Melbourne, here at last

Melbourne! Finally I am here. I passed through Melbourne on my way from Sydney to Adelaide with Korhan, 3 months ago. For several reasons, we didn't stay even one day, and I was hoping to have the time to come back, even if it was going to be in the winter. So on a nice sunny day I left Noosa, took the bus to Brisbane airport, and prepared myself to freeze in Melbourne. Instead, I had a beautiful week, not even one day of rain and relatively warm weather (around 18 degrees).
In my first days in the city I didn't do much. I had to rest after the "hard days" in Fraser Island... so I had some more drinks (unfortunately they don't have the XXXX Bitter in Melbourne, their beer really sucks), and I even learned to play pool.
After a few days I decided it was about time to see something here. A good start was just across the street from my backpackers - Victoria Market. It's not as good as the one in Adelaide, but it's still a nice market with plenty of good fruit and veggies, and plenty of market goods. If you ever get there, don't miss the donuts - I am not a big fun of donuts but those were really good!
On Sunday there was another good market, arts and craft market by the Art center on the south bank of the Yarra river. It's a "Nahlat benyamin" style of market, really beautiful things, unfortunately how would I carry them with me? It's a pity I don't go home from Melbourne.
The city has some good museums as well. The Melbourne museum building is a beautiful modern creation. Inside I learned about Melbourne history (yes, I did find it interesting!), saw an imitated rain forest (a bit stupid after visiting so many real ones) and saw some interesting exhibition about Aboriginal culture and history. Another part was about the human body but it was packed with school kids so we passed.
The old Melbourne Gaol (=prison) was a spooky experience. You can visit old prisons all over Australia but that was my first one. I read stories of convicted prisoners, learned how much food they received (not enough) and saw the cells - and decided I do not want to live like that...
The NGV (National Gallery of Victoria) is separated to the International And Australian. The International was really boring, and I managed to miss the Australia one - unfortunately because I really wanted to see the Aboriginal art exhibition.
Apart from market and museums, Melbourne is really a really nice place just to wonder around, see the squares (especially the lovely federation square), drink in the pubs, and relax.
On Monday we (we=me and Hila, an Israeli friend) took a day tour to Philip Island, most famous for the "penguin parade". Before the island we stopped in a wildlife park where we saw some Aussie animals, one of which I haven't seen so far (except for a sleeping one in Sydney zoo): a wombat. It's a cutey creature, cousin of my beloved koala. I got a chance to pat it, so cuuute! The penguin parade was great too. You get to see them marching (well, waddling) out of the sea as they come ashore at dusk. They group together and they don't really want to go out. Just like kids, there's always one in the group that runs back to the sea and then the others follow - until the leaders say "that's it, mates" and they make their way to their borrows on the shore. We were not allowed to take pictures so I can't
share the views with you, but it was awesome.

In my last night in Melboune Hila dragged me to go out. We had free beer vouchers to Pugg Mahone's, which we found to be a nice Irish bar. But we planned to go to the Crown entertainment center, a huge place dominated by a casino with plenty of restaurants and other stuff. We spent no more than 5 minutes in the casino, watched the "light and fire" show they held every hour on the river promenade, and decided to head back to Pugg Mahone's for more beer in a nicer atmosphere. It was a real good "Melbournian finale" for my week in the city.

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