Fords Down Under

Saturday was one of the greatest days I’ve spent in Melbourne. After a long night out celebrating two friends’ birthdays, I slept in. After a restful night, my friends and I went downtown to Melbourne Central where we were to meet a tour. But not any kind of tour: a chocoholic tour of Melbourne.

The chocolate tour was lead by a woman who reminded us of Mary Poppins because she was holding an open umbrella the whole time (it wasn’t raining) that had lots of chocolates on it and had a flower decorated bag from which she kept pulling out chocolates for us.

Her name was Isabel. Isabel would bring us from chocolate shop to chocolate shop, telling us about their history, the way they made their chocolate and most importantly she would bring out freshly made chocolates from the store. She must have gotten a liking to us because any left over she would give to us. Also the store owners and sometimes the chef themselves would tell us about what we were eating, in which order to eat it and how to eat it. This tour made me feel like I was touring Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. We ended the tour at a café where we were served freshly baked chocolate muffins and any drink of our choice. I usually have a great tolerance for chocolate intake but I’m pretty sure I had reached my limit.

We then went to the city museum for an exhibit on myths of Melbourne which was really weird. We also took a look at the exhibits on the history of Melbourne, at the gold vaults used during the Gold Rush and at the Governor’s attendant’s home and lifestyle. The hallways of the museum were also filled with political cartoons which were explained for people like us who know nothing about Australian politics. We learned so much! After that, we strolled through the Fitzroy Gardens where we saw twelve brides with their party. It was beautiful out and between the beautiful flora and the brides I felt like I was in the middle of a photo shoot.

We then went to the Docklands which is the area along the Yarra River lined with fancy restaurants, beautiful yachts and a modern art sculpture competition. After some time by the water, we went back inland on Lygon St which is always busy because it is packed with stores, restaurants and gelato shops. We ate dinner at a Lebanese restaurant. The food was delicious and they provided customers with entertainment. There was a belly dancer with long black hair in a blue outfit decorated with white beads that was going from table to table. We had been there for about twenty minutes when the belly dancer comes over to our table for the third time but this time she asked me to dance with her. I tried talking my way out of it but she would not take no for an answer. So I started belly dancing with her, following her instructions. People started clapping to the beat of the music while we were dancing. It was so much fun! The food was delicious and filling but we still had room for gelato as always. I got Baccio (hazelnut and chocolate) and Arabic coffee but there are innumerable flavors: nutella, passion fruit, lychee, tiramisu, honeycomb, nougat, anything you could think of they had. We then headed home where we spent the rest of the night hanging out and talking.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 12th, 2008 at 1:23 am by Theonie and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.