Melbourne Weekend!

Get ready for a long one people cuz here it comes!

Thursday night we got on a bus to go to Melbourne around 9:30 pm. We drove straight through the night as it takes roughly 12 hours to get there. It was very hard sleeping on the bus (as you can imagine) for lack of space and a comfortable position.

We arrived in Melbourne around 9am, took a few minutes to get ready and eat breakfast, and headed off on a walking tour of the city. The city is pretty big, and fairly dirty though. There is a river that runs through the city and it was filthy, covered with garbage (or rubbish as they say here). It was cool though because they have random artwork all around the city. I will put some pictures of this up so you will see what I am talking about. Even the architecture of the buildings was really neat! So we walked around for awhile, checked out some random places and such. That night we just ate dinner at the hostel and chilled out, went to bed fairly early as we had to get up early.

Saturday morning we had to get up early to get going on the Great Ocean Road. It was beautiful! The road stays right along the ocean for a great portion of the time. We stopped off at a couple of different towns and beaches to stretch our legs and check out the view. The most famous one was Bell's Beach (which is arguably the most famous beach in the surfing community) and there were a lot of surfer's in the water. It was fun to get to watch them, they were good! We stopped along a patch of trees on the side of the road and did some koala searching. We found a couple different ones hanging out in the trees. It was wonderful to get the opportunity to see koalas in the wild, as I had only previously seen them in zoos! We later arrived at the 12 apostles. They are parts of the cliff that over time have been eroded away from the rest of the cliff and are just hanging out in the water independently. I'll put pictures up so you guys can better understand what I am talking about. They were really pretty, now I understand why the post cards are all so perfect! We hopped back on the bus and drove the couple hours back to Melbourne. We went out to dinner that night at a place called The Lounge, and the food was delicious! I had the biggest piece of chicken I have ever seen in my ENTIRE LIFE! It was out of control but wonderful!

Sunday we got to sleep in a bit and then got on a bus and went to a little town called St. Kilda. I guess it is the place to be on Sundays to just relax and hang out. It was fairly busy all around. There are a lot of little shops and cafes and such. I finally got my wish and got to have breakfast in a local cafe. And it was YUMMY!!! I had some delicious hot chocolate, and a croissant with ham and cheese. And potato wedges with sweet chili and sour cream. They are the big thing here and now I completely understand why... PHENOMINAL! We got back on the bus, went back into Melbourne, went to the Melbourne Cricket Grounds and watched a game of Aussie Rules Football! It was the Collingswood Magpies vs. the Sydney Swans. It was a cool game to watch, it was very interesting. They could kick it, throw it, run with it, pretty much do anything to get it around the field. Very fast paced, with possession changing a lot (like soccer almost). It was a fun game, but unfortunately the Swans got beat by a lot. Oh well! It was still a lot of fun to experience. Between the flags people flew, the amount of scarves I saw, the goal posts, and the accents, I very much felt like I was in Harry Potter! Crazy! I'll post pictures so you guys can see a bit of what I am talking about. So had a lot of fun there, footy (as they call it) was cool to watch because it is a big part of Australian culture. After the game, we boarded the bus and made the 12 hour trek back to Sydney.

We arrived around 5 am on Monday morning. Unfortunately it was dark and there wasn't much going on, but my friend Claudia and I decided to make the 20 minute walk home. I took a 2 hour nap before getting up for class! Man it was a rough class to stay awake through (especially because it is SOOOO boring) but I managed with a bit of help from some coffee :)

Not much happening this week, have a big assessment due on Friday so I have been working hard on that! I'll post pictures asap!

Val :)