march 14 - I held a python!

This morning I went on a walking tour through Melbourne with the company Imfree. It was perfect because I had a great tour guide who was young and local to Melbourne. The tour was 3 hours and we covered so much ground. Highlights of the tour: Melbourne’s street art and bar scene, Block Arcade (an arcade is a shopping center here with a historical, beautiful atmosphere), Princess Theatre, Yarra River, Chinatown, and more!

(Princess Theatre, now showing Book of Mormon, but will be one of the only theatres in the world showing the new Harry Potter production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child in 2019)

The best part of the tour was meeting a bunch of friends from Germany, Israel and the Netherlands. We went to lunch at a place called Metro Burger, and now don’t freak out… but we ate Kangaroo burgers. The meat was surprisingly lean and although it’s very shocking to a lot of North American friends and family of mine, it’s actually a normal dish here because of an effort to maintain population control of the kangaroos.

I had to try it – when in Rome! Next we had to try the famous desserts at Brunetti’s- I had an oreo cheesecake and a chocolate lava type cake. Boy was I was stuffed to the brim. I swear I have never seen more food than I have in Melbourne! People are obsessed with it here! Not complaining though because the quality and diversity is great.

After lots of dining, I went with a friend to the Queen Victoria night market but on our way we stumbled into an activities fair for RMIT University. We got to hold all these crazy animals (I held a python!) and learn a bit more about wildlife in Australia. We even got to blend our own smoothies by riding a bike! The fair was so fun, and reminded me of a very small version of the University of Illinois quad day experience.

We finally made it to the Queen Victoria Market which had a great variety of shopping stalls and food stalls, and live music. I highly recommend this market, which is typically during the middle of the day and only at nights on Wednesdays! After about 20,000 steps and countless meals today, I was ready to hit the hay.