OZ update number 2

Hello friends and family,

Today we took a tour of the city on this free bus.  They have a tram and a bus that takes you to all the touristy places all around melbourne.  It think there are about 16 stops. It is free, can you believe it! There are so many fun things to do here. It is like toronto though. here are the things that we are thinking about doing in the next few weeks:

museum- they have these really cool imax movies about dinosaurs, underwater creatures etc

swan lake -the ballet

the grand prix is on now but I don't care to go since I have been in toronto already, we can hear it everywhere.

there is a building that is about 88 floors up and has a sky deck that is completely glass, so you can step out and be completely in the air. it is the world's first edge experience viewing platform. Mykie is an adrenaline junkie, and i am his sidekick, so off we go to stand free on the 88 floor and look below our feet. that will be such a cool feeling

there are a few river cruises that run through melbourne that have great views of the city

there is this really cool "ice bar" everything is made of ice, even the glasses they serve drinks in.  We have something similar in toronto, but last time we went the bouncers were so rude. we never made it in. i think I was there with steph the night we hung out with brokehemier, the producer of csi and shows like that.

we are thinking about possibly doing a hot air balloon ride.  it is quite expensive, but a once in a lifetime opportunity that is for sure.  We know that they offer hot air balloons in other parts of the world so we still don't know where we will do one.  We will definitely do it though.

don't forget that OZ is full of amazing Australian wineries. hopefully we come back with knowledge not just stories of drinking too much wine, meeting cool people and seeing the wineries.  WHo am I kidding, I am with Mykie, lol.

the zoo: there are two open range zoos where you can get amongst the animals and feel part of the herd. and there is also a koala sanctuary. we don't have that in toronto.  hopefully Mykie doesn't get into a fight with a kangaroo. they are so strong and will kick his but so hard, lol.  I will take video.

comedy festival is on now as well. it is the largest celebration of things funny.

there is this really strange dracula cabaret. it is supposed to be a comedy show of sorts/cabaret. There is a ghost train ride into the theatre, dinner, puppetry, illusions and mad mad comedy.  Even the building for this one looks so funny. it has all these goblins on the outside of the building. very creative.

the melbourne aquarium is the most well known thing here, i think. they have glass bottom boat tours, you can get into the tank and swim with the sharks , there are touch tanks as well and more. this aquarium is so big and really cool. I might consider jumping in and taking a swim with the sharks. my grandpa will kill me though... we'll see.

we are going to eat kangaroo. that is more a touristy thing. most aussies don't eat it cause it is there national animal, like us eating geese. come on geese are yummy and so is kangaroo, yummy!!!

There is this old tram that has a fancy dinner and all you can drink bar, that is dangerous being with mykie, since it is open bar. Who cares about the food, all you can drink  for $70,lol. I will eat it.

I know that I have just listed a mile long list of things to do, but I just wanted to show you that there are so many fun things to do in Melbourne. We will give you updates on what we did and how it was.

BTW, yesterday we went to the beach. THere are beaches everywhere here. It was 39 degrees outside. No one got burned but it was so hot that we all though we were going to melt. We are not used to 39 degree weather. That is insane. I ofcourse, being so white, got way too much sun. It did not feel good. But at least we never burn because we wear so much sun screen. it is a staple here for anyone. The ozone is so bad here, that you never leave the house without sunscreen.

To add to that, there are so many dead jelly fish on the shore lines. They are light blue in colour, not dangerous, just creepy to have everywhere. The little jelly fish are the ones you have to watch out for. You can hardly see them and they are poisonous.  these little guys you find in the north of OZ.

In Melbourne...

just wanted to send a quick update as to what has been going on in Melbourne with us....

We arrived in melbourne on wednesday, and we were greeted by kate.  She was standing right at the gate when we came off our flight.  That surprised us since we normally don't see that in Toronto. It took us 27 hours to get to australia.  Our Longest flight which was from san francisco to sydney was 13 hours straight. We were so lucky that we had amazing seats, and as soon as we got on the plane we feel asleep hard.  travelling in planes for so long is exhausting. Oh my.

Once we arrived in Melbourne we were greeted by 27 degree weather.  I was wearing a down vest.  It was making everyone around me really hot looking at me wearing the vest. everyone asked that i take it off but I was still in toronto weather, lol. Aurelia and kate bought us a futon to sleep on so we had a very nice sleep that night.  We needed a nice sleep since we were so spent from the flight and a full day of walking around our new neighbourhood.

Where we live is very active.  It is like a gay town crossed by queen west.  there are so many shops and little restaurants everywhere.  It is saturated by places to go and things to do. We will send out pictures soon. We like this area.

Tonight which is thursday for us, since we are 15 hours ahead of toronto, we are going to a bbq at a friend's house.  I asked Kate if i should make guacamole for hamburgers, but they don't have them for bbq.  When they say we will have "shrimp on the barbie", they really mean it. No hot dogs and hamburgers. that is for the north americans, lol. They go all out here.

Today we went for a walk downtown Melbourne and it is so hot outside, maximum high of 39 degrees.  Come on, it is so hot in this country. we went to the downtown mall at melbourne central station and saw spider man waiting at the atm for money. he was wearing a full spider man outfit including the face. If I was 3 I would really think spider man was at the mall waiting for the atm to get money for a smoothie. That was so weird. It made us laugh though.

We haven't really thought about what we are going to do next, but we went into a travel shop and looked at some brochures.  Maybe we will do a week long cruise that is all about scuba diving.  that sounds fun.  I think we will just chill out for another week and enjoy or hide from this heat wave.

Just to give you guys an idea of australia, food is rather expensive here.  Well maybe just the common things we are so accustomed to in toronto. Powerade  and a bag of chips <> cost almost 9 dollars. that is ludicrous. but sometimes you want it.

That is all the updates for now, we will send out another email soon.

Rocky and Nelly

These are my "adopted" dogs while I was in Australia. I miss them so much.

Rocky and Nelly