Australia Day 5-- Melbourne

Woke up at 630 am and packed up the rest of my things, and woke up sean to take me to the airport for my 9am flight. Got there by 7 am and waited in a half hour line to check my bag. Good thing I paid online the morning for my bag as I guess it turns wicked expensive. After I do that I was queued through security. Did not need to take off my shoes. Did not need to take my liquids out, did not need to take my jacket off. It was rather nice. Also, no one besides the baggage check lady looked at my passport. Ran into Natalie and her friends. (The one I sat next to on the flight from lax to Syd. ) they are headed to cairns, ate breakfast with them and said so long. We are on the sam returning flight to lax so we will swap stories. Got my seat and passed out.

Woke up after touchdown texted phill my Couchsurfer letting him know I arrived. Hopped the bus into the city center and waited about thirty minutes for the free tram to get the ten blocks to his house. Had I not had my backpack I would have walked it.


Phill was slightly hungover from the nye party and when I arrived I voted for an hour nap before seeing the city. Woke up at 2 and we departed for the city. It was drizzling. Stopped for breakfast (ham and cheese omelet and a chai ) then decided what better way to kick off the year than doing a pub crawl (self created) throughout Melbourne. It was a great time. We first had to start with a bloody then had microbrews some even from his hometown.


After awhile we picked up a bottle of wine and stopped at a restaurant in Chinatown as had dumplings (potstickers) and phill started informing me of the drop bears and other deadly creatures there are here. Apparently I should have packed some denim jeans because the snakes fangs cannot penetrate them. Maybe my gentleman host in Alice springs will loan me a pair. Haha. Drop bears are marsupials similar to koala bears but bigger and they hang out above walkways waiting for warm bodies to walk underneath them, then they drop out of the tree and go right for the neck. (I think I'm being gullible, but I did not do any research) apparently vegimight a bread spread that locals love and is very salty can be used to ward off drop bears. As is putting toothpaste behind the ears.

After Chinatown we headed back to phills (as he has to work in the am and I got no sleep the night before). Poured a lowball of scotch and put on Topgun and I fell sleep. Great ocean road trip tomorrow!