City girls

Melbourne is such an interesting city. They have a free tram that will take you in a whole loop around the city. It was perfect we saw all the major landmarks such as the Parliament building and St. Paul’s cathedral. We also went by the docklands, which is a developing part of the city on the waterfront.

One thing I noticed is that there is Chinese writing all over the city. (They have a very large Asian population.) It made me feel as though I was somewhere in Asia, not in beautiful Australia. The trams also make it seem like you could possibly be in San Francisco. It’s a huge combination of all the best cities in the world.

Evil tram inspector behind Madeline.

I’m getting ahead of myself. We took the tram to the city, which is the craziest system. We bought tickets for the tram, thankfully, because we were asked to show them to the tram inspector. (Think of a train conductor, only power hungry.)

Not only did we buy the wrong tickets, but we also had to buy new ones. The guy was a total jerk about the whole thing. He kept saying he was doing us a favor. If that were true you would’ve let us off with a warning, and not have forced us to spend another $10. The whole ordeal put a real damper on the beginning of the day, but once we got to the city things really picked up.

The sun came out which made the tower view really cool. It’s like the Sear’s Tower back in Chicago, only without the hour long wait and like half the price. (It could be the only thing cheaper in AUS.) It was so worth it; we could see all of Melbourne. We weren’t up there super long, but we did go out in a fenced area where we could have could the wind and everything. (Beat that Chi-town!)

I did America proud. I actually went to the fenced and looked down. I wanted to die, but it was so worth it. It was also great practice for the Sydney Harbor Bridge climb I will be doing on the 27^th. I still can’t believe I’m doing that. Well, when in Australia. (I really have to stop justifying things by that; I used the same logic when I ordered kangaroo.)

One thing you can’t see from the tower are the alley markets they have. You pretty much walk through an alley. It’s cooler than it sounds because there are murals and other graffiti tags. But you walk through the alleys and all of the sudden you’re in this place that resembles our malls. It reminds me of something from Harry Potter. I still don’t get how it works.

After seeing Melbourne from the air we went to the casino. We got carded; it was awesome. They had this Christmas themed light show inside. It was borderline creepy, but the lights were cool. We walked around the casino looking for the food court. (People aren’t joking when they say casinos are designed to trap you in with no sense of time or space.) On our search we found a Sex and the City slot machine thing; I’m not 100% sure what it was. I was going to gamble for the first time, but I didn’t have the right type of money. It was probably for the better. I can easily see myself having to call 1-800-GAMBLER.

We finally made it to the food court, which like everything else down under, was super expensive. We opted for a cheaper option like ‘Mackers’. Thankfully we found a Subway; it is beach season after all. I also didn’t want to make a meal out of ‘chips’.

That’s right I travel halfway across the world just to eat Subway. We got our food and found the perfect bench outside to people watch on. It was mostly business people who crossed our path; we were in the business part of the city. I still thought it was interesting to see how different Aussie and Americans are.

From left to right, emu, kangaroo, and crocodile.

Which brings me to fashion. I originally told Liana I thought we had similar styles, but after reevaluating the question at hand I realized that Aussies are way more stylish. They dress to impress everyday. Most people look amazing; it is a hipster nation. There are some kooky people out there, but every country has those weirdoes.

We ended our city experience at the Melbourne Market. It’s like the Taste of Chicago mixed with a flea market, only every Wednesday. That’s where I sampled kangaroo, emu, and croc. Well we’re coming up the beach, and I would much rather be out there living my Aussie dream than writing about it. (Finding time to blog is harder than I thought.)

Cheers, mate.

P.S. If anyone is wondering I never had really bad jet-lag like Liana’s parents said I would. Going back will be bad though. Still don’t want to think about leaving paradise.