World Travelers

We were hoping that Dave, our host, would wake up before we left for the airport in the morning but unfortunately we had to leave earlier than we had told him. We were both a little nervous about getting everything done in time especially since we had to exchange our money and clean out our storage unit all before the airport shuttle bus came at 10 o’clock. We left a nice note and TimTams on the counter for Dave so hopefully he can forgive us! Walking down George Street we realized that waiting until the last morning to exchange our money might not have been the best idea since most of the places were closed. We were hoping for at least one money exchange shop would be open and we were finally relieved to see one. Although it didn’t have the best exchange rate or service charge we were happy to have that checked off our list, but getting dull green money wasn’t exactly a highlight. It was pretty sad to turn in all our colorful money and get back the green money we know so well. We had mixed feelings since it also meant that we were officially going back. At this point we knew we had to book it to the storage unit to get that cleared out, get half our money back and make it to Neill’s place with all our luggage where the airport shuttle bus was planning to pick us up. While I ran to turn in our storage unit lock Riley started gathering the luggage and zip tying some of them together. Carrying five suitcases down the street is no joke and we had anticipated it being hard but I definitely took it a lot harder than Riley did. Halfway there we decided we were barely getting anywhere so Riley offered to take two of the suitcases up to UniLodge and come back! I was just been thinking the same thing so I was thankful and even more thankful when Neill returned with him. We had told Neill that we would be catching the bus outside of UniLodge and were hoping he would send us off so he had been waiting in the lobby. With the extra set of hands we were able to speed up the process which was perfect since the airport shuttle pulled around the corner as we were almost to UniLodge. That’s when I dropped the suitcases off and ran over to Coles to pick up a tube of vegemite that I could not leave behind for my sister. I was slightly thankful for the rushed goodbye because we meant we couldn’t get teary-eyed with Niell, but it was very sad to say the least! We both got hugs out of Neill before we took off. The shuttle was expected to take an hour to get to the airport with the extra stops that they had to make to pick up other people. Right at 11 o’clock we were pulling into the airport and struggling to get all of our luggage into the airport and organized. We were hoping to not have heavy carry-ons, but really had no idea where to put the extra clothes and souvenirs. A lady at Quantas was nice enough to let Riley weigh a few of our suitcases, although she gave us false, hopeful information that we could have 30 kilos in each suitcase. When we finally got to the counter to check in the lady let us know that it was only 23 kilos, but was also nice enough to let us open them up and rearrange since there wasn’t a line. We had found out the day before that our extra suitcase would be twice the price that we had expected to pay and I had spent a little bit on the phone trying to figure out how to get the online price or just a lower price in general. They told me it wasn’t possible since we were flying with two separate airlines, but of course I was going to try it once again at the actual airport. We weren’t so lucky, but we knew we had to pay the price since we had severely over packed! However, we did promise ourselves that it will never happen again! We made it through security and waited at our gate for a good hour, standing up of course since we would be sitting for the next 14 hours straight. Out the windows we could see Sydney’s skyline just calling our name, but we knew it was time to say goodbye. Sydney had been great to us and a wonderful place to call home for the last 5 months but it wasn’t really home to us. We were ready to see our family and friends and just be settled down again and not constantly moving. However, it was not easy coming to realization that we may never see Sydney again, since goodbyes are never easy in the first place. It finally came time to board our flight and we did so solemnly; thankfully the lady at the Quantas had been nice enough to put us next to each other. We were in the very bad row of the plane, but we didn’t care since we started a movie almost immediately after taking off. We hadn’t taken advantage of the free entertainment throughout the first flight but we made sure to do it this time by watching two/three movies each as well as a few episodes of Big Bang Theory. This also made the flight go much smoother with only a few episodes of turbulence. The food was delicious once again which they must have had an overabundance of because they kept handing us food very hour it seemed! We were thankful to have the longest flight first since we had predicted it would be a tough flight but really it wasn’t too bad although we were only able to sleep a few hours. We were getting more excited and anxious as we landed in Dallas but we still had to make it through customs and border control. We unfortunately didn’t get another stamp in our Visas, but we did however get to keep all of our souvenirs and food products except for our bananas. The security officers had to do a bag check on our sand from the Great Ocean Road and Cairns, but they let us go with both of them. The lady didn’t even bother to check the seashells though! We’re so glad that we had a four hour layover since we didn’t have to rush or worry about anything but rather got to go at a nice easy pace and even make it to our gate with plenty of time to spare. We mainly just took turns walking around to get our legs moving and I even wandered into a candy shop to check out the cheap prices again. The Dallas flight was of course a lot quicker, but still not short enough since we knew family was waiting for us on the other side as well as Cookout! We were able to catch up on a few blogs as well as look through the Where’s Wally book that I had picked up before we left. It was light outside almost the whole way so we were beginning to wonder when it was going to get dark! The sun set around 5 PM every day in Sydney since it was Winter time, so seeing the sun up past 8 PM was definitely something we were going to have to get used to. It’s not normal to go from Winter to Summer in less than 24 hours! Right when we landed I was already out of my seat with my backpack on my back and ready to be off the plane! I was speed walking through that airport with Riley right behind me on our way to the ‘Meeting Place’ to finally see everyone! Finally being able to hug everyone and see them was unbelievable and we both couldn’t stop smiling! We had just been through an experience of a lifetime but were more than happy to be safely back in the United States, which we will forever call home.

 

 

After lots of hugs we went downstairs to collect our luggage. Riley was able to call his mom and give her the good news while I waited for the luggage. I was starting to get worried since none of our five suitcases had shown up but apparently they were still unloading our flight. We were successful in getting four of our suitcases but Riley still hadn’t found his suitcase with all of his clothes in it. Finally we had to go place a missing luggage claim with a lady from American Airlines who had actually lived in Sydney for 5 years. She assured us that it was on the last flight of the day and we arranged to have it delivered. Finally it was time to all pile into the van and head to Cookout! We were both starving and couldn’t wait to eat our favorite foods but were also having a blast passing time by telling all of our stories. We stopped at the Smithfield Cookout which is one of the cheaper ones and were able to get meals/snacks for the whole family for the same price it would cost Riley and I to get one meal in Sydney! Finally – cheap American food again! We thought we’d be exhausted after we got home, but it was quite the opposite. We were pretty wired and ready to tell more stories, but my family was just ready to get their souvenirs! I didn’t mind though since I was ready for them to see what I had picked out for them anyways. Afterwards we stayed up talking even longer with everyone and didn’t get to bed until closer to 3 o’clock in the morning! That’s what happens when we leave for almost 5 months though – there’s a lot to catch up on!

Lock gave us bad karma!

Today was kind of a sad one – it was our last full day in Sydney. We woke up and decided that since it was our last day, we would check off a couple things off of our to Australia bucket list. First box to check was the ‘put lock on Sydney Harbour Bridge’, which we have been meaning to do, but we just kept putting off. Earlier in the week  I suggested that we watch the sunrise off of the Harbour Bridge, so Lauren and I both thought to ourselves, why not do both at once? So, that’s exactly what we did. We headed out to the bridge bright and early at around 6:30 to find that the sky was beginning to light up which gave us a little scare since we thought the sun wasn’t supposed to rise until 7 AM. Like always, we were early, but we weren’t mad because that meant we were getting the full experience of the sunrise on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. About 20 minutes after we got to the bridge, the sun finally came up and let me tell you, that sucker was bright! Since it was blinding our eyes, and probably everyone else’s, we thought that it would be the perfect time to put the lock on the bridge! Just to make sure, I had Lauren cover my six so that we wouldn’t get caught since we both thought it was illegal to do. The mission was successful and we went undetected in putting the lock on, which faced outward towards the Opera House so it would be able to see the sunrise everday. Soon after, we made a bolt for it just in case anyone saw us (I know what y’all are thinking  - we’re such rebels!). Since that was the only thing that we were planning to do in the morning, we headed back to Par’s place to catch up on some more z’s before getting ready for the day and checking some more stuff off our bucket list. Our naps didn’t last very long because we both knew that we needed to be up and packing since it was our last day at Par’s. Lauren and I were both sad about this because Par was one of our best couchsurfing host ever! Once we were packed, we had to head off to meet our last couchsurfing host, Dave. He wasn’t far from Par’s place at all, so lugging our stuff from point A to point B wasn’t very difficult. We were supposed to meet him at 10:30, but since he was leaving a work meeting, he was ten minutes late. Yet, he soon turned the corner and we were off to see his place. Dave was a really cool guy, not because he let us stay at his place on a night’s notice, but he was funny and just really easy to talk to. From the start, he invited us to go have drinks at a couchsurfer’s event, which we were happy about, but since we had already planned our last board games night with Neill, we had to decline. After we got the beginning talk out of the way, we had to quickly leave to go see an IMAX movie, which was going to be Despicable Me 2! We rushed down Kings Wharf passing people left and right. It was 11:20 now and the movie started at 11:30, so you know we were hurrying! Once we finally got to the IMAX we were informed on some bad news: we couldn’t see Despicable Me 2 because it hadn’t been 10 days since it was released. We were super mad because on the website, it did not have NFT (no free tickets – or the vouchers that we had). Filled with fury, we headed back up to the counter and tried once more by showing them the website, but were once again unsuccessful. After being rejected twice, Lauren and I both agreed that we didn’t like the IMAX anymore. Plus we were not spending our tickets on ‘Flight of the Butterflies’, which was the only movie he could offer us to see. Not knowing what to do with our tickets, we contemplated for a while until we came to our decision to put them on gumtree. Within the first hour, we had a couple people that were really interested, one that wanted to meet us at the markets, where we were heading next. Once we made it to the markets, our buyer pushed back the time even further, so we decided to do a little shopping while we waited. During our shop, Lauren got a text saying that he had an emergency so he couldn’t come. We both thought that he just didn’t want them anymore, but we gave him the benefit of the doubt. Since we had no more buyers, we decided to go to wooly’s to pick up a pizza for dinner.  As we were eating dinner, Dave came back from work at 5:30 which he said was early and invited us to drinks once more. Again, we had to say no and we began to feel bad, but it was our last board games night so we couldn’t pass it up! After pizza, we grabbed our things and headed towards Neill’s place, practically running since we had talked too long with Dave. When we arrived, he seemed sad and we weren’t sure if it was because it was the last night or not. Half way through though he began to lighten up and become in the board game spirit. Our last night consisted of 7 Wonders, Ticket to Ride and Cluedo (which I was the defending champion). We had a blast on all the games, but especially Ticket to Ride. There was a girl from Fiji who actually joined us in our game which was really cool! It was time for our last game, which is always Cluedo. I had been the champion for quite some time, but I was willing to risk my title. The first game ended pretty quick with myself guessing the room, weapon and perpetrator correctly. I don’t think Neill wanted to end on him losing, so he enticed me to push my luck for one more game. I should have never done it because Neill won that game, and Neill hasn’t won since our first board game session! I was slightly sad, but was willing give up my title. It was sad that it was our last game night though as well as last night in Sydney. Another buyer for the tickets was supposed to meet us at UniLodge but had been pushing back the meet up time as well. We were about to throw in the towel when he agreed that he could meet near King’s Wharf in about 30 minutes. We said our goodbyes to Neill and headed down George Street only to wait for the buyer for another 30 minutes! Just as we were texting him to say we had to leave his wife shows up and it was a done deal! It was a shame that we couldn’t see an IMAX movie, but at least we got some of our money back!

Reigning Champion

We had promised ourselves that we’d make at least one more trip to IKEA Tempe before we left Sydney just to get their delicious ice cream cones! We had noticed that Par, our host, had a complete IKEA apartment, but also had some items that he wasn’t planning on using in the apartment so we offered to return them for him. He was beyond ecstatic since he was nearing the 3 month return mark and was about to head off to Sweden for a week! We were more than happy to do this for him since we were going there anyways, and it would be a nice way to repay him for letting us stay at his very nice place! We had our whole day mapped out, but had to make some quick changes whenever we realized how heavy the stuff was, and the fact that we didn’t want to have to carry it all around the city while we did some last minute errands. With extra bus swipes needing to be used, we hopped on a bus and rode it all the way to Tempe. Returning the items wasn’t hard at all, we just probably looked fishy since we didn’t have the credit cards that the purchases were bought with and we didn’t know Par’s last name. The lady was very helpful though and went along with our request. The ice cream cones were well worth the trip along with finally trying their cinnamon buns that we had been putting off. Instead of icing there are small little dots which could be icing or salt, either way they never really looked that appetizing. They turned out to not be so bad, just not what we’re used to at IKEA Charlotte. With our last days in Sydney slipping away from us we had to get a move on to finish the rest of our errands. We made a stop at the University of Sydney to get some last minute pictures of the campus – or rather all the places that we populated. The afternoon got away from us though and instead of rushing to get everything in we decided to just save some errands for tomorrow and relax a little. Actually, we just hung out at McDonald’s waiting for 6:30 PM to come around. We were planning to meet up with Neill and Terrid for our going away dinner of $9 steaks at a local pub. We had gone there for trivia before and had always wanted to try the steaks so we couldn’t put it off for any longer. It was great for us to all be together for a one and only dinner, especially since it was nearing our last days. Then it was off to trivia at the usual Kelly on King pub.

Par was planning to join us, as well as bring two of his colleagues along so we were excited to go out with a bang. The more the merrier, except for the fact that Par and his friends were running late and didn’t get there until after the first round was already finished. They did help complete some more of the crossword puzzle though so we let them slide. We had hoped that it would be America themed trivia since it was 4^th of July but we weren’t so lucky. We finished well by not coming in last but with the place being absolutely packed today there was no chance of us getting the big prize like we had hoped. There was still one more thing to hope for though – another win at the airplane contest. I told everyone that I’d be doing the airplane again since it was our last trivia and no one argued that. I stuck with the reigning champion fold and asked Lauren if I should throw it underhand again. She immediately responded with an excited “Yes” and I was ready to give it another shot! There were about 5 people in front of me but I didn’t mind since I like going closer to the end anyways. The second person got their plane out the door and that raised the stakes a little. I calmly stepped up to throw mine but my heart was drumming on the inside. I steadily threw the plane underhand and it glided out the door…and into the street! My hands immediately threw up into the air and Rufus, the host, could not believe his eyes! The whole pub went crazy and I walked down to the table high fiving everyone and feeling like a champion! In all the times that we’ve been to trivia I have never seen anyone get their plane into the street! None of the remaining contestants could top that so I was once again the champion which was the perfect ending that I had hoped for.

 

 

Everyone was completely happy for me and was fine with giving the winnings to Lauren and myself! As per usual after winning we stayed to do a few rounds of trivia. We would both list a few songs that we were debating between and then the other person would pick the song, surprising the other. Lauren was first and was surprised to see that she’d be singing ‘That don’t impress me much’ by Shania Twain. I know she likes her country music so she sounded great! Lauren had picked one of my favorite songs ‘Back to Good’ by Matchbox Twenty and Rufus even said in all the years of hosting he has never heard anyone sing that song! We wanted to end the night by singing ‘I love this bar’ together but after waiting about 45 minutes we found out we were still 7 songs out and decided it was already too late. We didn’t want to get back to Par’s place too late so we unfortunately had to say our goodbyes to Rufus. He was sad, but definitely glad that we had been loyal trivia players. We arrived back at Par’s place to see him working on a countdown video for his girlfriend since he was going to see her soon. We had agreed to help him with the countdown and heading down to the lobby to shoot the 3^rd and 4^th day. We even got the concierge in on the action as well as the apartment mascot dog.

Last Ones Standing

Maybe a wall full of windows isn’t the best thing especially when the sun rises from that side of the building and wakes you up at 6 AM! But I didn’t mind so much since it was an absolute amazing view and didn’t keep me up for long. I had to soon wake up anyways to get ready and walk into the city to meet Myriah (my friend from UNCC) and her mom. They had done a 10 day road trip down the East Coast with Sydney being their last stop. We grabbed brekkie at Harry’s Café de Wheels and then headed to the markets to all get some souvenir shopping done. Riley and I had never been to the markets that early before so it was a pleasant surprise to see the aisles not completely crowded. Riley met up with us after a while, just in time for Myriah and her mom to leave and head back to Canberra. After I finally got done with most of my shopping we headed to the storage unit to sort out the rest of our stuff and get organized for the last few days we have in Sydney. It wasn’t stressful, just a little sad since we do know our trip is coming to an end. We can’t stop thinking and talking about American food though so I think we’re ready to be home. It probably doesn’t help that most of our friends are already back in the States though, meaning we’re the last ones standing. But we’re just going about our usual Sydney business by doing our errands, cooking dinner and going to trivia. Neill agreed to go to two trivia nights this week since it was our last week and we immediately agreed. It had been a while since we’d seen him so we were more than ready to catch up. Along the way we had actually noticed a rather long line outside this yogurt place and had assumed that they were giving out free ice cream, or some type of deal. We hoped that it would still be going on after trivia and during a break we asked Neill to look it up on his phone. He was really excited about potentially having free yogurt and suggested that we leave early from trivia to catch it in time! We didn’t complain since this hotel didn’t exactly have our favorite trivia. Believe it or not, this yogurt place was actually giving out free frozen and encouraging people to get lots of it! Usually we’re not into the whole taking an over amount than what is acceptable but after we found out there was a contest to see who could have the biggest stack of ice cream we didn’t feel so bad. I mean we didn’t go overboard but we definitely got way more than we usually can when we have to be careful of the weight. Riley’s monstrous stack of ice cream and toppings would have actually costs me over $13, with mine following at $7. We were both pretty proud of that and so happy to finally get some chocolate candies that we hadn’t been able to get while here since it is rather expensive in the stores. We of course had to walk home with our yogurts in hand and ended up freezing but it was totally worth it! We just relaxed the night away with Par talking about everything and anything it seemed. I don’t know how we’ve managed to get three really great hosts in a row!

We’ve walked to every single airport

I really wanted to sleep in since it was our last day of ‘vacation’ but Lauren was keen on getting up early to get our last minute sightseeing in before we caught our plane back to Sydney. Not that I didn’t want to sightsee, I just didn’t want to get up early. First on our list was something that I had seen on the map and said we had to go to – Batman Park. We took the tram into the city and arrived at a park much smaller than we expected but nonetheless it was still Batman park!

The birds posing like Batman! 

Plus it was right next to the Harbour which was our second stop. We were curious to see how it compared to Sydney’s Harbour and we agreed that they are completely different. We backtracked to see this really cool bridge that Lauren had spotted in a magazine called Webb Bridge. Melbourne has very interested sculptures and artsy things; this just adds to the list.

Melbourne really does have cool art structures throughout the whole city.

The free City Circle tram took us further into the city so we could explore this camera museum that I had noticed in a brochure. It was actually a very small museum in the upper back corner of this massive camera store. There were pretty cool old fashion cameras though! We kept checking things off our list as we ventured off to find Goldsbrough Lane. We were worried at first that we wouldn’t find it, but we looped around the corner and walked up the parallel street to finally come across it!

With that out of the way we just had one more stop, the NGV, National Gallery of Victoria. Some of our friends had told us about this reflection pool that had floating bowls in water that clanked together to make musical notes. It was a really cool sight to see but unfortunately not as peaceful as we imagined since its located right in the foyer as you enter the museum.

This meant we had successfully seen all the sights we had planned out and much more along the way. We headed back to Sean’s to grab our bags and have lunch before we headed out to the airport. We were planning on doing our infamous walk to the airport scheme once again. I mean, who wants to pay $17 for a 10 minute bus ride to the airport? Because we had gotten our sight-seeing done early we were actually able to get to the right tram in the city earlier and then start walking earlier. This walk was a much nicer one than the one in Hobart since all the roads had sidewalks and it was practically a straight shot! We even had a great view along the way.

With such an easy walk we were able to get to the airport before our check in time even opened up which was a nice change. This turned into an even longer wait since there was only one person checking in people and then the boarding time got pushed back as well. Tiger Airways is great though since they always manage to make up time in the air and we somehow landed five minutes before we were scheduled to. We had another couchsurfer host lined up for Sydney since we had moved out of our apartment and headed towards the Rocks to meet him. We triple checked the address to this place because we ended up standing outside the fanciest apartment complex either of us had seen. Our host, Par said he was out on his bike and would be there soon so we just crossed our fingers that we were in the right place. We imagined a pedaled bike, but Par actually rode up on a 400!cc motorcycle We got the introductions out of the way and after parking his bike he took us up to his amazing apartment! Literally we walked into his living room and saw the Opera House out his windows that made up the whole wall of the apartment. I think both of our jaws dropped at this point! We definitely felt like we were privileged and definitely didn’t deserve to be so lucky, but hey, we’ll sleep on his couches anytime!

Sow and piglets

I told Riley that if I didn’t wake up when the alarm went off to just shake me and say “We’re going to see the 12 apostles today!” and that should wake me up! I was more than ready, well after getting up and taking a much needed shower, to finally go and see the 12 apostles like we had been planning for so long. We walked down the street from our couchsurfing host’s house to a hostel where the bus would pick us up at 6:55, bright and early in the morning. A small 15 passenger bus came around the corner which wasn’t a shocker because I knew we’d be picking up other people and heading to the office first. What did shock us is that we were actually going to be taking that exact bus down to the Great Ocean Road with one tour guide and 15 passengers. I think we both had one of those big greyhound buses in mind, but this just made the tour that much personal. Our tour guide yelled from the driver seat different facts about Melbourne and sights along the way which was interesting. He kept quiet for a while and that’s when I drifted off to sleep on Riley’s shoulder. Car rides are definitely relaxing and a good way to catch up on sleep. I woke up five minutes before Chris (our tour guide) made the announcement that we were officially on the Great Ocean Road! Of course we had to stop and take pictures since we’re all tourists!

Another forty minutes down the road we stopped at a small town for some biscuits and coffee. Turns out that a lot of Australian families have houses in these small towns similar to how we Americans have beach houses for the summer holidays! They actually come down for their Christmas break and the town population grows from 2,000 to 20,000! Then we were back on the road with our first official stop of seeing some wild koala bears! We didn’t know this was part of the tour so we were in complete amazement. We have searched for koala bears many times in Australia always being unsuccessful but since time we got to see lots and even caught some awake and eating.

There's 3 koalas in this picture - can you spot them?

These koalas are part of a large colony that stick to this area and are actually eating up all the eucalyptus leaves. They may actually cause their kind to eventually starve to death since they refuse to eat anything else and with their population growing so quickly. Further along down the path was our next stop of the Otway lighthouse for lunch. The only bad thing about guided tours is you’re always on a tight schedule meaning we had forty minutes to get lunch, eat and view the lighthouse. That meant we were practically inhaling our food and then running to the lighthouse to only get blown away by hurricane force winds! We were able to climb our first lighthouse and get on the viewing dock to feel the wind in our face. We circled it slowly but I turned away after we got to the other side because I could barely move forward. Riley soon followed because we weren’t sure if we’d be able to get back into the lighthouse on that side and didn’t want to take the chance!

We kept our time schedule and were back on the bus to finally see the main attraction – the 12 apostles! Once again we were given 45 minutes to view it so we took off running! Let me tell you, the pictures don’t do this natural wonder justice. It is truly amazing to be that up close and personal with these limestone structures and how they have survived. It is a shame that the ocean is wearing down the structure though and soon there will be no more 12 apostles. Although there were never 12 to begin with! We took our time getting all of our pictures in and such looking out across the ocean in amazement. Then it was a short journey to Loch Ard Gorge where two survivors from a shipwreck were washed up on shore. Ironically it was a guy and a girl both 18 years old, but no romantic story came out of it.

Loch Ard Gorge - 2 survivors slipped through that opening!

The next stop was Gibson Steps which are man made by a guy with the last name of Gibson so he could get down to the water quick whenever a shipwreck occurred off the coast.

Unfortunately that was the last stop for our tour, but we didn’t mind since we had seen everything we wanted and more! We were both exhausted as was everyone else since the bus was completely quiet and almost everyone was sleeping. Luckily the bus had come to the consensus that Melbourne had a lot more eating options than the small towns and we could just push through the trip back and get back into the city much earlier than expected. Plus, Chris was going to drop us off at the hostel where he picked us up so we were super close to Sean’s place! We grabbed supplies to make spaghetti – Australian style – and just relaxed for the night with everyone there (two German girls were actually staying at Sean’s as well). Sean came back not shortly after and we casually slipped into a 45 minute conversation about food at NC State. As you may know Riley and I talk about food a lot, but a 45 minute conversation was a little crazy. We really liked Sean though since the conversation was just so easy and funny. Plus I was able to get some helpful tips from the girls about my upcoming trip to Germany!

Such a small world

After a long night of traveling, time got away from us this morning and we accidentally slept in until 10 o’clock. Since our day was already beginning to slip away from us, we had to rush to get ready and head out the door after chatting a little with Sean and his girlfriend ,Tegan. We actually found out that Sean had studied abroad at NC State last year during the same time that Riley was there and Tegan had done the same at ECU. Such a small world sometimes! The first stop on our sight-seeing list was the Shrine of Remembrance, which was a huge temple like structure built to honor the soldiers during WWI.

As we made our way inside the shrine, we found out that you could climb the stairs to view the city from the top (granted that’s not what it was made for). The view from the top was phenomenal!

After a couple pictures, we took in the sight for a while before we headed back down to learn a little more about the shrine. There were diamond shapes all around the shrine that had different attractions, so we decided to pick one out to see what they had in store. Lauren picked an awesome area, because it ended up being a room full of medals!

Once we admired the medals for a while, we ended up going next door, where we found yet another Botanical garden. I don’t know about Lauren, but I’m about flowered out! I think she was too, because we ended up not staying long at all! Turned out to be a good thing because right when we stepped outside, the visitor shuttle came around; best thing of all it was free! Beside moving at a snail’s pace, the bus was awesome! It took us around Melbourne for a little, telling us information about the city. Did you know that the top ten floors of the Eureka Building in Melbourne is coated with 24 caret gold in honor of the Melbourne gold rush? Yea, we didn’t either until we took the bus. The real reason we hopped on the bus is because it took us to the Queen Victoria Markets, which was almost halfway across the city! It took about 30 minutes (remember, snail pace) to get to the markets. These markets were crazy huge, must be twice the size of Sydney’s! Since we have become pros at the Sydney market, we used our up and down row method to check out everything. Lauren ended up finding some really cool things that she was happy about! Since much of the market was like Sydney and repeated itself, we decided to venture off and check out other spots in Melbourne. The next being the bath house, which Lauren and I still don’t know what it is.

After taking a couple pictures of the Bath House, we followed Sean’s advice and went to check out the Old Melbourne Gaol (not a typo, that is how they spell jail). When we arrived we found out that they had an entry fee of 20 dollars and Lauren and I didn’t feel like paying that just to see a jail, so we made some of our own fun!

We soon broke out and fled to a place where we were sure they wouldn’t find two criminals – The State Library of Victoria! It was a perfect place to hide out too because it is so big! There are probably over 10 stories to this library, with some floors dedicated to listening and chess!

Since the police stopped looking for us, we decided to explore the streets of Melbourne again and soon stumbled upon China Town. Just like Sydney, this China Town was only one street, consisting of many things Chinese (yea, yea, I know – stating the obvious). There were many cool temple like walkways that would have been super cool at night.

After China Town, we were planning on going to the Parliament house, but it was closed due to construction so we ended up checking out a cathedral that we had been wanting to see - plus it was right behind the Parliament House. We rounded the corner and I didn’t see anything, but after a couple of steps you could see the huge steeples! We soon decided that we wanted to head back to Sean’s to get some grub – fish and chips had been on both of our minds.  After dinner, we headed to Luna Park (Melbourne style), but unfortunately it was closed, so a trip to the beach it was! St. Kilda beach was peaceful at night, and Lauren and I both agreed that we could fall asleep listening to the waves (we didn’t though). We soon headed back to meet two German girls who were also couch surfing at Sean’s place. We all talked for a little, but conversation came to an end when we all got tired.

We should just listen to the locals!

It was once again time to pack up our things and move on, not that we wanted to. We just figured it would be smarter to pack our backs and bring them with us whenever we went into town to explore a little more before making our way to the airport. The walk down to the markets was fairly easy since it was all downhill and got even easier whenever we picked up the free shuttle. Yes, they have a free shuttle from Hobart CBD to the Salamanca Markets. When we arrived in Salamanca we were both a little surprised at how busy and crowded the spot was compared to how calm it had looked the night before. I was more surprised with the market merchandise since I’ve gotten very accustomed to Sydney’s Chinese, cheap markets. These markets were more about the home grown, organic materials or handcrafted products thus a little pricier. We were more window shopping and wandering about though since we didn’t have a lot of extra weight left in our backpacks anyways. We did a quick loop around the markets and decided we had enough before heading up the hill to check out Battery Point. This was supposed to be a historic area so we didn’t know what to expect but were a little surprised whenever we couldn’t find any old looking buildings. I mean, the houses were nice and unique but not exactly old like we were looking for. We did however get a picture of the welcome sign to prove that we were there!

 

We have been talking about fish and chips for some time now and had our minds set on going to this restaurant called Speed Feed that we had walked by yesterday that had looked promising. We should have known it was too good to be true though since the restaurant didn’t look too busy or lit up whenever we were walking by. Our good luck continued because it was closed…for the weekend! What type of restaurant doesn’t stay open for the weekend?! Once again we were stuck without getting the fish and chips that we wanted but we agreed it will only make it that much better once we finally find them! With not many other options out there we settled on the healthy choice of Subway which we haven’t had in a while! We would have loved to find some cool little niche restaurant but with our stomachs growling and our wallets a little empty we decided not to take our chances at getting disappointed. This is one of the biggest reasons we’re ready to be back in the US – cheap food! We had a little bit of extra time to kill before we had to catch a bus to the airport so we went to the local technology store to look up a tour number and finally book a tour for Melbourne to see the 12 apostles! We could have easily caught a bus to the airport from Hobart CBD but obviously we’d be paying a high dollar for conveience since it would be $17 one way each. We just couldn’t see ourselves paying that price so he had looked up the local bus system and realized that we could take a bus that would take us on the path to the airport and we could just walk the rest of the way. Because we had been so quick with our sightseeing we were able to catch an earlier bus than we expected which was reassuring for the both of us. We didn’t want to be walking in the dark the whole way. We were both a little nervous about getting off on the wrong stop so Riley went up to ask the driver to let us know when to get off. We jumped the gun and got off earlier than we were supposed to but the driver didn’t stop us. That left us walking a little bit more than expected. The bus driver even passed us on his return trip and pulled over to say sorry for not letting us know. He was actually planning to let us off at a stop past the one he was supposed to – that would have been nice to know! He assured on we were on the right path which was a relief since we were both starting to worry. We kept moving and with a little help from the locals we were able to get to the airport with plenty of time to spare. The flight to Melbourne was a breeze since it was a little less than an hour in the air. We had a last minute couchsurfing host lined up which meant we had to get from the airport to a suburb called St. Kilda. We bit the bullet and paid for the airport shuttle bus to Melbourne CBD but decided to save our money and walk the rest of the way. We had mapped out the path and it didn’t look too far so we were going to take our chances. Whenever we arrived at Southern Cross train station we realized that a rugby game had just gotten out since the streets were crowded with lion fans and lots of people wearing red and yellow. We were a little confused on who won the game but we weren’t about to ask anyone – people are serious about their rugby here! We had actually started watching the beginning of the game in the Hobart airport so it was weird to be in the location of the actual game just 55 minutes later! We should have taken our host’s advice when he said to take the tram from the city to St. Kilda because it was a lot longer walk than we expected! We don’t even want to add up how many miles we covered today. It all worked out though since we finally arrived at his house whenever him and his girlfriend were getting out of the taxi, arriving home from a birthday party. We got the awkward introductions out of the way, let them know our plans and quickly headed to bed. It was well over midnight and we were all exhausted!

What is that.. an upside down rocket ship?

Murray was actually on a business trip in the UK and came home a little earlier than expected so we were finally able to meet him as we were enjoying our breakfast. You may think it’s weird that we stayed at his house without him being there, but Eliza had been very accommodating for us thus far so it didn’t bother us. We met over our day plans with Murray to see if he had any advice and thankfully didn’t try persuade us different or offer to take us anywhere (since I have a hard time saying no). We were ready to just get up and explore the city of our own since that’s what we like best. We made our way to the Botanical Gardens first which seemed to be all the way across town but since we’re good at walking and talking the kilometers went by rather quickly. Along the way we came across a soldier’s walk which was a way to commemorate the fallen soldiers from the wars by planting trees for them. We noticed there were actually plaques in front of every tree to display the name of the soldiers which was pretty neat.

 As we approached the Botanical Gardens we kept noticing signs for a zoo but hadn’t seen anything about that in the tourist pamphlets we had picked up. We soon realized why because it was actually a closed down zoo that had only been open for 16 years. The iron fence definitely showed that the animals were all sad it closed down but it was historical since it was the location where the last Tasmanian Tiger died in captivity. It was still neat to be standing in a place that once ago held so many animals and amazing family memories.

We moved along to the Botanical Gardens and relaxed on a bench overlooking the water front eating our lunch. It was nice to just relax for a little bit and chat with each other since we have been on the go for quite a while now.

 After we finally decided to get up and moving we explored the rest of Hobart starting with the Cenotraph that was designed to also commemorate the fallen soldiers.

 Then we just took our time exploring some more shops and museums before we headed towards Salamanca. Riley had found this pretty cool Friday night musical events that was supposed to take place in the courtyard of the Arts Centre. We had to wait around until 5:30 for it to start and then it didn’t even start on time! So we were stuck waiting until 6:15 for the first band to start when we figured we just had to leave. Our host had messaged us about an hour earlier to let us know that they would be cooking curry for dinner and we didn’t want to be late for that! The walk back was a lot tougher since it is a complete uphill climb but arriving back at the house was a relief! Dinner was absolutely delicious since it was Eliza’s specialty (she’s from Hong Kong). It definitely had a little bit of a kick though since she’s used to spicy. Riley loved it since he says he hasn’t had spicy in a while, but my mouth was screaming after the first bite! The dinner table conversation was a little overwhelming yet intriguing since Murray is full of so much information about lots of things! Riley was put on the spot a little whenever he mentioned that he was an economic major since Murray started naming off economical events and important figures. Riley has been wanting and meaning to read up on his economic materials for this reason but hasn’t gotten that far yet. Nonetheless we both enjoyed talking with him and Eliza and learning lots of new information!