Waking up and not having to share a bathroom or wait a really long time for one to open up is really a luxury. I really like staying with Rory and Jenny.
Today is Queen's Day, God save the Queen. Where Australia celebrates the birthday of the queen. God save the Queen. And it is a national holiday, God save the Queen. And you have to say God save the Queen after everything, God save the Queen. The funny thing is no one really knows why they do this holiday and even if it is her real birthday and nobody says God save the Queen. So basically it is a holiday that everyone loves because it makes for a long weekend.
We took the morning to have pancakes and got ready for a cold rainy day. Our plan was to make the footy pilgrimage to the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground). This is a fantastic stadium that holds 100,000 people and today Melbourne was playing Collingwood. We arrived just in time for the first bounce and the game was on. If you don't know anything about Australian Rules Football (Footy) then here are a few things to know. Basically the game is on a huge oval playing field (pitch) and there is a goal for each team. The game consists of each team working the footy (football shaped ball that is not as pointy on the ends) to their goal and kicking it through the middle part of the goal. You can pass the ball with a volleyball type bump or by kicking it and if you catch it off a kick that is called a "mark" where you receive a free kick or you can run with it. This game is full contact, which makes it rather rough. So in the end it is a combination of Ultimate Frisbee, soccer and hockey.
The game was not close. Collingwood smashed Melbourne who has not won a game this season. The rain fell hard and we were very thankful that we were under cover. We stuck it out for the whole match and had a great time rooting for everything! A great time was had.
After the game we headed down to the river and had a BBQ. The city has gas grills set up in the parks that are free so we took full advantage of the grill and cooked some fantastic food including veggies and kangaroo meat. It was all good! The meat was not as "gamey" as I thought it would be. It was actually very close to beef in consistency so I enjoyed it a lot.
It was then off to the Melbourne Center for the Moving Picture, which is a nationally and internationally known museum for movies, right up our alley. The museum was closed but we were there for something else, Fanboys! Rory, Heather and I are huge Star Wars fans so we thought it would be awesome to see it together. It was great and the ultimate Star Wars geek movie.
We spent the rest of the night walking around Melbourne seeing the sights and stopping in cafe's for some great coffee. We also saw the Crown casino, a huge casino that makes a lot of money for the city and is very lavish. They even have this fireball display in front that shoots huge balls of fire into the air. It was pretty cool.
The end of the night came when we arrived at home and warmed up with coffee and scones. It was a great day and we had a blast seeing and being "normal" Ausies for a day.
Tomorrow we drive in Australia up to Canberra...pray we don't forget to drive on the correct side of the road.
dain
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