Yeah. So we spent four hours there. It was incredible. Sure, there was a lot of junk, but a lot of fun stuff too. I bought a super cheap carryon luggage because my reusable lululemon shopper is threading down and an Aussie lamb leather jacket.
THEN we went on the hop on hop off tour, which, in Melbourne is free. There's a free tram that circles the city and a free shuttle, both of which have recorded tour information. How amazing! We saw the Shrine of Remembrance and the stadiums and their skytower, and jumped off at Lygon Street, their Little Italy. We'd been hearing from this person and that person that Lygon Street is THE place to eat, so eat we did! We had the most delicious thin-crust pizza. Omg. OMG! Credit card-thin! It was awesome.
Righto, then we walked back to our hotel, did a quick workout (read: the first weights I'd done since before we left on vacation and has thus left my lats crazy sore, even today, Thursday) and swim in our hotel, and then went to Nando's for dinner. We saw Nando's everywhere -- it's this Portuguese chicken place, but we learned yesterday that there's Nando's in BC. Hah - we thought we were trying some Aussie chain.
On Monday, we left at 8 AM to take an 11.5 hour train to Sydney. We had meant to drive but found a great deal on Travelzoo to take the train instead. The train was actually not that painful. They served some pretty good scones at teatime. We saw this drunk old man who walked up and down the aisles with a dirty scarf and a radio transponder. We each read books and watched Fight Club on the laptop.
Yesterday was so fun! We met up with my friend NH and her fiance TK for breakfast and all went to the Australian Museum here in Sydney together. The Australian Museum would have probably been good if it had been the first museum we'd been to on our trip, but it had a lot of the same stuff that we've seen at the other museums we've already been to. NH and TK had to head off to Perth to meet up with friends, so The Boy and I went to Wildlife World and the Sydney Aquarium and explored the many lego structures there! Super fun. And there were animals and insects and underwater tubes where we got to see rays and sharks and dugongs and one massive 5m crocodile named Rex. He was bigger than the one at Reptile World in Alice Springs, but we didn't get to see him as close up, which I'm 100% ok with. Unfortunately, we didn't see any platypi.. the platypus tank was empty all three times we went to visit. :( We waited patiently, but zip.
We went to Helm Bar on Darling Harbour (or "dahling haba" as the locals call it) for dinner and had the best mojitos we've had in ages. Social premixes theirs now. Helm Bar makes theirs fresh, and with a flourish.
Today was Australia Day! The Boy and I put on our red shirts and went out for the day, but after an hour on a patio for breakfast, we were sweating. The news said it was the hottest Australia Day on record in 20 years. Wow. Anyway, we'd have changed anyway - an informal poll in just a few minutes on that patio determined that only 4% of the population on the way towards Hyde Park was wearing red, blue, or any Australian attire. We went shopping, hung out Hyde Park, and went to the Motor Show which included almost a thousand old cars and hot rods, and visited St. Mary's Cathedral before stopping for half priced frappuccinos, Triple J's Top 100, and more Australian Open for a break. We went to Sydney Tower and watched the Oztrek motion video, which would have been also lovely to watch at the beginning of our Australian adventure. The Boy would like to say that it blew his mind, but it really just blew. Not Sydney Tower, just the movie. After kebab, we went to Dahling Haba to watch the flotilla and the wonderful fireworks. We found this space near the Park Street bridge and were exactly between the fireworks on the water and fireworks from the tall buildings behind us. It was incredible! We were IN the fireworks. We were so close, we actually had to turn our heads to see it all! My favourites were the sparkly ones.
The weirdest thing we saw today wasn't that there were a lot of people wearing Aussie flags or being patriotic (there weren't), but it was the drunk man dancing on the corner. The Boy recognized his scarf and I recognized his radio transponder, but it was the drunk guy from the train. The Boy was like "wow, it must have taken him a long time to get here."... I think that he actually got kicked off the train partway through the journey.
And now, we're watching this weird stop motion movie starring Mary Daisy Dinkle and Max Jerry Horowitz. It's sad and hilarious all at the same time. What's it called? We loved it. Look it up. Watch it. Love it.
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