Melbourne: Heaps of Fun

I will definitely write about Aboriginal camp, but first Melbourne.

So this is what happened, we arrived at the airport in Sydney to fly to Melbourne on the 11th just to find out that Allison, Delanie and I somehow all booked our ticket for the day before. Eight of us had planned to be on the same flight so the other five went through security while we figured out what to do. As the tickets are not refundable we all decided to buy new tickets that were three times the price for later that night. To put this in perspective, we arrived at the airport at 11:00 am and our new tickets were for 9:30 pm… So we planned to spend the whole day hanging around in the airport. However, when we walked up to the ticketing counter to check in, the lady told us that she could change our flight to an earlier flight for free, which was great! So we went through security and by the time we got some really good sandwiches and salads it was time for our flight to leave. The flight was short and sweet and the view from the plane was spectacular. We could see all the way up the east coast of Australia. When we got to Melbourne Delanie’s friend was there to pick her up and he offered to drive us to our hostel. I guess if this is the worst thing that happens on this trip that would be fine with me.

Melbourne has been great so far. All eight of us are staying in the same room in this really nice hostel that is in a neighborhood called St Kilda, which is a 20-minuet ride from the center of the city. I learned today that it is considered the Jewish district of Melbourne. Walking around I saw four or five people wearing Kippot and Tzitzit and we went into a store that was called Jerusalem and sold everything Jewish. If we were here for longer I would definitely find a synagogue to go to.

The other day I saw my first Australian sports game. Sport (that’s how they say it) is HUGE here. We went to an AFL game, which is Australian Rules football. It was very strange and a lot of fun. I would say that it is a mix between football and soccer with a bit of Quiddich thrown in. I have no idea how to explain how the game works so I would say look it up if you are curious. The other big sports that are popular here are American football, soccer (or sometimes called the true football), rugby, cricket and I think that ultimate is picking up steam.

Yesterday we all went to a music festival called Good Vibrations that is touring around Australia. We spent all day listening to bands and dancing. It was pricey but heaps of fun. (Another Aussie word, everyone says “heaps” all the time). I saw heaps of great bands and went to bed completely exhausted.

While not listening to bands and watching sport we have just been walking/stumbling around the city. They have a pretty good public tram system here that we have been using a lot. When we arrived in Melbourne we learned that you should never pay for public transport because you will look like a tourist. It feels pretty strange to never pay for the tram. Also no one knows the city at all so we have been pretty much just been wandering around lost quite a lot. To deal with this, we get on any tram that is going down the street that we want and then get off as soon as it turns onto another street…. It is a fairly effective way of getting around.

Today was Valentines Day and I must say that it ended up being quite romantic. Delanie’s friend offered to drive us down to Philip Island, which is about two hours south of Melbourne on the coast. It is known as the place where you can watch the Little Penguins at dusk come out of the water and up the beach to spend a few days on land in burrows in the hills. Little Penguins are the smallest in the world, about a foot tall and unbelievably adorable. However, the environmentalist in me was quite disgusted by the whole thing. It was a huge tourist attraction that was just sitting on these penguins natural habitat. I was put off by the hundreds of people staring and making lots of noise around these baby penguins that were trying to climb up the hills to safety. The ranger told us that Little Penguins have become nocturnal to keep away from predators and I felt that we were just making it worse by stomping all over their natural habitat. No matter how bad I felt about being there, staring at the open sea towards Antarctica with the Southern Cross (the big dipper of the southern hemisphere) directly above us and watching the penguins make their journey up the beach, was all quite humbling. To top it off, when we got back to the room the boys had bought chocolate roses for the girls, which was cute.

On Wednesday we will fly to Adelaide and spend a night there. On Thursday morning we will meet up with the program again and take a ten-hour bus ride to Broken Hill. I am not so much looking foreword to it.