Meblourne

So today will be my 4th day here in Melbourne and I have to say it is a pretty cool city. There is no shortage of food or beer here. Like Starbucks at home as soon as you turn your head there is another take away place or restaurant to put you back at ease. Oh yah and Starbucks is here too so really every time you turn your head there is another one, but if you are a coffee drinker I have been told Starbucks is weak coffee here in Australia. Crazy right? Thankfully I am not a coffee drinker and can let someone else fight that battle.

You might be wondering what I have been up to for the past 3 days so far. Well, after I landed (around 7 or 8 am I think) we headed back to Lano's to drop off my stuff and head out. Since I slept a bit on the plane I was feeling great and thought I had won the Jet Lag battle. Haha Jet lag smet lag! My stomach on the other hand wouldn't let me forget that it was really dinner time. So we grabbed a bite to eat and then hit the town.

If I told you there's not much history in Meblourne you may not believe me and when you look at some of the buildings you would think otherwise as well, but there are quite a few Australians that will let you know it right off the bat "There really is no history in Melbourne". No worries, strolling the city was just fine with me.

We found out that the Melbourne Cup was on Tuesday and the favourite was not the winner. It was another jockey that had the odds of 13 to 1. I am thinking it made the one person who had enough faith in him to want to put $20K down that he would win a very HAPPY PERSON! So I have only been to one Horse race before and that was in Saratoga, New York. At those races, yes people dressed up, but here dressing up is a sport for the Melbourne Cup. Everyone is opting for the best hat or should I say best set of feathers that they can drop on their heads in hopes that they will be noticed and donned with tons of compliments on how they look. The town was crazy!

Instead of watching the race Lano and I decided to head to the Vic Market (aka Victoria Market). Victoria is the state of Australia that Melbourne resides in. Only thing was when we got there it was closed. The woman at the bank had warned me correctly, but we chose to not believe it. The city really shuts down for the races. As of 3 pm Tuesday nothing was open and mean nothing! Ah well, I can go to the market on Wednesday.

Yesterday was my first day going it alone. Lano headed back to work so I headed out and hit up the Royal Botanical Garden. My pictures will not do it any justice. It is absolutely BEAUTIFUL and free of admission. So many were taking advantage of using it as a place to eat lunch, exercise, take a school field trip or find a nice place to curl up and nap. I was just truly amazed at the trees. They are ginormous and range from things we see in the states such as oaks and palm trees to things I wouldn't even know how to pronounce let alone know what they were. From there I took a tour of the city and decided that since we didn't get a chance to hit up the market why not head back today and see what it has to offer. It would have been nice if Lano or Kerri had told me it was closed on Wednesdays. All that hype and still nothing to show for it. No worries back to the city I went and perused around some more.

Here are photos for your viewing pleasures: View My Photos