Day 69: State Library of Victoria and Melbourne University

Melbourne: a warmer, more British Seattle. At least that's the impression I got after walking around part of Melbourne CBD, visiting the state library and Australia's most highly rated university.

After hunting down another plug type converter (my "universal" converter I bought in Malaysia wasn't so universal after all), I plunked myself down in the first floor reading room of the State Library of Victoria for a chargefest and to catch up on my blog.

An aerial view of the first floor reading room

The library has 6 floors accessible to the public. One of my favorite parts of the library was its front courtyard. Being a Saturday, there were a lot of people lounging on the grass, meeting up with friends, or playing with the giant chess sets in front of the library!

The steps leading to the State Library of Victoria

A crowd gathers around a game of chess in front of the library

I don't know what this is, but I like it

From the library I walked across the street to a mall/supermarket/metro station combo to pick up PBJ sandwich supplies to save myself money on breakfast and snacks. 

Overlooking the streets of Melbourne

I thought having a metro station within a mall and supermarket was brilliant, and would love to see something like this in Seattle. After getting my supplies (My loaf of bread was only 1 USD, can you believe that?), I hopped on a tram towards the nearby University of Melbourne (informally Melbourne University).

For having near the exact same enrollment as University of Washington, the main campus is considerably more walkable than UW. There were few students on campus, except for a graduate event going on in UM's quad. 

"unimelb", an even more informal name for University of Melbourne

Buildings overlook a cricket field

From the other side of the cricket field you can see Melbourne CBD

Residential units within Queen's College, an academic residential community

The day's last rays of sun leak through a church window

One of the things I like about Melbourne's public transportation is the "Free Tram Area" which allows anyone to ride any tram for free as long as their trip resides exclusively within the downtown area. I imagine this helps decrease downtown traffic and increase consumer mobility so that shoppers don't feel they need to bring their car with them downtown. King Country Metro I hope you're paying attention!