I Hate Caterpillar Man

We're all frantic. Most of us are leaving Melbourne on Thursday night or Friday morning to go to Darwin and we're all frantic to see everything and go back to our favorite spots in Melbourne. It's busy this week.

Yesterday after class, Derek, Marie, Ryan, Jamie, and I went down to St. Kilda and had lunch at the best burger joint I've ever been to. I really didn't think Australia would serve much in the way of hamburgers (all the pizza I've had here has been awful) but we found a cool place called Gourmet Burgers Co and decided to try it out. I had a BBQ burger that had some kind of sweet chutney mixed in with the sauce. It was really good, even though my milkshake wasn't. Australians really have no idea what a milkshake is, because the one I had at GBC was basically chocolate milk. Other things Australians don't know how to do? Iced coffee. Iced coffee here has ICE CREAM in it (it's delicious but wrong!) Then there's the lack of Mexican food (which I never thought I'd miss but I do), the overuse of lamb in everything, the fact that we have to pay extra for ketchup (called tomato sauce), and that if you ask for lemonade, you'll get Sprite. Oh well, if that's my biggest complaint here, I'm still doing pretty well.

Anyway, after the burgers, we went down to the pier at St. Kilda and pretended that we were standing on the edge of the Antarctic Ocean (we're still not sure if we were, but let's say that I was recently at the edge of the world just for the drama of it). It actually turned out to be a semi-sunny day, though it was much too cold for me to get in the water. We looked for cool shells on the beach and took numerous pictures on the pier. St. Kilda was amazing and we picked out places where we'd live if we moved here.

After dinner, a bunch of us went to the Old Melbourne Gaol (they spell "jail" weird) for a night tour of it. The Gaol is abandoned and very old (it once held Ned Kelly) and is supposedly haunted, so a nighttime tour seemed cool. It turned out to be more of a show (an actor told us spooky stories over candlelight while someone else made banging noises in the dark) but it was still actually really scary, mostly because I was afraid someone was going to jump out of a cell behind me. It was a pretty cool place, especially after they turned the lights back on.

Afterwards we went to a comedy club in downtown Melbourne but the comedians were horrible, so we left and went to bed.

This morning we got up bright and early for a 7:30 am bird walk in the Melbourne Botanical Gardens. A 7:30 meeting time meant that we had to leave at around 6:50 and take two trams. It was ugly. I was grumpy.

And the bird walk (just like the plant tour) was exceedingly boring. I really began to hate our tour guide with a passion. His weird mannerisms and odd sayings ("I saw a powerful owl here on Thursday night, we probably won't see one, but it was nice") really made me mad at 7:30 in the morning. I like birds and I don't even mind watching the sun rise (ugh, okay that's a lie), but I hate pompous old Australian tour guides that look kind of like caterpillars. He really did.

Afterwards, my spirits were lifted as Derek, Marie, Jamie, Ryan, and I went to my favorite place ever, the Victoria Market. We went souvenir shopping again and I found a couple digeridoos for under $70, but then Ryan said I shouldn't buy them because the funds weren't going to the Aborigines, and I should wait to buy one when we get to Kakadu. I acquiesed but I still think I can find an Aboriginal-made digeridoo at Vic Market somewhere. After shopping, Marie and I went to get the amazing pesto they make at a deli, so we bought that and some bread and salami to eat later (and it was amazing).

Tonight we're going to a play called "Influence." I don't know what it's about nor do I even know the playwright, but it should be interesting.