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Collected Item: “First Day Free”

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First Day Free

What sort of object is this: text story, photograph, video, audio interview, screenshot, drawing, meme, etc.?

Photograph of Café Visitors in Yarraville, Australia

Tell us a story; share your experience. Describe what the object or story you've uploaded says about the pandemic, and/or why what you've submitted is important to you.

HIST30060. The first day out of the second lockdown in Melbourne, Australia, I got invited to a picnic with friends from high school. We went to a park that was local to everyone and no one at the same time, having been going there for parties and gatherings for the past six years. This photo is of a café local to Yarraville in the western suburbs of Melbourne, Alfa Bakehouse backs right out onto the train station where I get off and the only reason I went passed it was to check if a froyo place I loved had yet reopened with other retail and hospitality businesses. To see this many people together was both exhilarating and uncomfortable at the same time. Knowing that freedom was finally in our grasp but the overlying fear that we could easily return to lockdown if we are not careful. I made my way to my friends shortly after this picture was taken and talked and ate for hours, even getting a sun burn, and it reminded me how all that time in lockdown was worth it if people can see one another again and enjoy their time together.

Use one-word hashtags (separated by commas) to describe your story. For example: Where did it originate? How does this object make you feel? How does this object relate to the pandemic?

#Victoria, #Lockdown, #Australia, #Freedom, #Fear, #Excitement, #Friends,

Who originally created this object? (If you created this object, such as photo, then put "self" here.)

Meg Bate

Give this story a date.

2020-10-28
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