Driving into Melbourne was amazing! Melbourne is such a huge city probably an equivalent of Houston maybe even bigger. This was our last day in the campervan so we first made our way into the city to find a car wash and vacuum. Once the van was shiny and almost like new we drove it back to its home in Melbourne. Here we unloaded all of our things and had a quick lunch on the couch of the Wicked Camper office. That was pretty funny but they were nice about it.

Then we set off backpacker style. As in 3/5 of us were backpackers while the other two (including me) were city people with our luggage on wheels. I remember walking around in a foreign city so huge compared to Adelaide. I was actually a bit nervous almost a bit scared. We had to walk a few kilometers to find a train station into the city. We were probably only 7-10 km away from the city center but way too far to walk. So once we found a train station it was a bit difficult. They have these passes called Myki. You have to scan them before entering the station and also when leaving the station (that's when it deducts money from the transport). We couldn't actually buy this pass because we weren't at one of the main stations so we hitched a free ride on the train into the city center. Then luckily the security were nice to let us through (since you have to scan the myki after leaving the train station). Once we arrived at the main station we used (flinders st station) we bought our myki passes worth about 15$ (only 6$ of that was for transport) so enough for about two trips. Then we began to walk around the city near the Yarra River. Melbourne is a very modern city everything about it screams arty and classy. The architecture was my favorite. The buildings were just very creative and all so different (more of these in my fb pics). After walking along the river looking at all the high class-fancy restaurants and buildings we went into Federation Square. Federation square is probably the most modern part of a city I've ever seen in my life. It is built on a slope and the buildings are all steel and silver with different shapes and designs to them. One had digital clock running through the front of the building in different colors. We decided to sit down and have beers for happy hour at this cool taxi-train café restaurant right on the edge of Federation Square and Flinders St Station. It was so neat to just sit there and see all the people just walk by and watch the sun go down.

The interesting thing is we didn't have your typical accommodation in Melbourne. I had learned about this before in my intro to Tourism class and never ever thought I would be doing it. And what we did was called couchsurfing. When you think of it, it seems odd and your reaction is probably, "umm did you all sleep on couches then?" Well only I did actually haha. Its funny there is a website that one of my fellow travelers, Matilde from France, had used before. She knew the experience and really enjoyed it. The five of us decided to give it a go and it's all free so of course we had to give it a shot. We met our couch surfing host and she was a girl about my age maybe a bit older and she was hosting us in her family's home. She hadn't told her brother that we were coming yet alone 5 of us. But he was pretty cool about it and taught us all a lot about Australian football (footy). The set up was the two guys had their own bedroom and the girls had our own bedroom. Both rooms had a bed in them and I took the couch in the room with the other two girls. It was quite comfy after sleeping in the cold and inside a tent. It was so nice getting to know the girl and her brother and so kind of them to open their home to us. We stayed in their home for 3 nights. Their home was located about a 40 minute train ride outside the city.

The next day we took the train into the city and our first stop was to see the Shrine of Remembrance. This is a war memorial built for the soldiers killed at Gallipoli in WWI and for the other soldiers throughout time who lost their lives. This memorial is massive. Walking up to it felt a bit like the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. It's build like a pyramid in the center of the city but filled among so much green in the park. It overlooks downtown for some stunning views of the green space as well as city space. We then made our way into Chinatown for some delicious dumplings. Man were they so good. We had some prawn (shrimp) and chicken and also some pork dumplings. We then got red bean buns for dessert. I had never had red bean buns but they have a paste inside them and the dough around it was just so delicious. I love dumplings!! Next, we decided to catch the free tram to take us all throughout the city. It took us to the other side of the downtown area by the Footy oval, Victoria Market, royal exhibition center, and Melbourne Museum. We walked A LOT! But that's really the best way to see the city and because we are all poor students we found our own tour through the free tram haha. I loved walking around and admiring the buildings and just seeing all the people in Melbourne. People just everywhere! I think I grew accustomed to Adelaide where it's much smaller even though I do live in the city. We made our way back towards Federation Square and to see the graffiti art street. It's a famous street full of art. There are some really beautiful ones there and some that have a great message while others were just ehh. Next, we made our way towards the Sidney Myer Music Oval where the symphonies play similar to the Hollywood bowl in Los Angeles. Up here we encountered the most beautiful sunset. It overlooked the downtown area and it was just stunning to watch the clouds and the sun set over the city. By this time we decided to get some food to eat. We went back towards Flinders Station and that's where the busy street of food places are since it's near the mall. We went into this little Asian bakery where you grab a tray and serve yourself items from dessert, to bread, to kolaches, to biscuits. Just all kinds of items. Then we made our way towards the beautiful city church and ate our bakery items outside a Starbucks (I hadn't seen one since leaving the US. There are none in Adelaide). Then it was time to head back to our couchsurfers home. That night we just relaxed and hung out and got ready for our next and last day in Melbourne.

ON our last day we headed into the city by train again and took another train to head an extra 25 minutes outside the city to Brighton Beach. This beach is really famous for its bath boxes. There are probably about 70-100 and they are all so colorful and have cute little designs on them. You can see the city center in the distance so it's great for pictures. The bath boxes were used for changing long ago but now sit at the beach as icons of Melbourne's arty-ness. I loved looking at the bath boxes and taking pictures with them. They of course had one of Australia that we all had to pose for. Then we had to make our way back to the city to get a few things for our next trip to Tasmania. So we went inside a Target (yes, there's target in Australia. But no food, only clothes, and housewares.) Then we made our way to get some lunch at hungry jack's (burger king) where they have a 5$ meal deal for a burger, fries, ice cream, and a drink. So it's a really really good deal. But basically a kid's meal from back in the states. Then it was time to board our train back to the couchsurfing to pack and weigh all of our bags. The two girls, Mathilde and Katrin, and I were heading to Tasmania. While Clement was headed back to Adelaide. And Gael was headed to Brisbane. The unfortunate thing when you don't have a car is you realize how hard it is to get to the airport. Melbourne had no public transport. They had a skybus for 20$ a person or a taxi. We decided to take a Taxi because we could split the cost four ways to make it cheaper. The next thing I knew it was time to say goodbye to Melbourne and say hello to Hobart, Tasmania.

We also flew on Tiger Air which is the cheapest airline. Tickets for as cheap as 39$ one way to fly. But they weigh your carryon to make sure it's a certain weight. Going there wasn't too much of an issue. We were allowed 10 kg so with a few things stuffed in my pockets I was good to go J

Next up Tasmania! Week #2