Quick Update from AUS!

With only 1/2 hour of Internet in the hostel, I realized this might be the only opportunity I have to write a blog post from the hustle and bustle of Australia! (Or Aus or Aussie as the Kiwis call it) I arrived in Melbourne yesterday evening, walked 5K to my hostel in the hip suberb of St. Kilda, dropped my backpack, walked out to get a burger, ate said burger, walked 5 minutes down the street just to get my bearings, and ran into Lori, Nicole, and Jess, three of only six people I know in all of Australia (all of who were enrolled as summer students in Dunedin)! That's right, in a country of some 30-odd million, in a city of 4 million, without any prior planning or communication of any kind (except that there's a party for Kate in Melbourne tonight to which we are all invited) I run into my friends in my first 3 hours on Aussie soil. I had a feeling Lady Luck was with me this week when I was assigned to seat 23D on my JetStar flight across the Tasman.

So I hung out with them last night, getting a second dinner at TGIFridays and seeing Transformers Revenge of the Fallen. I was the only person who enjoyed it. Today was a busy sightseeing day, but first I needed to get groceries. So I went to the local supermarket, where they charge for a shopping cart and plastic bags. Decided to kill two birds with one stone by purchasing plastic bags for carrying groceries both inside and outside the store (damn I'm clever). In general everything is more expensive in Aus dollar for dollar when compared to New Zealand, yet the Aussie dollar is worth more than the Kiwi dollar so prices really are just ridiculous. They also have something called water scarcity, who would have thought. But this supermarket turned out to be pretty reasonable. Then I visited St. Kilda beach, the Melbourne World War I Memorial, the Royal Botanical Gardens, the Melbourne Museum (got in free with my Otago ID!!), and Victoria Market along with a bunch of other random streets and gardens. Came back to the hostel, made some super special, incredibly elaborate, gourmet white rice with a little salt and capsicum, and now am getting ready to head into town for Kate's 21st Birthday Party at the Lustre Lounge on Flinders Lane. Tomorrow I'm off to the Great Ocean Walk, where I'm going to be improvising the logisitics a bit. Signing off from Down Under for now...