This past weekend I had an awesome trip to Melbourne (for those of you at home, it's pronounced Mel-bin) and the Great Ocean Road to run a half marathon. It was slightly hectic at times because we had a group of 12 people and it's difficult to organize everything for that many people, but overall it was a lot of fun and we did and saw a lot. I'm going to use bullet points to talk about some of the highlights of the trip so this post doesn't go on for hours.
- Queen Victoria Market- Kelly and I wandered around all day Friday and this was our first stop. It was awesome. We spent about 2.5 hours wandering around the tons of stalls of all sorts of food, clothes and souvenirs.. The crazy part is we didn't even see it all! It was quite the good time.
- The City- Melbourne is a really cool place and is pretty artsy. There are tons of sculptures everywhere and a lot of the buildings are very colorful. Perhaps my favorite part of the city was the alleys. Normally alleys are a pretty sketchy place that you try to stay away from, but here they are filled with cafes, shops, pubs, and restaurants and are always packed with people.
- Wandering- Kelly and I did a lot of wandering and saw many cool things. We saw some churches, museums, sat in on part of a court case in the Supreme Court, went to Melbourne Uni, saw the Docklands, went to Chinatown where we got delicious bubble tea, walked around Federation Square where Buddha Day was going on, and much more... We packed in a lot in a short period of time and I feel like we got to know Melbourne pretty well.
- 360 Tower- We went to the top of a tower that had awesome views of the city. We had lunch up there and enjoyed the view, as it was pretty spectacular. Later in the evening we went back to watch the sunset and see the city at night which was equally amazing.
- Comic's Lounge- Finally the whole group got together Friday night where we went to the Comic's Lounge, which had 3 hours of comedians. It was one guy's 20th anniversary as a comedian so they brought in some of the best comedians from all over the area to come in and open for him. There were many laughs and they were all really funny. It was a good way to spend the night.
- AFL- On Saturday we all went to see an AFL game, or Aussie Rules Football, also called footy. We got a deal through the hostel we stayed at which also allowed us to see a video beforehand with rules of how the game is played. Footy is pretty awesome as it is really fast paced unlike American football. There is no standard size field, 18 players from each team play at a time, there are no pads worn but plenty of tackling, you can only pass the ball by punching it or kicking it, and there is no set time for each quarter. For example, the quarters are supposed to be around 20 minutes each but the refs can decided how long they want them to last depending on whether they had to stop or not. The first quarter that we watched lasted for 30 minutes and 19 seconds. To score, there are 2 large posts and 2 smaller ones on either side and you have to kick the ball between the posts. If you get it between the big ones it's 6 points and if you hit the big poles or get it between the little poles it's 1 point. It's basically a pretty crazy game. It was really entertaining to watch and try to figure out, and though they're the worst team in the league, Melbourne did a pretty good job and almost won.
- Apollo Bay Backpackers- After a drive that ended up being much longer than expected, we got to our hostel in Apollo Bay pretty late and had to wake up at 5 the next morning for the race. Upon arriving at the hostel, we found out that there weren't enough beds and people would have to share, and after lying down we realized that there were bugs everywhere!! Spiders on the bedposts, little gnats on the pillows, and much more.. It was quite disgusting and ended up in some people freaking out, although we ended up just dealing with it and going to sleep because we were so exhausted.
- The Great Ocean Road Half Marathon- We woke up early on Sunday to run this race!! The Great Ocean Road has got to be one of the most beautiful roads in the entire world, and I feel so lucky that I was able to run on it and have it completely closed off by traffic. The weather ended up working out really well and I was comfortable the whole time. We saw some beautiful views along the run and while I didn't think it could happen, the entire half marathon went by way too fast!! Before I knew it we were at the 15km mark and the rest came really quickly. I ran the majority of the race with Colette and Anna and we had a good time together. We saw a bunch of koalas along the run and many breathtaking views. For only having run on completely flat roads, I think I did a great job with the hilliness, and just felt amazing. I broke away the last 4 miles and powered home, and it made me realize that I really want to find awesome races to do all over the world. This 'half marathon' was 23km versus the normal 21km, so we decided that it is an ultra half marathon... 14.375 miles is the longest I've ever run and it was spectacular. Everyone did an awesome job and loved it as well.
- Touring the Great Ocean Road- I was on cloud 9 for the rest of the day and I think everyone else was in an equally good mood. Since we had rented cars in Melbourne, we went on to explore the rest of the Great Ocean Road and really lucked out with weather, as it cleared up right as we were getting to the main viewing points. We saw some gorgeous rainbows and stopped at some beautiful places along the drive. Our main destination was the Twelve Apostles, which ended up being absolutely beautiful. It was sunny by the time we got there and the water looked turquoise. It was perfect. The Twelve Apostles are rock formations in the middle of the ocean that have eroded throughout time to be huge pillars and we spent a long time just standing there and admiring them.
Unfortunately due to class, we had to end our trip after that. It was a fantastic weekend and I enjoyed all of it from exploring the city to feeling on top of the world running in the half marathon. This week will be pretty low-key again, as I have tons of schoolwork due this week and in the next two weeks.. I can't believe that the semester is actually coming to an end!! I have just over 5 weeks left in Australia and it sounds like a lot, but when I look at my calendar I have barely any time left at all and I can't believe it. I hope everything is going well with everyone at home! I miss you guys!
A Lesson in Aussie Speech:
1. They have a serious problem with the letter 'r'. They don't pronounce it when it is in a word, but add it to words when it's not there. For example, soccer is typically pronounced 'socka', Melbourne is pronounced 'Mel-bin', and Cairns is pronounced 'Cans'. However, words that end in vowels are often given an 'r' sound at the end. For example, pizza will often be pronounced as 'pizzer'
2. The letter 't' in the middle of words will often sound like a 'ch' sound. An example of this is that youtube sounds like youchube
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