We really lucked out because the terrible heat wave seemed
to be leaving Victoria (and South Australia, for that matter) just as we
arrived. It had been so hot in Melbourne the week before that play was canceled
on the outside courts at the Australian Open, to which we had tickets. There
were all kinds of bushfires. Australians seem to have plenty to fear from
spiders, snakes, wildfires, or cyclones, but by and large don’t seem to be
afraid of each other. I could be wrong, but that’s how I remember growing up as
an American.
What I mean is this. In the 1980s my great-uncle and –aunt couldn’t
stop talking about their trip to Australia and how much it reminded them of the
U.S.A. in the ‘50s. They meant this positively. Australia now reminds me of the
U.S. then (in the ‘80s). Not entirely, but in some ways it is like the America
I grew up in. Remember how 25 years ago, if you took a flight, the staff would
just ask you if you had anything dangerous in your bag, and anyone could go to
the gate as long as they passed through security? It’s still like that here.
And areas of the commercial landscape still look like the America I remember,
as opposed to the country I visit now. Blockbuster, Woolworth’s, and frozen
Cokes may have bitten the dust over there, but no one has told Australia, where
they are still ubiquitous!
Arriving in Melbourne we looked in vain for the right
minibus—they are all called Sun, Sky, or Star—before finally getting our ride
into the city. I liked it right away. I liked the feel of Melbourne, the
multiculturalism, the look of the streets. There are bookstores everywhere
(along with Subways and 7-11s). Our hotel room was shoebox-sized, but somehow
the building felt comfortable to me, in a dated way (see above). It reminded me
of a hotel in Washington, D.C. that has a cameo in my novel The Trees in the Field. (It also had
some kind of ‘70s ambience that
reminded me of the college everyone in my family went to—it was a lot like a
dorm room…)
Midsumma was going on while we were there. Midsumma is a
festival “Celebrating Queer Culture.” There certainly seemed to be a lot of my
people around in Melbourne; whether they were there for Midsumma, the tennis,
or they just live there all the time, I’m not sure. I didn’t have the chance to
find out if it’s really a queer city. We walked around the lanes of the Central
Business District, along the Yarra River, then took a tram out to St. Kilda.
Can I just mention here how much I love trams (or streetcars, as they’re called
in Toronto). Few North American cities have them anymore, but they’re lovely.
You’re in the middle of a busy city, hop on a streetcar and if you stay on long
enough, there’s a beach. Isn’t that civilized?
We had a look around the century-old Luna Park, which has an
original heritage “Scenic Railway” roller coaster—and then the site of the
iconic Stokehouse restaurant which had just been razed after a fire a day or
two earlier. It was, bizarrely, not hot enough to go swimming, though there
were kite surfers to watch and the Esplanade Market to waste money in. Monday
began the second week of the Australian Open and there we were, in Margaret
Court Arena, watching women’s doubles. If you are not interested in tennis you
might want to skip to the penultimate paragraph—here’s a sport I actually do
follow!
I love doubles, and can never understand why it doesn’t get
attention because 1) it’s a faster game and 2) most people who play tennis as a
hobby are more likely to play doubles, so should be familiar with it. Anyway,
since we had ground tickets doubles was mostly what we could see. First Madison
Keys and Alison Riske of the U.S.A. lost to the seventh-seeded Czechs, A.
Hlavackova and L. Safarova. I am not crazy about Riske, she’s one of those
yelling women, but Keys has a great smile and seemed to be enjoying herself at
first. Then we found ourselves in a “legends” match, Joakim Noah’s dad Yannick
and F. Santoro of France vs. Mats Wilander and the Australian Pat Cash. I once
saw Martina Navratilova and Serena Williams play doubles in an exhibition
match, and that was some tennis pairing, but at the Australian Open “legends”
seems to mean joke.
Canada had better luck, with Daniel Nestor and Serbian N.
Zimonjic, the eighth seeds, eventually winning over the ninth-seeded Poles M.
Fyrstenberg and M. Matkowski—much more competitive. That match was followed by
more women’s doubles, Canada’s Eugenie Bouchard and V. Dushevina of Russia vs.
the sixth seeds, Cara Black (Zimbabwe) and S. Mirza of India. Bouchard had done
well the previous evening to beat the Australian Casey Dellacqua in singles,
and as I write, she’s going into her first Grand Slam semifinal. These singles
victories are something because what television viewers might not realize is
that on her “day off” between matches, Eugenie Bouchard played not one, but two
doubles matches at the Australian Open—women’s and mixed. In this case, it was
not surprising that Black and Mirza won. I have a soft spot for Cara Black, as
she’s quite a legend herself in doubles—I saw her play a doubles match at the
first professional tennis tournament I ever saw, and if you remember Jennifer
Capriati, you know how long ago that was.
Having been at those show courts, we went back to Margaret
Court for a while to watch the heavily outmatched fifteenth seeds, Lisa Raymond
(USA) and D. Hantuchova of Slovakia
playing the third seeds, Russians E. Makarova and E. Vesnina. Something made us
leave that match in the second set (which Raymond and Hantuchova did go on to
take) and it must have been luck, because outside the arena, two ladies who
were leaving offered us their seats in two different sections in Rod Laver
Arena! So off we went in the middle of the second set of the men’s singles,
Rafael Nadal vs. Kei Nishikori. I don’t know how it looked on TV but it was
anything but your typical straight-sets victory. It took a tiebreak for Nadal
to win the first set, then the second set went to 7-5. In the third set
Nishikori looked to break Nadal in the third game, then in the fifth, finally
did so in the seventh, had a chance to serve for the set, then a few moments
later served to stay in the match instead! It then got even more interesting,
with each player challenging a crucial line call, and in both cases getting it
right. Nadal eventually came up with the third-set tiebreak but let me tell you
it was thrilling to watch in person.
I couldn’t leave my first ever Grand Slam without seeing
something I’d never before seen in person—mixed doubles. I think mixed doubles
are one of the neatest things in sports, but Toronto and Montreal alternate
between men and women at the Canadian open, and so they don’t have mixed
doubles. The dessert of our day at the Australian Open was Nestor again (paired
with Mladenovic of France) vs. Fyrstenberg again, paired with Raymond again!
Lisa Raymond is a longtime competitor and really works for her money on the
tour, but it was not her day. The Canadian and French prevailed but that was
okay, as we were only up for two sets at this point.
And only then did I find that the convenience of bathrooms
is completely canceled out in Melbourne by the inability to find a kitchen open
after 8:00 p.m. I’d heard Australians eat their evening meal early, but in six
weeks this was my first evidence. Even the Chinese restaurant in New South
Wales was open at 9:00. But here there’s a Grand Slam tennis tournament going
on, watched by millions around the globe, and although the night session had
only just started, there were no restaurants serving food. Not in Melbourne
Park, nor in the city. I don’t know, does New York shut its kitchens during the
U. S. Open? Seems there’s some money to be made here. Maybe what would in other
places be restaurant jobs go here to bathroom cleaners, so there’s no one left
to serve food. But yeah, a major city needs some more opening hours, Melbourne.
In the end we found a (relatively) cheap café serving what turned out to be
delicious—even the house red was nice.
It’s too bad because up to that point, I was liking
Melbourne better than Sydney (for the same reason I’m a Chicago person). It
looked like the most multicultural city in Australia. And the pedestrian layout
is so accommodating to people with disabilities that I felt at risk myself; “Walk”
signs beep with frantic noises for visually impaired people, sending me
panicking into the road, while the regular slopes in sidewalks for wheelchair
use presented a tripping hazard to the unsuspecting sightseer. I was reminded
of the Kurt Vonnegut short story “Harrison Bergeron.” If you haven’t read it,
do.
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