Manly Beach with Shianne and 3 Australian Olympic Gold Medalists

Murray Stewart and the Olympians

It was a gorgeous day on Sunday with 28 degrees. Shianne and I had decided on Saturday to take her 4 kids and go to the beach. It was hard to choose the beach so we decided that on the way. As I have been to Bondi already and I don’t know how to get to Coogee by train, we chose Manly. Half of the trains didn’t go that day so our trip was quite long. First we took the bus, then the train, changed a train and then the ferry. Once we got to Manly it was already 2pm. We weren’t sure where the ‘real’ beach was, so we just stayed at the harbor, also called Little Manly. It was so nice though. The water was clear as glass and quite warm.

There were bunch of dudes next to us playing games and drinking beer. Soon Shianne told me to look at their T-shirts. It said Murray Stewart Olympian (Australia Support Team). Once Shianne heard that, she freaked out. I had no idea who Murray was, but Shianne knew him from the Olympic last year. Apparently he and his team had won gold medal in rowing. Murray was there with his fellow team mates, coach and friends. Before I knew, he came towards me and offered me some beer. Even though I am more of a cider girl, but when an Olympian offers you something, you take it. So I did. We started talking and I even met one of his coaches. Man, were they tipsy or what lol. They were all so freaking friendly and nice though, true Australians. Shianne really wanted a picture with them, so Murray invited his 2 fellow gold medal winners and the coach (I think he was the coach) took the picture. So now I can officially prove that I have met some big names in Australian sport. What another awesome day in Aussie land J

Little Manly

Melbourne (10-17.04.13)

Couple of weeks ago I decided to spend half of my autumn holiday in Melbourne. My lovely friends Elizabeth and Catherine who I met last year in Estonia through my friend Laura, were kind enough to host me and my friend Angelica. I left from Sydney on Wednesday and Angelica was to arrive on Sunday. The week went extremely fast, but was filled with beautiful sightseeing, yummy food, great company and lot of new information about Australian history. Huge thanks to Liz and Cath, I had the time of my life!

Brighton Beach

As all these seven days were filled with seeing a lot of places, here are some of my favorite pictures with little descriptions. 

seashells at Brighton Beach

Brighton Beach- Thursday was a chill day going shopping and checking out Liz's school RMIT. That night we went out for a pizza and made plans for Friday

The first place Elizabeth took me on Friday was Brighton Beach. I was really excited to see one of the famous Melbourne beaches. It is well known for the beautiful beach house it has along the beach. They are all colorful and bright and extremely expensive. The weather was perfect and I desperately wanted to take a dip but I had forgotten my swimming suit. We spent hours at the beach picking seashells and dipping our feet in the shallow water. It was a perfect start for a perfect week.

Melbourne at night- In the evening Liz and I met up with Catherine and went to the city center to see Melbourne at night. It got dark slowly, so the first thing we stopped at was an awesome graffiti wall that Melbourne is famous for. It was filled with pretty and some not so pretty work, but the look itself that these walls along a narrow street had, was definitely impressive. For our surprise we even found a sign saying "Hellsinki Melburn". How cool is that!

Catherine and I

MCG, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Chinatown and the Shrine of Remembrance- On Saturday Liz and I went to another tour. The first place we stopped was MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground). It is one of the famous arenas where sports like cricket, Australian football and rugby is played. It was quite big and really reminded me the Yankee Stadium in the Bronx.

MCG

Our next stop was St. Patrick's Cathedral. We had already stopped at St. Paul's last night and this one was definitely more beautiful. I really loved the dark gray bricks it was built out of and the little garden surrounding it. There was also a wedding about to start, so that was a nice timing. 

I was also eager to see Chinatown in Melbourne so we headed there for a lunch. We both ate sweet and sour pork with spring rolls and a soup. Needless to say it was all delicious.

Chinatown

Our last stop that day was the famous Shrine of Remembrance monument. It is dedicated for the ANZAC (Australian and New-Zealand Army Corps) soldiers who died in the WWI. It's really a beautiful monument and you can have a great view over the city when going up.

The Shrine of Remembrance

 Richmond Tigers game (AFL)/Kyabram- On Sunday we picked up Angelica from the airport and went straight to an AFL game between Richmond Tigers and Western Bulldogs. I was really excited as I had never seen an Australian football game. It was fun to cheer for Liz's favorite team the Tigers, they were really good. We ate  a meat pie (Aussie tradition) and drank either beer or soda. Tigers won and we were all happy. The sport itself reminded me a bit of American football/rugby.

That same night we were driving to Kyabram, the twins' hometown. It is about 2 hours from Melbourne. I was really excited to see the place they grew up and get a hint of an Australian living on a countryside.

While in Kyabram, we visited a local Fauna Park and saw some adorable koalas, kangaroos and wallabies. We also visited a nearby town called Echuca, which is known for one of the longest rivers in Australia- the Murray River. It was a very cute town with old wooden houses and boats. It was like a scene from a Western movie. Echuca also had another "famous" thing to see, the Thong Tree. Basically a huge pole where you can leave your flip flops or thongs as they call it here, lol. 

Hello Kyabram!

a kangaroo

beautiful lorikeets

Echuca

Thong Tree

 Back in Melbourne- Last two days back in Melbourne went really fast. On Tuesday we went out to the pub Catherine works in. They had a student night, so drinks were cheap and I really wanted to see the night life of Aussies. It was a great night, even though the DJ sucked pretty bad.
Wednesday was our last day, so we woke up early and headed to the city. We visited the Shrine again to show it to Angelica as well and stopped at the St. Pauls's Cathedral. Then we met up with Cath and went to the Melbourne Museum. As I love museums it was a great place to visit on my last day in Melbourne. It reminded me the National History Museum in DC, but of course had stuff related with Australia. It was awesome. Around 4pm we went for a lunch and met up with Jack :) I was so excited to see him in Australia. So he and his friend Jon joined us for a late lunch. It was great catching up with him.

Melbourne is really a great city and I would definitely want to go back one day. What made the experience even better was the great company I had and the lovely hosts.

with Jack

with Angelica and Catherine

with Elizabeth

Easter weekend

Because of the Easter holidays, I only had one day of classes this week which also meant more time to go and see the unseen. As it was Easter Monday, Angelica and I decided to go and explore more of Sydney. It was a wonderful and sunny day, so we started off our day at 10:30 am. We had a little list of places to go and see. The first place we stopped, was Sydney Maritime museum. There were some cool ships and submarines but that was pretty much all we saw. I decided to spend most of my money on souvenirs that day, so we went to Paddington's Market instead. It was great there and moreover, extremely cheap! I got some awesome stuff for my friends and family.

Our next stop was the Royal Botanic Gardens. On our way there we saw Aboriginal street performers, so I just had to take a picture with them, they were super friendly :) The Royal Botanic Gardens is close to the Opera House and it's pretty much a park just full of beautiful plants, flowers, trees and birds. It's all free and you can have a picnic or even a wedding there (last week I saw 2 of them). We walked and enjoyed the sunshine. We saw some crazy-cute cockatoos and crazy-a.. poisonous spiders and of course heaps of palm trees that I just can't get enough of.

At the Royal Botanic Gardens

At the Royal Botanic Gardens

spider at the Royal Botanic Gardens

Our next stop must have been the NSW Art Gallery. They had some exhibitions with 19th century Australian and European art. It was nice and all, but by that time I was really hungry and all I could think about was food lol. As the Rocks area was next on my list (it's this famous area with expensive bars, restaurants and looks very different from the other parts of the city), we decided to once be fancy and go and eat there. Angelica's friend Michael who had also joined us for the day thought that we could go to a place called "Pancakes on the Rocks", where they serve savory and sweet pancakes. It sounded really good, so we made our way there. I had pancakes with ham and cheese and it was yummy indeed. They even had sour cream on top of it that really reminded me home.

A fun way to end a great day, was to take a ferry to Luna Park. It's an amusement park right on the other side of the Harbor Bridge. The rides were quite pricey, so we just took some pictures and went back. That side of the harbor though was really pretty. There were lot of boats and awesome beach houses. Talking about beach houses, can't wait to go to Manly next weekend :)

For this week, though, I AM GOING TO MELBOURNE!!! Yeah, baby! Liz and Cath are total angels for welcoming me in their place and showing me around the most livable city in the world. I'm really excited for the trip.
Also, Malmö University is visiting on Tuesday for the exchange fair we are having at Parramatta campus. I will be part of the team and hopefully see some familiar pale faces lol. Needless to say it's going to be heck of a fun week!

Yarrabee! ( "bye" in Aboriginal language)