Holidays

Today is my first day back at Uni since my two week break. The weather has been a little bit foul lately and today it poured for the first time since I've been here. Of course today is the day I hung my laundry out to dry on our back patio. I'm not sure if being rained upon is really going to make them any cleaner, but they certainly aren't getting any drier.

I spent the first week of the holidays partying and hanging out in Adelaide. Katie turned 22 on April 17th so a bunch of us went into the city to go dancing. Unfortunately Thursday isn't a very big night downtown so we ended up back at a bar near Flinders. Despite our lack of success finding an open club we had a good time dancing at the bar and eating homemade cheesecake. The next night I celebrated my friend Tara's birthday at a hotel on the beach. We ended up staying awake all night long dancing, star gazing and relaxing in the hot tub/sauna.

Me with Katie, Tara and Cameron (All who had birthday's that weekend)

On Wednesday of the second week Katie, her roommates (Angela, Diana, and Cameron) and I woke up at five in the morning to catch a 10 hr train to Melbourne. Jeff and Nate decided to fly and met us in the city later that night. The train was really spacious and pretty comfortable. Katie and I packed enough food to feed everyone on that train and I ended up sleeping for almost the whole trip.

Traveling across South Australia into Victoria. Lots of brown and flat lands.

While we were in Melbourne we stayed at one of the hostels in the city. I had never stayed in a hostel before and it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. The girls in our room weren't very friendly but the place was fairly clean and there was a rooftop patio which had a spectacular view of the skyline. Melbourne reminded me a lot of Chicago, but it was much cleaner and more open. We saw a lot of really interesting architecture and walked through some gardens.

We woke up early Thursday morning and spent heaps of money at the Victoria Market. I got almost all of my souvenir and gift shopping done. That afternoon Katie, Jeff, Nate and I went on a tour of Carlton Brew House. We got to walk through the buildings where they make the beer and then watch the bottling process. This Brewery churns out over 2 million liters of beer a day (At least, I'm pretty sure that's what she said). They provide the majority of the beer for the southern half of Australia. Afterwards we got to sample four different kinds of beer. Carlton Mid, Fosters (which isn't very popular in Australia), Carlton Black and Pure Blonde. I had never really realized how different the different kinds of beer taste before.

Nate, Jeff and Katie on round one

On Friday we decided to wander around the city and ended up in the Botanical Gardens. Unfortunately, because it's approaching winter the gardens weren't in full bloom. We did visit the Shrine of Remembrance, which honors all the Victorian people who have served in the forces. A kind old man helped explain a bunch of Australian history and gave us a mini tour of the shrine.

Katie and I at the top of the Shrine of Remembrance with the skyline of Melbourne behind us.

While we were on the tram, on our way to lunch, a woman asked us where in the US we were from. She had heard our American accents and said she was from Ohio. We chatted for a bit and then we asked if she knew any place good for lunch. She immediately responded enthusiastically, saying she was on her way to meet her husband for lunch at an Irish pub and asked us to join her. She ended up paying for all of our meals and we all had a really good time. Terry and her husband Jeff (who is English) work for rival engineering company's and have only been in Australia for a couple of years. Their jobs had them traveling all over the world, such as Abu Dhabi.

Saturday morning we woke up early and got on a bus to drive down the Great Ocean Road. The weather was terrible, but it didn't dampen our enthusiasm or hinder our experience. The tour ended up being really great and the scenery we saw was beautiful. The Great Ocean Road was built after one of the World Wars to give jobs to the returning soldiers. The government has tried to keep it as underdeveloped as possible so real estate is not only limited but extremely expensive. (Between $5-7 million) There aren't any gift shops or hokey tourist attractions along the way. The road main follows the coast, but also goes through some jungle areas. We took a bare foot walk through the jungle and saw kolas sleeping high up in the trees.

The start of the Great Ocean Road. Katie, me, Jeff and Nate

We also stopped at a couple of famous places such as the Twelve Apostles and the London Bridge. Unfortunately it was raining cats and dogs and we were all drenched.

Katie and I at the Twelve Apostles before the rain really started to come down.

The next morning we went for about a three mile walk up a huge rocky mountain to the very top. It was one of the highlights of the trip. The view from the top was gorgeous and the climb was interesting, if not a little dangerous due to the slippery rocks. Finally we stoped at some waterfalls and everyone sat down and put their bare feet in the freeing waters.

Later I climbed up on the that big rock to my left.

I have heaps more pictures but I'm getting pretty tired and I'm running out of battery. Hopefully tomorrow I'll provide a link to the rest of the pictures I took. (My cameras both died during the trip so most of the pictures are on Katie's camera, we took over 700!) Hopefully now that uni is starting back up I'll post more often and about my classes. Good luck to everyone who is approaching finals!!

Check out the pictures I took here and here. (These are just the ones from my camera. Katie should be posting her soon and I'll link them as well.)