From Hollow Halls to Hallowed Halls

I am not well again. Yup, I guess I must have picked up germy jims from one of the uncouth hostelites. I brought my own bowl, plate and cup with me because as anyone who knows me even a smidgeon understands, I like to eat off sunny, happy pottery. So it wasn't the hostel kitchen utensils that did it. It could have been the Asian shower hoiker but my long standing camping tip is to wear jandals in the bathroom to avoid foot fungus so I think I was safe from his gobs down the plughole. There is a chance that is was any number of unprotected cougher or sniffer in the public library or on a tram I suppose. They seem to have some disgusting personal habits in this city and if I spend any length of time sitting next to one I end up battling the desire to hand them a tissue.

I suspect though that it was most likely the otherwise quite lovely Annette, my Danish roomy as she was coming down with the sneezes when she left for further adventures in Darwin. Whoever the culprit was, the result is that I have another cold and am not too happy about it. My normal sickly reaction is to wander around in a daze of indecision and that is exactly what I have done today. My head is dulled by fug but the rest of me is tense aching muscles and throbbing skull. I find that I have less tolerance for the world when I have a cold, in particular the sound of high pitched Asian yabbering, whining, grizzling children and loud machinery. So I guess that a food hall was probably not the place I should have chosen to lunch today then but I went there for an ATM and just didn't have the energy to go anywhere else.

Food halls are a universal black hole for flavour and nutrition but unsurprisingly a buzzing hive of diners addicted to additives and primary colours. The QV Centre food hall is big and there are the usual candidates, KFC, kebabs, sushi, curries, noodles. I hate how when faced with so many choices, the longest queue is always at KFC or McDonalds but at least here there is more variety due to an increased Asian population. This food hall is close to the central RMIT campus so the late lunchers in here, as I realise it is three o'clock and I'm not yet hungry, are mostly students.

I look around for the most unusual pick of eateries and there is something called Puffy which looks like a crumbed, fried, ice cream filled profiterole that I'm not willing to even contemplate trying, as it is just too junky for words. There is Breadtop, a Chinese bakery and it is here that I select a cheese roll. Now I actually like Chinese bakeries for the occasional different junk fix. I discovered them when I worked at Northcote Library and I quite like the taro or green tea dense sponge rolls filled with imitation cream. So Breadtop is not so scary. It is however tough to ensure that I choose something vegetarian among the hairy pork floss and sausage choices. My cheese roll is pretty safe, Hong Kong style sweet bread filled with cheese spread and topped with melted processed cheese single. I also choose something called a banana in pyjama because it comes in a canary yellow banana shaped container that I think could be useful later for – carrying bananas without bruising them. There's nothing worse than a bruised banana in the bottom of your bag. I ask the girl at the counter what a banana in pyjama is because you can never tell what is inside Chinese bread and the instructions are not in a language I can read.

“A banana,” she replies as if it's obvious and I raise an eyebrow.

“Really? A real banana?”

She repeats herself slowly as if she thinks I am having difficulty understanding her Ingrish.

Okay then, I'll have that. What it turns out to be is banana shaped dense sponge, what a surprise. Inside is cream, real cream and that is a surprise, mixed with custard. So far so good but I'm not finding any banana and I'm half way through. Oh, there it is, a small slice in the middle. Fruit must be really expensive in China because they always skimp on it. But I'm not complaining because I now have me a nifty canary yellow, fake banana container. Oh I'm so easily amused.

As I'm doing the whole Chinese lunch thing, my drink is a taro milk tea. What this is is a purplish milk drink served over ice in a sealed transparent cup with a thick straw. The thick rather than thin straw is so you can suck up without it getting stuck, the black balls of gelatine called pearls that go in milk teas. It's and odd sensation and probably causes choking in small children but it amuses me as much as my canary yellow banana pyjama so I'm a happy enough food haller.

The other excursion I managed today was a tour around the Victorian Parliament. They do it pretty much like we do but with two houses debating to slow the process down even more. The tour was recommended to me by one of my Dutch hostel buddies who had felt that it was very cool that the Victorian Government put on free scones for visitors. It turns out that they had inadvertently eaten the member's morning tea because yes there were plates of scones, jam and cream set out when we arrived but we were not invited to join them. I had thought when the Dutch folk were telling me that it was unusually hospitable.

Building of the grandiose Neo-Classical Parliament House was begun in 1856 with gold strike funds and took 74 years to complete. The highlight of the tour was the very sexy Parliament Library, that made me think of the sort of library you would find in a gentleman's club frequented by Sherlock Holmes. Tiers of shelves display colour-coded leather bound volumes accessed by curved staircases and wooden ladders. Leather chairs, carved tables, an original crystal chandelier from the Council Chamber, fireplace grates built into the pillars to heat the echoing spaces in the winter. I'm in love. There are functional public libraries and then there is this heavenly library and there is no comparison. When I build a house next I want it to have a library like this one. Forget the Taj Mahal inspired Civic Theatre brother architect, I want you to design me one of these.