Whirlwind Friends

Well, I think that was the quickest 10 days of my life. Carissa and EJ got here on Sunday the 8th and then, BOOM, it was the 17th and I was taking them back to the airport. They say time flies when you're trying frantically to think of things to suggest to your visiting friends to occupy their vacation in the city to which you have recently moved, and sheesh, ain't that the truth.

The first Monday they were here was a public holiday called Queen's Birthday, which is not actually the birth date of any queen. And I'm not even sure which queen we're trying to celebrate anyway. But who cares: day off. So, we went around town a bit and saw the standard sights to see: Federation Square, Flinders Train Station, the mall, etc. It was a bit drizzly so not the best, but still nice. And this was one of the days that Angelica (Kane's friend's sister) was here visiting as well, so it was a nice group of 5 of us. Angelica left Tuesday (only to return the following Saturday) and Carissa and EJ continued touring around the city during the days while Kane and I worked, and then we'd all go out to dinner at night.

Over the weekend that they were here, we took a trip to Phillip Island, which is about a 2 hour drive south of Melbourne. Angelica was back that weekend as well, so it was the five of us again on a nice overnight trip. We saw the penguins as they flocked inland from the sea at dusk, then toured around a koala reserve the next afternoon. It was awesome to see some authentic Aussie wildlife - I felt like I was in a different country! I liked the wallabies the best (like small kangaroos - pictured above), they were totally rad.

I took Monday the 16th off of work to hang with Car and EJ on their last day (Angelica left that day to continue her Aus/NZ travels). We went to St. Kilda to see the "strip" of touristy shops/restaurants, walked the beach, and went to a sweet veggie restaurant on the water. Then we paid ridiculous prices to go up in the tallest viewing deck in the Southern hemisphere (don't even get me started on the stupid Southern hemisphere claims (biggest this, tallest that, etc), which are a totally bogus way of trying to make something in Australia or New Zealand sound impressive). It was very...tall...up there and I'm not excellent with heights, so I took some pics and was happy to have my ears pop as we whooshed back down to the ground below.

We walked through the Crown Casino (biggest casino in the Southern hemisphere...yeah, yeah, yeah), lost a few bucks on two cent slots, and made our way to the arcade. Carissa did managed to get carded however, and yes, the gambling age is 18. The irony is that we were on our way to the arcade when the attendant demanded to see her ID, but we kept that to ourselves.

The visit was a success and I encourage others to follow suit! It might be more fun to spend a few days here then check out some of the more exotic places like Queensland before coming back to see us before you leave, but Melbourne certainly has enough to do for a couple weeks. Also, I have posted some of the pics I took during their visit on my Picasa website, so please check those out as well: http://picasaweb.google.com/angiesommer

Thanks for tuning in and thanks to Carissa and EJ for visiting and buying us dinner every night (an act which we are heretofore making a relatively mandatory requirement if you're staying in our house, so budget that in, people)! ;-)