Family's Visit, Rowing Day and Hitting Up Ocean Grove, Panning For Gold Ballarat

So This is the first of my "catch up as quick as possible" blogs that I will be posting in the upcoming weeks.  I have jsut arrived home, so I figured that it may be a good idea to submit all of these great memories to the blogosphere ASAP.

Doing the Family Thing

Directly upon my return from the Great Barrier Reef, I was greeted by my family in Melbourne.  I was so thrilled to show them around the city as their personal tour guide.  I had certainly learned the ropes on how to properly lead some silly American tourists around Australia after learning first-hand from my previous guides. I met Mum, Sis, and Cousin Hannah down Swantson Street at Rydges Hotel, and we began on an awesome couple days of running around the city. The gang had already been to the Acquarium and experienced the beauty of Lygon Street, so I was redy to tour with them and also show them some of my favorite things.

We adventured to the Melbourne Zoo, where we saw all kinds of wild and funky fauna.  The higlights included koalas hopped up on eucalyptus, a mysteriously nocturnal platypuses, food-fighting roos, and a manor of amusing meerkats (which probably held our short attentions spans the longest out of any of the other animals).  Besides the animals, we had a cheeky time walking about with our guide Barbara, a little old Aussie woman with a passion for aminals.  We enjoyed picking her brain as we waited in the ridiculously long line to see the new baby elephant named Mali.  Mali was alright too.

After the zoo, we hit up my favorite film industry-related and technologically advanced exhibition, the ACMI-- which I can proudly say that I had been to over 5 times before leaving Melbeezy.  We cruised around on the free tram, and of course, the California girls had to experience all of the best shopping sites in the city.  They knew more about the city's shops than I did! We also laughably spent an entire afternoon along the Yarra River, searching for a practically nonexistent sandwich shop that the fam had "seen the day before." Oh well its makes for a good story....... and then I found a hundred dollars. (My buddy Mike frequently used this line to dig himself out of a bad story).  The best part of the fam's visit was easily our obsession with Lygon Street, the "Little Italy" are in Carlton. We ate the most delicious and authentic pizzas and pastas every night.  Such a great time! And funny enough, I think this was one of their favorite parts of the trip!

Hitting the Water: Rowing Day 2010

So after exuding my stellar dance moves at the previously mentioned Fresher Dance Off, I then set my sight on tryouts for the Mary's Rowing Team. Mary's men's rowing had previously held a culture of nonchalance, as the men had "always come in last." Now as a business major, I completely understand how difficult it is to change a long-lasting culture.  For this reason, I focused on at least not getting last.  After two weeks of biking to the Yarra at the crack of dawn for 5AM practices, Rowing Day finally came.  All of the colleges flooded the banks of the Yarra River, eagerly waiting to cheer on their racing comrades.  Now, I'll skip all of the suspensful gobbledygook and cut to the chase.  We came away with a righteous third place win to celebrate... let's just disregard the fact that it was a third place in our three-boat heat.  But we didn't get last in the times at least, so we considered it an epic win and celebrated accordingly.  After the annual Rowing Skulls celebration, lets just say I definitely slept well that night.  By the way, "skull" is the Aussie word for "Chug."  Oh boy!

Ocean Grove and Ballarat

Probably two of the coolest trips I have made over the course of my time abroad have been weekend trips to friends' homes in Ocean Grove and Ballarat, two satellite towns around Melbourne. 

I first visited my pal Joe Doak's home in Ocean Grove.  Joe was also my next door neighbor in Mary's.  Bobby and I trained out with Joe, and we had a blast checking out his old stomping grounds.  Joe lived Ocean grove on a farm of one sheep named Sean and a part-dingo dog to sheep-herd Sean the sheep.  Joe's family was super accommodating.  I got to enjoy some delicious home-cooked food and even sleep in a real non-college bed.  We went out that night into Geelong for one of the latest nights I had yet, partying until 6AM.  It was a crazy fun time, and it even ended with a Macca's run.  The next day, Joe took us to one of his favorite beaches at Point Lonsdale.  We snorkeled a bit there and got to swim through some super cool cave tunnels in the reefs there.  We freaked out a bit when some unwanted party guests showed up, a stingray and a HUGE manta ray. It was crazy!

We also caught a train out to Beth's house in Ballarat, the town of the historical Australian Gold Rush.  Beth was one of my Fresher Dance teammates.  She took us to Sovereign Hill, a theme park filled with traditional Australian foods and characters dressed in colonial apparel.  We snacked on sausage rolls, learned to write in proper calligraphy and and even panned for gold.  After finding a few specks, we tried to trade to haggle with the shopkeepers to trade us for some goods.  Unfortunately, we were unsuccessful.  To finish off the day, Beth and her family treated us to an Australian barbie of meats, veggies and bread.  So bomb!