Today let’s assemble the last few vignettes of pictures of our three-week long home-exchange in the CBD, the central business district of Melbourne, VIC, before moving on to Sidney, NSW.

Indeed! The QV is a 4-level, partially open-air shopping center with restaurants, supermarket, cinema, internet cafe, pharmacy, yoga studio, and so forth.

One could find pretty much anything at the QV.

We passed by this house on the way to the QV and, sadly, this little fellow was at the window more often than not.

Front porch of an art gallery

That’s why we call it the Antipodes. As they go into fall and winter, we anticipate spring & summer!

Just down the block from us, the Cyndi Lauper hit musical “Kinky Boots” attracted big crowds every night. One day, I passed the theater when I noticed a cluster of people and cameras and such.

I pulled out my phone and took some pictures, too. Very quickly someone asked me politely to move the heck on. We’re filming for a TV program, she said. Apparently, I’m not suitable television material.

The views from our balconies were much more interesting, anyway!

We left our lofty eyrie a few time, I can assure you, roaming the city. For example, taking a shortcut through the Parliament Gardens and discovering the Nicholls’ Memorial.

At times, we looked

We experienced many contrasting vistas,

and explored both banks of the Yarra river as well.

Always looking for art, we stopped at the most disorganized art gallery, ever. There were neither curators nor sales persons in sight, just canvases standing, leaning or hanging. We had a good look around, even spoke to a manager on the phone, and left after 45 minutes or so. It’s a good thing that we don’t have excessively destructive habits. We could have vandalized very expensive Aboriginal art with abandon!

After a beer in the shade, we crossed a footbridge to the opposite bank and walked back to the tram station.

And speaking of indigenous art, we visited quite a number of galleries and fell in love with several paintings. My most favorite was a large Sand Dunes near-monochrome painting by Ms. Ann Price Petyarre [or Pitjarra] from Utopia, Northern Territory. Her plant totem is the bush yam and their seeds, which she likes to paint in tempo with ceremonial songs. Unfortunately, her incredible Sand Dunes painting was well and good outside our price range! There is not much sense in showing photos of Aboriginal paintings because not even professional shots for gallery or auction catalogs capture the true image. So I won’t even try! I took my miniature traveling Kachina doll* to meet some Australian indigenous artists, but unfortunately, non of the ladies had come to the studio that morning. Kachina got to sniff the paint, though and admired the unfinished paintings.

One day, I took my miniature traveling Kachina doll* to meet some Australian indigenous artists, but unfortunately, non of the ladies had come to the studio that morning. Kachina got to sniff the paint, though and admired the unfinished paintings.

The parallel to my last Melbourne photo is striking, in my opinion……

*My pocket-sized Kachina doll was made for me many years ago by my sister Diana, wood sculptress and digital artist, who was deeply inspired by the indigenous art of the Pueblo peoples of the American SW. She’s been traveling with me ever since.