Pronunciation "mel bIN"

Sorry for the lack of updates! It’s been a busy month. Here’s what I’ve been up to:

For the first weekend in September, my friends and I went on a trip to Melbourne. We got there late Thursday night and were leaving EARLY Monday morning. We booked a room at a budget hotel in the city centre, but upon arrival, the manager informed us that we could only sleep 3 people in the room, and we had 4 people. We didn’t care about being cramped so we even tried sneaking the fourth person in, but alas there were no secret passageways. So we had to scramble all around the city trying to find another room. We found a hostel down the street so Kayla and Erin stayed there and Kate and I slept in the hotel room.

The next day, we took a free City Circle tram around the city centre to get a feel for Melbourne and see some of the sights. It was a really cute old tram and we enjoyed getting our bearings in a new city. Melbourne is a lot smaller than Sydney and is on a grid system, not Sydney’s messy, rugged, harbour system. After riding around on the tram for an hour, we got off and went shopping in Melbourne’s “funky” district. There were a lot of great little shops. I saw so much I wanted to buy I had to contain myself (something that took me a while to learn haha). A lot of the shops and cafes were in narrow alleyways, and it kind of looked like Diagon Alley. I found one alleyway that didn’t have any shops but was covered in graffiti art and hightops hanging from wires. I like a lot of street art but this was definitely one of the neatest things I’ve seen.

After shopping, we went to the observation deck on top of the Rialto Tower, where we saw all of the city and suburbs from way up high. It was beautiful and interesting to see the city from a different angle. It was also fun using the binoculars to creepily people-watch from the sky. You can see some serious close-ups of people on the street.

That night we tried our hand at the Crown Casino, which reminded me a lot of the Atlantis in the Bahamas. It’s a huge complex with a hotel, restaurants, food court, shops, cinema, and of course a massive casino. We went to dinner at one of the restaurants there and then made our way to the 1cent slots. I was pretty successful there (winning a whole dollar!) so I decided to move on to the big(ger) leagues: 2 cent machines. And there I won another 7 dollars! I WAS Lady Luck. Nothing could stop me. Getting bored of winning 40 cents here and there… I tried my hand at the $2 machines. And that is where my greed got the best of me. I lost it all… well, all $20 I had decided to gamble with. But at least it was a fun experience right? (At least that’s what my Grandma would say… I must have more of her in me than I thought.)

In the morning, we went to brunch in Federation Square. While eating, we kept seeing people in AFL (Australian Football League – a form of rugby) shirts and uniforms. When we asked someone, we found out there was a semifinal game that day between the Cats and the Bulldogs. We ran (well told a cabbie to speed) to the stadium and managed to score tickets! It had been a goal of ours to go to a sports game and luckily we managed to stumble across a big game. It was at the famous Melbourne Cricket Grounds, which holds 100,000 people! Insane. The game was really fun. AFL is such a ridiculous sport. There are so many people on the field and it literally looks like complete chaos. Medics and waterboys would run onto the field to talk to players DURING play. And when a team scored, giant (and I mean massive!) pom poms were swung over the wall by the endzone. We went into the game without any loyalties, but decided to cheer for the Cats (especially after they started winning) and they ended up being the victors! It was very exciting. We worked up an appetite with all our cheering, so we headed to the waterfront. It was beautiful there, with the city of Melbourne lit up behind it and really interesting statutes and fountains lining the boardwalk. Unfortunately, the restaurants were too expensive there so we went back to the city centre where we picked up some handrolls (sushi but in the shape of a wrap). Best handroll ever = sweet chili tuna with avocado.

Sunday we had booked a tour of the Great Ocean Road, one of the most beautiful coasts in the world. It was a whole day tour, starting in Melbourne and stopping at a bunch of coastal towns and Kodak moments. At one stop we got to see wild koalas and bright, colorful birds. I wanted to feed the birds (it was allowed, I promise!) so I took some bread from my Subway sandwich and held the crumbs out in my hand. Two birds landed on my arm, smelled the food, and then flew away. I guess they aren’t fans of Southwest Chipotle. Determined to feed these birds, I picked up some real bird food that other people had dropped on the ground and after chasing the birds around, holding my hand out, they finally ate out of my hand! That’s right, I had big, scary birds with claws on my hands and arms, eating out of my palm.

The best part of the day was seeing the Twelve Apostles. They are these incredible rock formations that are scattered in the ocean randomly. They are majestic and it’s baffling how they were formed. Unfortunately, there aren’t twelve of them anymore. A couple of them have crumbled into the ocean and are lost forever. Another beautiful stop was at the London Bridge, which is this really interesting formation that used to be a rock bridge until it crumbled. Although you can’t cross over to the formation, it still is really amazing. It was a long day but definitely one of the better ones in Australia. We saw a lot of natural beauty and on the drive home, a kangaroo and its baby hopped across the street right in front of our bus!

When we got back to Melbourne, we went to dinner at the food court in the Crown Complex. Our flight wasn’t until the next morning at 6a.m. so we decided to see Inglorious Basterds at the cinema in the complex before heading to the airport. The movie was great and afterwards we took a cab to the airport where we slept on the floor for a few hours until it was time to board the plane. That was an interesting experience. There were some others sleeping in the corners of the airport, and one old man who was wandering around, looking for beer, and videotaping everything. Strange.

The trip was awesome – I’m so glad we were able to get to Melbourne for the weekend. I liked Melbourne, but I like Sydney more so I was happy to get back and start celebrating my birthday week!