We got up on our first full day in Melbourne at about 9am after a good nights' sleep. There is free breakfast in the hostel so I had a couple of slices of toast before getting ready for the day.

It is really sunny here and I think the weather is in the low 20s, so we put on jeans but we still got quite hot in the sun.

We jumped on a tram into town and got of at a random stop (we had no idea where we were) and just wandered around. It has a different atmosphere to Sydney, less rushed and a bit more arty. We came across a place called Federation Square where the there is a museum of moving image. On our way in we saw a Sally Hansen gazebo thing and were offered free manicures, no catch! I decided to go for a lemon yellow colour as I usually play it safe with pinks and purples, it actually looks okay. The lady sitting next to me had just been to ACMI (the musoum) and said that there is a Disney exhibition going on there which is brilliant, but as it is $16 we couldn't go. There was a free room though which was really interesting, it had stuff all the way from the beginning of moving image up until the Nintendo Wii, via the introduction of television and the making of Toy Story.

After the museum we went for a walk along Southbank and into the Botanic Gardens, they are really pretty. We had planned to meet Jon and Anna (Vicky's sister and her bf, who have flown down from Newcastle) at 2pm back at Federation Square, so we went to meet them and had a walk around looking for somewhere to eat. We looked for the Greek Quarter, but there seemed to be no restaurants, so we ended up in a cafe. I had beef canelloni which was really yummy.

After lunch we walked to the Treasury Gardens where Captain Cook's house is. It is an English cottage which was taken brick by brick to Australia in the 1930s and rebuilt in this park. We paid $2.70 to go in and look around, it was really interesting. The cottage is so unmistakably English that it did almost feel like we were in England.

After the cottage we wandered back to Fed Square, where we got an ice cream in a cone for $3 a scoop (v. cheap here). I got mint choc chip, and my one scoop was more like three, so it was very good value for money and very tasty. There was also free wifi so I managed to upload my outstanding blog entries which was good as wifi in the hostel is $15 for a day!

We said goodbye to Jon and Anna and made our way back to the hostel, where I showered and put my pjs on straight away, then sat in the living room reading. It was movie and popcorn night, but the movie was in German with subtitles which I couldn't be bothered to read, so I just read my book. I have been reading 'a million little pieces' by James Frey - it is a memoir about a drug addict and alcoholic - it's really harrowing but really good.

After the movie we went straight to bed at about 11pm, our room is quite cold but it's quite nice after two and a half months of being boiling hot at night time!

Also, I fly home a month today...that's gone quickly!

xxx