Trip out to St. Kilda

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Well, another day in Aussie land feels like it has come and gone. Since it gets dark here a little after 5, there is only so much day light time to be used up on adventures around the town. Today, I decided to take the trip out to St. Kilda Beach which is a beach for the Port Phillip Bay. I wanted to get some sand for my brother, Mark...he collects it. So, Mark, I have your sand in hand and will try to get it mailed to you...we'll see whether or not it makes it to you.

The morning first started though with another trip to the market (it's so nice having it 2 blocks up as I can run up very quickly to get whatever I need). I decided that I wanted to have egg salad for dinner, so I ran up to the store to get some eggs and some mayo. I also needed some milk and found a very cheap generic brand of diet cola...so I was pretty pumped about that! Also, at the store, I bought one of the "green bags" as I had been told about. It is a way that they are trying to help the environment here in Australia. Instead of using the plastic bags for your groceries, you buy these green bags for 99 cents and then just bring them back to the store with you everytime you come and use them to carry your groceries! It's a great way to help the environment and I'm totally supportive of that...so I got one! I also realized at the store today that here in Australia, they round up or down your final purchase total. They do not have pennies here, so if it is 2 cents or less they round down and if it is three cents or up, they round up. For example, $11.52 would round down to $11.50, but $11.53 would round up to $11.55. Also, the price that an item is listed as on the shelf already has the tax included in it, so there is not extra tax once you get up to the register, it's the price listed with the item on the shelf! Pretty cool if you ask me.

So, I came back to the apartment, made the egg salad and put it in the fridge to get cold before dinner, made myself a personal pizza for lunch, and then figured out what time I was going to meet up with Theresa to go to the beach. My roommate, Dacil, was going to come with us but she was up really late last night and so she was still sleeping when we left. So, Theresa and I met up and caught the tram down to the beach. First, we walked past Luna Beach which is a really old amusement park down at the beach. It has a really creepy entrance which is a clown face (as pictured)....kinda scary if you ask me. Then, we walked along the sidewalk as every Sunday there is an open air art market down at the beach. I think I may be heading back down there later in my trip to get a piece of art or two to take back home with me.

Once we walked through the art market, we headed down to the pier and walked along there and sat on the rocks and just took in the view for a while. It was truly breathtaking. To think that I was able to ride for 35 minutes on a tram and be at this beautiful beach, whereas at home I'd have to ride in a car for hours in order to get there, was truly amazing to me. I just loved being there, despite how frigid it was! I also got some sand for Mark, took pictures of the seagulls for mom, pictures of the rocks for dad (they were beautiful) and pictures of the water/view for myself. It was truly breathtaking and I'm so glad I decided to take the trip out there today.

Now, I'm debating taking a nap so that I can hopefully stay up a little bit later with my roommates tonight (they stay up late- like 5 am- and we all know I like to be in bed early). Tomorrow is the first day of orientation. We have a bunch of "talking at us" in the morning about our overseas health insurance, how classes will work, our role as students here, etc. Then we are going down to Federation Square for lunch (that's downtown) and back uptown for more "talking at us" in the afternoon. So, nothing overly exciting is really happening tomorrow except getting to go downtown for the first time!

I'm loving every second over here of getting to take in my new surroundings and enjoying this brand new city, culture, and environment. I miss you all but I really love it over here too. I'm also really looking forward to getting to know more people this week during orientation and then the following week in classes! Until next time.....good day, mates!

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