Fitzroy

Saturday

James had his last footy game today and i opted to go watch since it was a beautiful day out. The game was being held in Fitzroy which is an outer suburb of Melbourne. This area was very artsy and eclectic. Over the rooftops you can see downtown Melbourne skyscrapers which is a pretty cool sight!

This is the little house that we were parked next to. I thought it was absolutely adoreable!

I took a walk down Brunswick St which is "THE" street to be on in Fitzroy. That's where you will find all the shops, cafes, restaurants, art galleries, etc.
Every once in a while you also stumble upon houses such as these.


Side Streets look like this

Notice the graffiti on the house on the right. Even though it's nice graffiti i can't get used to it. Melbourne has a lot of restoring to do to their buildings. Many originals have been stuccoed and then painted and there is no method to the madness. If a shop owner wants a purple facade, even though their neighbor may have a red facade, it doesn't matter. They can do whatever they like. Comparing that to what it's like in the states where towns have a say in what your buildings exterior looks like, i now understand why in the Hamptons CVS and McDonalds don't look like they do everywhere else in the States. Melbourne would look a lot more authentic if there was some sort of ordinance people had to follow. And don't get me wrong, more and more people are investing in the restoration but this country is definitely still about 10 years behind the states.

Another cute house on Brunswick St. This one had a little fountain in the courtyard.

Why Yellow??
Cute little entry way.
Two restored houses. Notice the victorian look?
Flowers for Sale along Brunswick St.

So this by far is my favorite area that i have seen yet. If i took all my NYC friends and placed them into Australia, i guarantee they would all be living in Fitzroy. To give you a sense of the people and area it was very much a combination of the Village and lower East Side. Very eclectic. I walked past a few musicians including a group of men singing and a group of women singing. Sorta like caroling at christmas, except they were stationary and not singing christmas songs. Pretty interesting i thought. There are also a lot of secondhand and antique shops in the area which i have found are very fun to go into. Especially the antique shops because they have a lot of really cool antiques that you dont really find in the states. I dont know if i mentioned it or not, but in Sassafras (a few posts back) i found a US Flag that had been flying during the Pearl Harbour Attack. Pretty random dont you think?

After James' game we went and grabbed some lunch at a place called "Spudbar". http://www.spudbar.com.au/ This is a baked potato bar where you get a potato and then you can put on whatever toppings you want. They had way too many choices for me and i went with the traditional butter, sourcream, bacon bits....but other choices were carrot, olives, avocado, lentils...too many to list so check out the website above. The guy who served us was a swiss guy so he and i broke out in Swiss german which was pretty random.