More updates from the last month!

Hey Everyone! I'm back with lots to tell! I should really be updating this every week so that I remember more details and won't have to write huge entries to cover 3 weeks at a time. Oh well!

Alright, not too sure where I left off, but I believe it was with Pyramid Rock Festival. After the festival, I went back to Lucy's parent's place. They me on a tour of the Peninsula. We drove around and also did a big hike. It was a really beautiful day! Lucy's dad, Mark, was an expert at pointing out all the kangaroos along the hike. I was so excited to see so many kangaroos. I was able to get pretty close to this really big one before he hopped away. We also saw this lizard... not sure what kind. I have photos of it, so I will post them on here (if I can figure out how to do that!). Lucy and her parents took me around to many great lookout points and beaches- I have tons of photos which describe how beautiful the peninsula is without me writing a thousand words... haha. Hopefully will post those up soon!

The next day (Jan 3) Lucy, Claire and I, along with some other friends went to another music festival called Solar. I was a day festival but tons of fun. I was able to see Pnau and the Presets- two huge bands! Pnau was soooo good! I love their music. I also saw Muffin Plutonic- a much loved Australian rapper. That was really fun... got right into the mosh pit and managed to escape without any broken bones! It was a great day with lots of good laughs!

After the festival, Lucy and I drove back to Melbourne. I met Caroline there, as she flew in a few days before I got there. We stayed at Lucy's appartment for the week and toured around during the day while Lucy was working. One of the days that I was in Melbourne, I met up with my friend, Krista, from Canada, who was in Melbourne to visit her Australian boyfriend, Thomas. Krista, Thomas and I spent a few hours in St. Kilda, which is a famous beach in Melbourne. It was really good to see Krista before she left for Canada the next day. On one of the days, Caroline and I went to the Melbourne Aquarium. The Aquarium was really good! They had so many different kinds of fish. We were able to see the sharks get fed and watched the penguins for a while. I felt bad for the penguins because they seem like such intelligent creatures. They were coming up to the glass to check out all the humans and they seemed so interested. It seemed like such a shame to have them caged up in such a small area. Maybe I felt bad because I really like the movie "Happy Feet" ...? Caroline and I went to visit St. Kilda while we were in Melbourne since Caroline hadn't come when I had gone to meet Krista and Thomas. We walked around there a bit and did some shopping. At another point during our stay, we went to the Vic Night Markets. During the day, the markets sell mostly little crafty things or clothes, but when the night market is open, there is tons of good food from all over the world. It is so hard to pick which food you want when there are 50 different kinds! One of the days that Caroline and I were in Melbourne, we went on quite the adventure. Lucy had to work early one morning so she left us the key. We ended up locking the wrong lock, so we were all locked out of the appartment. Lucy called up the landlord and we were able to go and pick up the spare set of keys. We had to take a taxi to go get the key, come back and unlock the door, take the key back to the landlord and then return to the appartment. All the taxis were a little expensive but when we took the keys back to the landlord, we asked the girl at the front desk if there was anything close by and fun that we could do in that area before we took a cab back to Lucy's place. The lady had two other ladies come out of their offices to think about what we could do in the area and they decided that the best place for us to go would be the shopping mall, which was too far away from there to walk. The one lady left for her appointment early, just so she could drop us off at the mall and the other lady gave us her phone number to call her after so that she could pick us up from the mall and drop us back off at Lucy's when she was home from work. We went to the mall and after we were done, we weren't sure if we should give the second lady a call to pick us up. We did but she didn't answer (I think she might of still been at work). Either way, those ladies were so nice to us. I've found so many helpful and nice people in Australia. I hope that tourists to Canada feel the same way.

Caroline flew out to Brisbane on Jan 9 and I stayed back in Melbourne. That day, Lucy and I drove back to her parent's place. Lucy and Claire, since I had met them had been talking about this bar they go to when they are home called the Conti. We planned to go to the Conti that Saturday but never made it in because the line was so long to get in. I was dissapointed because I had heard about all the crazy adventures that the girls had had at this bar. I'm definitely planning a trip back to the Peninsula just to go to that bar!

That Monday, I left with Claire and her friend Em, for a trip down part of the Great Ocean Road to go visit another friend, also named Lucy. We went for three days down to Anglesea. We saw a few different beaches, including the one in Anglesea and one in Lorne. We saw a lighthouse. The girls wanted to show me the "Twelve Apostles" - 12 big rocks that stick out of the ocean but we found out it would of taken 4 hours to drive there from Anglesea. As we were walking along the ocean though, there was a big rock in the ocean, so Claire said, "There Elise. The Twelve Apostles look exactly like that- just pretend that's one of them." Thanks Claire! I will consider that the Thirteenth Apostle and say I pretty much saw them! In reality, there are only 7 of the 12 Apostles left - the rest have fallen down into the ocean and I hear that although it is a tourist attraction, they are really not that spectacular...? If I get an opportunity to see them, I will but I am not dissapointed that I didn't see them!

After the trip down the Great Ocean Road, I went back to Melbourne. I flew out to Sydney on Jan 16, as I had a ticket to a concert for the Sydney Festival. The ticket was for the Throwing Muses - a band that Matt had picked out and bought us tickets too. I liked the intro band but the main act wasn't as good. We ended up just sitting around drinking a few beers which was nice! Speaking of beers, I have gained such an appreciation for beer in Australia! I have never liked beer but since this trip started, I have been loving it! It is so hot here, so a cold beer is just the best thing to have to cool you down! I've since decided that I better cut down on the beer or start drinking light beer or I will come home with a beer belly! After the concert, Caroline and I, along with one of Matt's friends, Glenn, went to an area called Manly to go to a club. We danced for a while and then crashed at Glenn's place in Manly! Overall, a fun night!

I am just going to publish this before I write anymore. I always end up doing something to the computer that erases everything I've managed to write- so I will publish and continue on in another entry...

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