I miss you Melbourne

I was in Melbourne for a very quick trip for my friend's wedding. 

I arrived just in time to watch an AFL game, so I arranged to go with some other friends.  Combined with a few beers and a chicken parma, it was a good way to spend the first night back in Australia.

The next day started as terribly as it possibly could.

I woke up and looked at the clock.  I was very late.  It was less than an hour before the wedding.  Somehow, the wake up call hadn't been made.  I scrambled to get ready.  Fast show.  Quickly dressed.  I ran downstairs and demanded from the front to desk to know what had happened.  They assured me that a wake up call had been made to my room and that a lady had answered.  Well clearly they had called the wrong room given I was in the room by myself.

I ran out the door without acknowledging them further.  I flagged the first taxi I could see and begged the driver to take me to the address I showed him as quickly as possible.  As he drove, I explained my situation, and he said he would do his best.  As we got close to the house, I had prepared the money owing and pressed it into the driver's hands as I jumped out the door and ran towards what I hoped to be the right house.  A knock and a ring of the bell yielded no results.  I ran to the side, I could hear that the wedding had started.  I went back to the front door and knocked again.  Mercifully, someone came and opened the door with a smile.  I apologised as profusely as I could and made my way to the garden at the back.  I was just in time.  I could not have been any later.  I had missed all of the speeches.  I had missed the entrance.  I had missed almost all of it.  Yet somehow, I was there for the most important part as the bride and groom were about to get married.

The part of the wedding I saw seemed great.  The bride and the groom were happy.  There were lots of smiles and there was lots of clapping.  After the ceremony, we all went to another house where there was a traditional Vietnamese ceremony.  With that finished, the food began.  First it was the "family" food at the home after the Vietnamese ceremony.  Platter upon platter of rice, noodles and snacks were brought out, all of it delicious.  After this, we were told that the "real" reception would be starting.  Everyone made their way back into the city to the restaurant where we had a full Chinese banquet waiting for us.  Once that dinner was all finished, the party continued at a nearby rooftop bar.  I was exhausted, but this was a party that was worth fighting the sleepiness for.

I woke up the next day very late and with a sore head.  It had all been worth it though.

With only a day left before heading back to Hong Kong, I thought some calmer activities were needed.  I saw on the map that the National Gallery of Victoria was close by.  I didn't think I had ever been, even as a kid living in Melbourne, so I set out to explore. 

There were a variety of temporary exhibitions on show, the cost of entry to each being surprisingly high.  A very large exhibition with some installations for MC Escher and also a separate exhibition for Julian Opie.  It was all fine and a good way to spend the afternoon, but given my sore head I was in a sufficiently welcoming mood to consider this art.

My trip to Melbourne had been short.  Most of my trips back to Australia seem short these days.  There wasn't enough leave and the distance of the travel always made it tough.  I missed Melbourne.  Being here made me think back to my childhood.  I remembered leaving when I was young and being devasted.  I remembered the very last day in Melbourne before we drove to Canberra, I was feeling sick and my parents took me to the doctor.  I hoped that my illness would somehow mean the move would be cancelled or delayed, but of course that wasn't to be the case.  The doctor was kind, he talked to me about how he had moved to Melbourne and how he now considered it to be his home.  I had promised myself that I would move back to Melbourne, that when I was old enough I would go back home to Melbourne.  Over the years, I still had that idea in my mind and heart, that I would "return".  It never did quite happen.  The trips back to Melbourne became more infrequent and that pull slowly faded.  After all these years, I still considered myself a Victorian, though now I wasn't even living in Australia anymore.  

That one day in September

I write about Australian football a lot on my blog.  It's something very special to me.  My one truly tangible link to my childhood.  I still remember very clearly moving away from Melbourne as a child.  It was a devastating experience for me that I didn't get over for a long time.  I left my friends and the places that I loved and I found myself in Canberra, an unfamiliar city that I disliked intensely.  The people were unfriendly and I went from being in comfortable surroundings into some pretty unhappy situations.  Maintaining my "Victorian" roots was important for me and my continued support of Australian football whilst living in rugby league territory was a badge of that for me.  Things were different when I was younger as well.  Canberra was well and truly foreign ground for Australian football and there was no where near the level of interest in the sport there as there is today.  

Even today, the sport still creates a level of emotion for me that I don't experience anywhere else.

An important part of following Australian football has been supporting the Hawthorn Hawks football club.  They were the team closest to where I grew up.  This wasn't an instance of merely supporting some faraway sporting franchise because I liked a player or a mascot.  No, for me this was an old fashioned approach to sports that is often absent in the increasingly internationalised area of sporting interesting. They were my home town team.  

So in the middle of year, I found out that my brother would be moving to the UK.  I wanted to arrange a nice farewell gift for him, and so I organised for us to go and watch the Grand Final together.  At the time of organising, we both of course, had no idea who would be playing in this final game of the season.

As the season progressed and the teams slowly made their way through the finals, we became increasingly excited.  The Hawks were doing well.  They were doing very well.  When the siren sounded for the end of the preliminary final, all our hopes had come true as the Hawks had made the Grand Final!  I had been excited enough about attending a Grand Final, and so being able to attend a Grand Final with my own team playing was even more incredible.

On the other side of the game were the Sydney Swans.  I don't like the Sydney Swans.  Living in Sydney makes me dislike them even more.

I was hopeful of a win, but the Sydney Swans were a good team.  There were no guarantees, so I went into the game with the mindset that I was going to try and just enjoy the moment.  I was going to enjoy the experience of being able to see my own team play in the Grand Final and that whatever the result, I would be appreciative for that.

Before the bounce, the noise of the crowd lifted to a level I had never experienced before.  It was loud like nothing I had heard and yet the moment the countdown hit zero for the bounce itself, the crowd suddenly went quiet.

All of my fears and worries turned out to be for nothing as well.  By the end of the fist quarter, the Hawks stamped their authority.  The Swans were outfought and outhunted by a Hawks team that seemed intent on hurting their opponent.  As the game progressed, the gap between the two teams widened and the Hawks took complete control of the game.

I cheered and celebrated every goal and yet even in such a moment, I couldn't let myself get away too quickly with thoughts of victory.  Lingering in the back of my mind was still the thought that there could always be a comeback, there could always be a sudden change which would snatch victory from the Hawks.  It wasn't until the last quarter that I truly accepted that it was happening and the Hawks would indeed win.  As the crowd erupted in round after round of the Hawthorn club song, it was hard to think that anything other than a victory had been achieved.

It really was the best day ever.