Melbourne weekend

Last weekend was the time for my to start my first trip here in Australia. Together with other exchange/visiting/international students of UNSW I went to Melbourne. Most of them were American, a few Canadian and a German girl and a three Norwegian guys. After a overnight bus journey to Melbourne (about 900 km from Sydney) we arrived at our hostel, north of the city’s centre, for a brekky (Ozzie slang for breakfast). That day we explored the city, and we discovered that Melbourne has quite some art throughout the city, making it a bit more artistic than Sydney. It’s infrastructure is wider, more spacious, and the buildings were less high. The weather… sucks, very windy and quite cold the days we were there. (The days after we went back to Sydney Melbourne got hit by severe weather storms, damaging many houses and cars.) After wearing out the soles of our shoes, we enjoyed some pizza at the hostel and tried to discovered Melbourne’s nightlife, in which we greatly failed. When we finished our drinks at a “typical British pub”, we went back to the hostel, because our alarms would wake us around 6.30am the next morning! The second day we drove down to Great Ocean Road, a road built after WWI to create jobs for the veterans and to occupy their minds, which was a very smart decision as this road attacks many many travelers around the world (income, money, more jobs!). This road is absolutely flabbergasting! AND, I can also check off koalas from my list “to see & to do”, see pictures. To list a few stops that we made: 12 apostles, blowhole/thunder cave and some small towns along the road. At the end of the day we were glad to get off the bus and take a shower. With the entire group we went to a nice restaurant or some food, dancing and singing in the Docklands, a neighbourhood of Melbourne with a yacht harbor. Later we visited the “Crown”, a massive building with clubs, bars, casinos, restaurants and plenty more entertainment. Although it was my first time in a casino, I decided not to gamble (I know, I’m boring) and save myself the useless loss of money.
The last day of our trip to Melbourne we visited St. Kilda for another brekky and to take some pictures of the beach. Later that day we went to an AFL (Australian Football League), an interesting, very physical sport, where football, handball, soccer, rugby, wrestling and basketball are all combined into one. Sydney Swans were playing against Melbourne Pies, which Sydney got slaughtered by. I liked it though; it’s not a sport for softies and I’m glad I only had to watch it. This was also our last activity for that weekend, and we started to head back to Sydney right after the game was over.
It was my first trip, and honestly, I have seen more of Melbourne in those two days we were actually there then I have seen of Sydney in nearly two months that I have been living here… Shame on me!

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