Exploring

The last couple days have been full of exploring what the city of Melbourne has to offer. Tuesday my parents finally departed, albeit an hour later than scheduled with a delayed flight out of LA as well. I think they made it home after 23 hours. I stuck around the area that Derek and Jodie live in, Altona. After walking about 20 minutes I came to the Esplanade, the road that runs along the beach. At first it was mostly rocks and seaweed and since the tide was out, there were a lot of kids hunting for treasures left by the sea. I wandered along Altona beach until I reached the sandy part... it was littered with jellyfish and and some of them were huge! I've seen jellyfish in Mexico but they were nothing like these large, blue blobs of disgustingness. I wandered down Altona Pier and hung out on the beach for a while. Even though the sun is out, it's quite windy on the water so you don't realize that you're getting a sunburn because it's rather cool. I did manage to burn my back a bit... as I've already stated; the hardest part of vacationing alone is trying to put sunscreen lotion on your own back.

Wednesday, I took the train to Chapel Street and St. Kilda. Chapel Street consists of shopping, restaurants, more shopping, and more restaurants. There were some cool little sides streets with funky record shops but I found it very expensive. Apparently this is where the rich and famous go when they visit Melbourne. I tried to take a tram to St. Kilda... thought I would save my feet a bit for more walking. Needless to say, I don't have a great sense of direction to begin with and it's even worse on the other side of the world. I stopped at a tram station only to pull out my trustworthy map (yet again... it's starting to get dog ears) and realize I was headed in the opposite direction. So, I decided to walk. I stopped for lunch at a cafe called The Banff (yes, I was excited) and had a tomato and bocconcini pizza and a glass of shiraz for $10. Yum! Things to see in St. Kilda were: the St. Kilda pier (the end is a breakwater that is home to penguins but I didn't see any), Luna Park (roller coasters and a very cool entrance), and more shopping and restaurants. I question how they all stay in business but in a city of almost 4 million plus probably a million tourists at any given time, do I need to ask? We went to Lygon Street for dinner and the restaurant owners try to entice you by offering so many free things when you walk by. We settled on an italian place, Sel en Pepe, that gave us free bruschetta, no corkage, and our first drinks on the house.

Today was super fun! I ventured down to the Old Melbourne Gaol (it is pronounced jail). It started housing criminals in 1845 and there's been 135 people hanged there, including the infamous Ned Kelly. The police watchtower was actually in use until 1994. It was a very cool building full of information about the criminals that were housed there. It was amazing what people were imprisoned for back then. One guy was given solitary confinement for things like whistling in his cell too early in the morning and tapping on the wall. Children as young as 9 were put in jail for vagrancy! Afterwards, I took the free tourist shuttle to the Queen Victoria Market on the hunt for a meat pie. My growling stomach gave in before I could find one and I settled on a sandwich and a skinny flat white (non-fat cappuccino but better). I wandered for a couple hours, purchasing olives, prosciutto, and fresh mozzarella. I also sampled numerous wines at the little wine shop. Hey... they kept asking!

I met my brother at the Melbourne Aquarium for the afternoon and thank goodness we had a 2 for 1 coupon or it would have cost $65... ouch! They have a huge penguin display on over the summer (here... not in Canada). The aquarium was amazing! I fell in love with the seahorse. There were all kinds of tropical and freshwater fish, sharks, stingrays, and jellyfish. So cool! We stopped at a pub for a pint, my first one since arriving, and it was delicious.

Things I have learned about Australia:

- in the suburbs the postman delivers the mail by driving a small motorcycle down the sidewalk

- bottles are not returned for a refund, they are recycled with the rest of the paper and plastic

- almost everything comes in smaller sizes; deodorant, salsa, gum. I even saw mini asparagus at the market yesterday.