First Big City -- Melbourne

Who's ready for part two of the mid semester break adventure?! Yah I knew you'd be anxiously waiting for the rest of the adventure.

We left Surfers at the fantastic hour of 4:30 to catch our 6 AM flight. We left the apartment clean and had to wheel our stole shopping trolley to the dumpster...where surprisingly we found a couple others and didn't feel so bad leaving ours there. We landed in Melbourne and headed to Jo's house. She is a girl from college who graciously let us stay in her house, which is GORGEOUS. It is an old Victorian house, I might even call it a mansion it was so massive. It had its own chapel in the basement, a full garden with fountain in the backyard, and a tower in the top. It was just an absolutely beautiful house and I of course took heaps of pictures ofi t. They will be posted shortly. Jo lives in one of the suburbs of Melbourne called Hawthrone and so we spent the afternoon exploring that shops and areas by her house. I helped cook dinner with Jo, we made hamburgers and chips (french fries for those who still get confused). I also baked some chocolate chip cookies which was also lots of fun. I miss having a full kitchen and being able to bake cookies or brownies whenever I want like at W&M. We had a low key evening at Jo's just lounging around her house, with her Spoodle dog (a cockerspaniel and poodle mix) named Mac. We watched Dirty Dancing and then went to bed.

The next day we woke up and had brekky and Jen actually tried VEGEMITE!! She said it tasted awful. I have yet to try it, but I'm pretty sure I won't do it until the last day because it just sounds awful. We took a train into the city and went to the Queen Victoria Market which was awesome! It had an entire section of fresh fruits, veggies, meats, cheeses, fish, bread, just everything food wise you could imagine. It also had a huge variety of souvineors and clothing and Australia everything. We had a fresh deli lunch after our shopping experience and then went to see the War Memorial. It was in honor of all the Australians who fought in the wars. It has a gorgeous view of the city, thus the reason we went, and got to take heaps of good photos. Afterwards we took a train to another suburb of Melbourne called St. Kilda where Anna lives. I want to move here. It is right on the beach and is this trendy, new age, laid back town. It was just awesome. Anna's house was amazing as well. Her's was really modern with the largest, most high tech kitchen I've ever seen. Which I found out was because her mum is a chef, as in has her own TV show!! I ate lamb, CHOPPED LIVER, dahl, Pakistan cuisine, EGGPLANT and probably some very amazing wine. All the food was incredible. For dessert we had ice cream and hand melted chocolate, which we later decided to make a fondu thing and dipped fruit and bread it. We were so full and happy!! Anna's family reminded me all of mine, lots of talking and eating and all around a wonderful evening. It was so nice to spend time with family, even if it wasn't my own. After dinner we headed back to Jo's for the night and decided not to go out in the town because we were going to have an early start the next day.

Our last day in Melbourne we woke up very early to head into the city and did more touristy things. We saw Flinders Street Station, an Aboriginal Art Museum and went along South Bank, which is a bunch of cafes / coffee shops along a river. Then my friend from home, Jon Garon, who is doing his study aboard in Melbourne meet up with me. I went back to his residential college, Newman, and met some of his friends, toured the place and had lunch there. Then we explored Carlton, another awesome part of Melbourne, which is notorious for great Italian food and subsequently Italian mobsters. Woo! Jon and I had a little afternoon treat at a chocolate bar which was a cafe where everything was made of chocolate....can you say heaven?! It was so delicious. We had chocolate covered fruit, cookies, chocolate cake, chocolate mousse and ice cream. As well as hot chocolate and an ice chocolate drink. Needless to say after we ate all this, we wanted to vomit. Haha! It was so good to see Jon though, it was nice to spend some time with him and get away from the girls for a bit (haha love you girls!!) I headed back to Jo's house and we made pasta for dinner and watched some TV before bed. Our trip along the Great Ocean Road started the next day and we had to be up at 5 AM. WOO for early starts!

YAY! Only one more part left!! I have most of the pictures up and I'm just writing comments on them so you all can know what they are. My goal is to have them finished tonight before we head off to watch Debating. YAY NICK! DEBATING! Haha it should be pretty funny apparently. Miss you all!