Currency Confusion and Tram Assassins

Sorry I haven't been updating about my time in Melbourne much. I've been here a month now and I'm finally settled enough that I'm able to relax and reflect on my time here. And so I present to you some stories about my early days in Australia.


Australian currency is similar to Canadian currency in the breakdown of bills, and to some extent the coins. They have $5, $10, $20, $50, and $100 bills and they have $2 and $1 coin. But they also have 50 cents, 20 cents, 10 cents, and 5 cents. Apparently the metal some of the coins are made from is worth more than the coin itself, so I'm thinking of doing some metal melting. They don't have 1 cents here and the stores round your purchase total off (it’s actually a really handy way of doing things, they do this in Holland too.)

But there are some funny differences between the money here and the money back home. The coin, for instance, is very different in shape and size. The bills are where I’ve had the most difficulty. When I first arrived in Australia I exchanged my Canadian cash to Australian dollars, and it worked out to about $88. So I was very confused when I was handed back a bunch of red bills. Here $5 is purple, $10 is blue, $20 is red, $50 is yellow, and $100 is green. It’s taken a bit of getting used to.

Tram Karma
In Melbourne there are 3 ways to get around the city via public transport: by train, by tram, or by bus. The tram is generally the most convenient and most used mode of transportation, especially for travelling around the Central Business District (CBD, or, downtown). I am fortunate enough to be living close to a tram stop and a train station, so I have my options for getting around. The tram line that I’m near though is my best bet because it stops just a couple of blocks from my campus.

Now, I seem to have developed a bit of bad tram karma and I don’t know exactly what brought this on (the bad bank karma I can understand). You see, whenever I’m on the tram or planning to be on the tram there’s an increased chance that something will happen in relation to the tram. In my first 3 weeks here, I have been on trams where tickets were checked more than most people probably encounter in a year. Needless to say, I’m not hopping the tram! But, that’s just the light side of my bad luck spell (and it's more bad luck for the other people on the tram, because frequently someone gets a ticket, or, escorted off the tram).

In my first week I was on a tram that hit a car. Now, the trams are the reason why I don’t think I will be driving in Melbourne any time soon, if ever. They go down the middle of the road and they have the right of way. Their presence has inspired some unique traffic rules, like, the hook turn. If you’ve ever felt nervous making a left turn at a busy intersection, multiply that by a hundred and that’s a hook turn. When a tram hits a car it is almost without question the car’s fault, as it was in the case I witnessed. The car was pretty smashed up. The tram was fine.

But even that is pretty pedestrian compared to my next story! I was on my way back to my hotel after wandering around in the city, minding my own business, listening to my music, when suddenly a bunch of people at the front of the tram started shouting “Stop the tram! Stop the tram!” and the tram came to a screeching halt. I thought “oh, maybe we hit a puppy this time” but no, we hadn’t hit anything. Now, since I didn’t actually see what happened I don’t know how this all got started, but according to the police witnesses a fight broke out between 2 men, an older one and a younger one, at the front of the tram. Apparently the fight had something to do with someone being drunk and someone sitting in priority seating, but all the possible combinations of who was who could fit with the story so I can’t get into specifics.

What I saw, shortly after the tram stopped, was the 2 men in question running up the street while the younger man attempted to punch the older man. He did manage to get some hits in before the older man got away (rumour has it he hopped in a passing cab). A couple of other guys from the tram were trying to separate/restrain the younger guy, but to little avail. Our tram, for its part, kept going after the guys had ran off. But, the younger guy seemed to have gotten it in his head that he wanted back on the tram and came chasing after it. And that’s when things got really interesting.

He ran up to the tram, which was now stopped at Separation Street (a place forever etched in my mind as having a yellow building and a waxing parlour offering a discount on brazillians) and the people at the front yelled “Don’t open the doors! Don’t open the doors!” And the dutiful tram driver did not open the doors. Well! Our young man with the fiery rage burning in his eyes was having none of that! He started screaming and cursing at the tram driver to open the doors.

He stood in front of the tram so that it couldn’t move. He came back to the middle doors, which I happened to be sitting beside, and started shaking them with all his might, still yelling and cursing at the driver to let him on the tram. We had a would-be hero on the tram who came and stood in the door way, ready to fend off the beast should he succeed in opening the doors. The angry guy then started shouting at our would-be hero, who happened to be black, to get out of his country and go back where he came from. Which was ironic because our aggressor was clearly of immigrant decent himself.

Eventually he tired of shaking the doors and this time he went over to a garbage bin and pulled out a broken umbrella, which he used to start bashing on the drivers windows. He did, in fact, succeed in smashing one of the windows. Of course, by this time the police had been called and he gained enough sense to flee the crime scene, though it didn’t take terribly long for the cops to find and arrest him. The police came, took statements from the passengers sitting up front, we all had to get off the tram so it could go to the depot for repairs (which, incidentally, is not too far from my new place). Normally having to get off a tram and onto another one would be a huge pain, but by this point there were about 8 more trams stuck behind us.

Let’s just say I’m glad to not have to take that tram route anymore. The biggest problem I seem to have with my new tram line is delays. I can handle delays.