Well I left home & headed for St Kilda today, to go down to the pier & take a look around Acland St. Instead I ended up lost. I thought I’d take a short cut & ended up in Elwood heading towards Elsternwick. Now I’m usually pretty good with directions & have an inbuilt compass of sorts - but there is something about the area around St Kilda that always puts me way off course. It’s like the Bermuda triangle of Melbourne. It starts when I hit Balaclava train station & just gets worse from there, I can’t seem to determine my north from my south – it’s almost surreal.
When we first moved to Melbourne we were considering living in St Kilda because it was near where we both worked but I’m glad we didn’t find a place there. As a suburb it has now become quite trendy but it has a really seedy past & unfortunately you can still sense it. I don’t know why but I never quite feel safe in St Kilda, even in broad daylight.
I used to work as a community nurse around St Kilda/Albert Park & ran into some very interesting characters. I remember once going into a pharmacy on the corner of Fitzroy & Grey to pick up some meds for a patient. I started chatting with the pharmacist & he asked “how do you like the local flora & fauna?” to which he gestured towards a scantily clad woman sitting outside on a bench. She had her legs spread eagled & was wiping herself – she had no underwear on; no doubt she was one of the local prostitutes. I had never seen such a thing before – I remember feeling physically ill. I soon came to know that Grey Street was synonymous with prostitution & to avoid the area after dark. There are also the housing commission towers in the area, the scale of which I’d never seen before – some 20 storeys high. Its strange cause there are a lot of wealthy people in the area too – it’s like a melting pot.
Yet another time I was attending a get together in St Kilda with some girls from work – I was walking down Carlisle St & a guy came out of nowhere on a pushbike & knocked me over. With my hands & knees all bloodied I rang & waited for a cab to take me back home – I didn’t make it to the party.
I never even got to see the ocean today; I was so looking forward to it. The funny thing is that when I got home & looked on Google maps I was actually only a couple of blocks off hitting the waterfront. A somewhat befitting metaphor for my life at times. What made me finally turn around was I’d come to a park & a magpie gave me two warning swoops & I guessed that by the third strike I was out & that she’d hit me. So I didn’t get to the pier today & I didn’t get to see the devilish clown face of Luna Park or the Palais theatre.
When we first moved to Melbourne we were considering living in St Kilda because it was near where we both worked but I’m glad we didn’t find a place there. As a suburb it has now become quite trendy but it has a really seedy past & unfortunately you can still sense it. I don’t know why but I never quite feel safe in St Kilda, even in broad daylight.
I used to work as a community nurse around St Kilda/Albert Park & ran into some very interesting characters. I remember once going into a pharmacy on the corner of Fitzroy & Grey to pick up some meds for a patient. I started chatting with the pharmacist & he asked “how do you like the local flora & fauna?” to which he gestured towards a scantily clad woman sitting outside on a bench. She had her legs spread eagled & was wiping herself – she had no underwear on; no doubt she was one of the local prostitutes. I had never seen such a thing before – I remember feeling physically ill. I soon came to know that Grey Street was synonymous with prostitution & to avoid the area after dark. There are also the housing commission towers in the area, the scale of which I’d never seen before – some 20 storeys high. Its strange cause there are a lot of wealthy people in the area too – it’s like a melting pot.
Yet another time I was attending a get together in St Kilda with some girls from work – I was walking down Carlisle St & a guy came out of nowhere on a pushbike & knocked me over. With my hands & knees all bloodied I rang & waited for a cab to take me back home – I didn’t make it to the party.
I never even got to see the ocean today; I was so looking forward to it. The funny thing is that when I got home & looked on Google maps I was actually only a couple of blocks off hitting the waterfront. A somewhat befitting metaphor for my life at times. What made me finally turn around was I’d come to a park & a magpie gave me two warning swoops & I guessed that by the third strike I was out & that she’d hit me. So I didn’t get to the pier today & I didn’t get to see the devilish clown face of Luna Park or the Palais theatre.
I think I’ll give up on St Kilda – some people love it but some force seems to always drive me away. I think I’ll stay in familiar territory – South Yarra (home) & Caulfield (work), call me a snob cause I probably am one.
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