? We opted for getting some breakfast at St Ali’s (I’m still not sure whether it is written with a capital or lower case ‘L’).
Without further ado (read the full story about the list here), here are the 111 things I will do in the course of next year:
A friend of mine recently visited San Francisco and found at a friend’s house a self compiled list of the 100 things to do in San Francisco. Knowing that Melbourne is at least 11% better than San Francisco, I’d like to compile a list of 111 things to do in Melbourne. My idea is not only to compile the list, but I’d like to do every single item on that list.
So I reached out to the people who I got to know in Melbourne and asked for their help: What should I include on the list?
The circus was in town. More specifically the Formula 1 circus. Traditionally the season starts in Melbourne and unlike the real circus, Formula 1 was surprisingly unobtrusive. Apart from a few merchandise shops in the city and the occasional poster here and there it was barely noticeable that a major sports franchise was in town. The only hint that gave it away was the rather unsubtle high-pitched engine sound of race cars that woke us on Friday and Saturday. We live about 2km away from the race track, but had to shut the windows when talking on the phone. Yes, that loud.
As already mentioned, we spent the weekend in beautiful New Plymouth, Taranaki. The weather was beautiful, no clouds spotted the entire weekend, which meant that Mount Egmont was fully exposed. Perfect background for a wedding, but the weekend had many more highlights:
We are going to Megan and Dave’s wedding in New Plymouth over the weekend. It will be just a short stint, but we are very much looking forward to meeting friends and family. One of the things I had to realise is that I lost my ability to travel light. The original goal was to pack 7kg sine we only have hand luggage. Packing my ‘bare minimum’ already had the scale displaying 11.5kg. Harriet on the other hand had enough spare weight to pack the big book of Maths. Literally. The longer we spend time together the more I realise that traditional roles seem to be reversed in our relationship.
Since Harriet spent the last weekend of February in New Zealand, I had the opportunity to geek-out and take my camera for a ride across town. My partner in crime for all things photography-related is Philli. She has a good heart, a good eye and an excellent shutter finger. All three come in handy for a photo walk.
Our assignment for the day was to take pictures of street art. Melbourne is supposed to be the capital of street art in Australia. According to the Wikipedia:
Throughout the 1970s and 80s much of the city’s disaffected youth were influenced by the graffiti of New York which subsequently became popular in Melbourne’s inner suburbs and along suburban railway and tram lines. Melbourne was one of, perhaps the first, major city to embrace stencil art, leading to the naming of Melbourne as the “Stencil Graffiti Capital” and increasing public awareness of the concept of street art.