Melbourne to Sydney

Monday

Today we visited the Melbourne Zoo with Andy’s cousin Katya and her daughter Sabine. Melbourne has a great zoo, very similar to Woodland Park in that most of the animals are exhibited in their natural habitat. They have an outstanding Australian animal exhibit, including wombats, kangaroos, penguins, koalas, lizards and emus. It is almost a petting zoo style so you can get really close to the animals. They also have many other animals; we got to see very young tiger cubs and an excellent orangutan exhibit. They also had some non-australian animals that we had never seen before including red pandas, meerkats and giant tortoises. Katya and Sabine had to leave after a couple of hours (young Sabine doesn’t quite have the endurance of us, now that we’ve spent so many days walking around). However, after nearly 6 hours at the zoo we took the train into the city to wander around a bit. Unfortunately, all of the shops close really early (like 5:30) so we just grabbed bite to eat and a couple of drinks.

Tuesday

Today we spent the day shopping and exploring the downtown area. Melbourne has a very European culture. People seem to enjoy a leisurely coffee at a café and a meal out at a restaurant or pub. In fact Melbourne supposedly has more restaurant/cafes per capita than any other city, and from what we saw we can believe it. So we set out to experience it. We wandered around the downtown area and looked in many shops. The major department store here is Myer. It is HUGE! It rivals Macy’s in New York. It is two buildings and has everything that you can imagine; clothing, electronics, toys, books and a whole floor of shoes (Katie’s idea of heaven). Then we walked around Federation Square and the Southbank area. Federation Square is a nice commons area with very unique buildings much like the EMP in Seattle. The buildings are primarily museums, restaurants and a few shops. Southbank is lovely area along the Yarra River. It has wonderful shops and restaurants.

After a day of shopping we went to Andy’s Aunt Natasha and Uncle Vassya’s home for a lovely dinner. Most of the family was there and conversation stretched well into the night.

Wednesday

Today was a national holiday in Australia, ANZAC Day (ANZAC stands for Australia and New Zealand Army Corps). It is a celebration of the Australian and New Zealand participation in the Battle of Gallipoli in WWI. (That is just a very simplistic description and we apologize if it is incorrect in any way). It is celebrated with a parade and a remembrance of the soldiers who a have fought for Australia. It is very similar to our Independence Day or Veterans Day. It is also a big day for Australian Rules Football. Footy (as they call it) is VERY popular in Melbourne (originally it was only played in Victoria, and has only recently spread to other areas). There are 10 teams in the city of Melbourne out of a league of 16. In Melbourne they have a game on ANZAC day every year and the same two teams play, Essendon and Collingwood. According to Vassya, Collingwood is sort of like the Yankees, either you love them or you hate them (he is not a fan, so were rooting against them). Vassya took us to see if we could get tickets. We went to the Melbourne Cricket Grounds (or MCG as they call it) but the game was sold out including SRO, which was a little surprising since it seats about 100,000!!! So we wandered around a little and soaked in the ambience, then went to watch the game on a huge outdoor screen in Federation Square. It was a unique experience; we both agreed that it would be great to have something similar in Seattle. It is a very fast-paced, high-scoring game. I think that Andy and I might almost understand the rules. The final score was 95-79, Collingwood (boooooo!!!).

After the game we went to Andy’s cousin Nina and her partner Carlos’ home for dinner. It was a wonderful meal. It is so fun to have all of the children running around. We are not used to that since there are no kids yet with our family at home. It is very lively.

Thank you so much for the hospitality of all of the family in Melbourne. It was so wonderful to get caught up with all of you. Thank you too for all of the wonderful meals. We are looking forward to seeing you in Sydney.

Thursday

Today we left Melbourne for Sydney. It is hard to believe that we are already on the final leg of our trip! We arrived around noon, and Andy’s Uncle Kostya and Aunt Galya picked us up at the airport. These are Andy’s godparents who came to visit us for our wedding two summers ago. After we met them, we all went to see some of the city. Our first stop was Coogee Beach, on the south side of the city along the coast. We walked along the beach for a while, and then decided to see some more. Our next stop was Bondi Beach (which is one of the more famous beaches in Sydney), just up the coast from Coogee. Here we stopped to eat some lunch at a restaurant with a great view, then moved to a café for some coffee and dessert. Then we went to South Head, which is the south side of the entrance to Sydney Harbor. The entrance to the harbor is very dramatic with sheer cliffs that drop about 100 meters to the sea(yes we are learning to think in metric now, that’s about 315 feet for you yanks back home). We were also afforded a great view of the city with the Harbor Bridge in the distance. Directly on the harbor side there is a quaint little neighborhood called Watson’s Bay, where we stopped for a quick drink to watch the sunset and wait for the rush hour traffic to die down before heading home. We arrived at Kostya and Galya’s place after 7:00, and were treated to a nice dinner including the Russian staple borsch (cabbage and beet soup, served with sour cream… it’s very good). After catching up and exchanging stories it was very late so we all retired for a good night’s rest.

Friday

Well, we got our good night of rest, and didn’t end up getting out of bed today until almost 10:00. It seems that all of our travels sort of caught up with us today. So we just had a leisurely day around the house in the morning, planning the rest of our visit. One treat was watching all of the birds in the back yard; we saw wild Kookaburras and Lorikeets up close and personal. Galya was even feeding some of them out of her hand. Later in the afternoon, Galya drove us to a place called Koala Park that is about 5 minutes from their house. This is sort of a small zoo, almost more of a petting zoo. They had some animals that we didn’t get to see at the Melbourne Zoo including Echidnas (spiny anteaters) and dingoes. They also had some young koalas that you could get really close to. They were so fun to watch eat, sleep, yawn, scratch and generally do what koalas do. But the real treat was the area where you could wander around with the kangaroos and feed them. Most of them were very tame and would eat right out of your hand and let you pet them. We even got to see a little joey poking his head out of his mother’s pouch. It got a little less fun when one of them got a little aggressive and started attacking Andy (not really attacking, but he did jump up on his tail and kick him one time, so we decided we should probably make our leave). Fortunately, he was not injured. Then we walked home and now it’s about time for dinner, so we should probably sign off. We should have more to report soon, tomorrow we head downtown to the Opera House and The Rocks.

Cheers mates!