June 28th Museum, Footy and La Di Da

This morning we sprung into action at the Melbourne museum. Unfortunately our free one-hour tour had a tour guide that was older than time itself, so old in fact that he had no concept of how mumbled and soft his words were. Poor guy, we were all looking at each other and were trying to devise an escape plan. The best part was that he was an amateur radio operator just like my dad. We got a nice laugh out of that. Since I had been on a better free tour inside the museum the first time, I led another short tour for the family.

Shayna’s favorite part was the whole psychology/brain area, I liked the indigenous sails and bugs, dad liked the ancient dinosaur bones and mom liked the WWI love and sorrow stories. For lunch we went to Naked for Satan, and got a ton of small plates and yummy drinks! Upstairs we had some main dishes with an amazing view of the city. I got oysters because I was curious to see how fresh they were, what with most of Australian cities being on the coast I have heard the oysters are great here- and they were!

After lunch we made a quick stop at my old apartment in Southbank. Seeing some of the roommates was very cool too! Here is the view from my apartment on the 30th floor. Waking up to that view every morning was indescribable.

Tonight we all went to the footy game. (Australian Football League- AFL). It was Richmond Tigers (suburb of Melbourne) vs the Sydney Swans. Sydney is into footy but Melbourne goes nuts over it. The game was crazy and so is the circular playing field!

I can only equate it somewhat to gaelic football, which is like a mixture of soccer, football, and rugby. The players don't wear padding, and it blows my mind because if I had a child playing that sport I'd be so nervous about injury. Either way, I really liked the pace of the game and the crowd was upbeat enough but not super out of control. The food there was also surprisingly cheap compared to a professional sporting event in the states. To top the night off, the Richmond Tigers won and the crowd was roaring. One of the best parts of the game had to be the beach ball sized pom pons in the cheering sections. Wicked cool. Afterwards we went to have a celebratory drink at La Di Da.

I loved showing my family where I had been working for months! With all these connections, the drink deals kept comin' too :) Dad and I even took a jam doughnut shot, which is Chambord and baileys. (so delicious.) Another great day in the books.