heather's amazing stuff

So we got to Melbourne and were quite tired. Below are some pics from our flight as we were descending into Melbourne.



We also got totally screwed on our cab. We got in line for taxis and the guy at the airport got us a shuttle/van type cab. When we got in and were a ways down the road, the cabbie says it's going to be $10 more because this is a big cab...great...what are we to do now? At least we got some good tips from him as he was taking us to the hotel.

This hotel was quite a bit nicer, but still no Ritz. It was also a ways from the action. Both hotels were, but it seemed this one was a bit more removed. AND...no internet in the room, which is why I'm doing this blog 2 weeks later.

So we got to our hotel room and decided to take a little bit of a nap and unpack a bit. After we did that, we proceeded to go on a long walk to get acclimated and get some information on where to go in the days to come.

The CBD (central business district) of Melbourne was quite interesting in that it was broken into many precincts. There was Chinatown, the Greek precinct (although you could sneeze and miss it), The Italian quarters (which I don't think we ever made it to) and the hardware district, which had some great little alley way cafes. There were also some great streets for shopping that I guess comprised their own districts. Collins Street was one of the nicer shopping areas. We were looking for lunch and ended up eating at a restaurant in this mall. We tried to stay away from the food courts whenever we could.



We walked a good majority of these areas on the first day! We were well on our way to matching the 6-10 miles a day that we walked in Sydney, and the public transportation didn't look as good in Melbourne so we were sure to be walking more.

We happened upon a place called Federation Square and they had a big screen that you could stand in front of and see yourself live on an internet feed. I wish we'd been able to call someone to log on and see us...but it was pretty late at night, I'm sure nobody would have appreciated that! Federation square had some cool architecture. I'll let Rob talk more about that, but here's a great pic.



We ended up getting some tourist information at a visitors center they had there and found out that Melbourne had an observation tower too, so guess where we ended up? I love how Rob says "It's only about 5 blocks away" 5 blocks for whom??? It was more like 12....I finally learned (yes this late in the trip) to ask Rob if he meant "Rob blocks" or regular, realistic blocks. Melbourne was also the place that we realized that how many ever steps Rob took, I was taking about 15 more...I have such a short stride so most of the trip I was either walking behind him...or running to keep up!

So here's the view from the observation tower. Keep in mind, I was TIRED so if the pics of me look bad...that's why! Also, it was funny, Rob could feel the building moving and we were on the 38th floor...I couldn't. After looking through the pics, I guess I decided to not post one of me...maybe Rob will.



Here are some random pictures of cool malls and buildings that I just wanted to post from our day.





All in all the first day was a good one. On our journey we saw a TARGET!!!! Yes, they have target there. We saw an ad for something in Sydney and it said available at Target and showed the bullseye logo. I was so excited so we found one in Melbourne. More on that in the next day or so!

Coming soon--Melbourne, Day 2!