Men's short shorts, ugly buildings, and drunks

They make taking a trip into dowtown Melbourne quite easy, lots of public transportation and crowds of Rugby fans sloshing their way into the city. As you arrive into the city, and more specifically the transport central of Federation Square, you come into that square army colored building on the bottom there, named the 5th ugliest building in the world by Virtual Tourist. Nothing says "Welcome to Melbourne!" like that.

I took a day trip into the city on one of the sunny days (most days have been about 12-15 degrees Celsius, or 50-60 Fahrenheit). I think heading into cities is a lot of fun, they are full of energy and life and sights, but they can also be exhausting. I wandered around downtown on a Saturday afternoon, and noticed that everyone, and I mean everyone, was wearing red. Come to find out there was a huge Rugby match on that afternoon, the Lions (yellow) versus the Wallabies (red) - and the streets and pubs were overflowing, kind of like a Sunday afternoon during football season. It was fun to walk around and listen to all the singing of team songs, seeing men in short Rugby shorts, and people in good spirits.



The opposing teams sitting side by side in a pub



The abundant Wallabies fans

The Lions - getting interviewed, they were outnumbered. (With the famous Arts Centre Spire in the back)

As I continued walking around town I noticed how multicultural the city seemed to be; the city isn't full of Crocodile-Dundee-like men and Aboriginals, but rather people of all mixes. While walking, I eventually ran into Melbourne's very own China town. The Chinese restaurants sold a lot of fish and sushi was everywhere (even though that's Japanese...) seeing as we're in a coastal town. Just up the way was Greek corner, full of yummy bakery shops and Greek food. Apparently Melbourne has the largest Greek population of any city in the world, outside of Greece.

Now I referenced earlier in my blog the interesting animal encounters I may have in Australia, which I rambled on about here. Well now that I've had kangaroo steaks, which were mighty tasty, lean, and earthy, I want to touch back on a few others. Most importantly of which is dog poo. There are 90 tons of dog poo left on the streets of Melbourne each day. Now as I've walked around a few of the suburbs and the main city, I have miraculously not seen much - imagine my delight! Now that I know the soles of my shoes are safe, I set my mind to greater things. Next being, Batmania. Now this part is true, Batman is around. I saw the road to his house, and surprisingly, he lives in suburbia. Come to think of it, the ugly building from the above picture looks an awfully like the bat cave.... now I wonder.

Another thing is how expensive alcohol is here, the exchange rate is more or less 1:1. For example, a bottle of Jack Daniels on special is AUD $44. A 24 pack of Heineken is AUD $56 on special. A 24 pack of local Victoria Bitter beer is AUD$ 40 on special. Apparently there are some microbrews around, so I'm keeping my eyes open. With such high taxes on alcohol, it's a wonder how Aussies have a reputation for drinking so much. Well maybe it has something to do with the fact that full-time minimum wage is $16.37 per hour . Time to start looking for a job!



So far, I'm loving Melbourne!

Cheers!

Buenos Aires...a place to be.

Buenos Aires is a great place. It is in the east of Argentina and on the Atlantic Ocean.

The place we stayed was located on the widest street in the world, and the longest street in South America. The wide street was 7 lanes each way...14!!! It took 3 traffic lights to cross the whole thing. We ran into a couple of friends that Beth new from La Paz, and also a two cousins she had met in La Paz that live in BA (Buenos Aires).

BA lives in a different time world...where things open at 10 am, everybody eats dinner at 10pm, the clubs start at 1 am, and close at 4 am, but are followed by the after party places that run from 4 am to 9 am....and wake up at noon and start all over again.

The city itself is a very big city but alive with things to do. One of the days we walked down the pedestrian, shop-filled, artist-filled street....and were greeted by our first surprise... a STARBUCKS!!!!! The first I have seen in 9 months, quite a shock to the system. We followed the street down to one of the main parks where we fund this incredibly big tree

Also in this park there was an exhibit that UNICEF and another program put on that was a month long exhibit in the park. It was filled with teddy bears, 6 feet tall teddy bears, hand painted to represent each country recognized by the UN. Each country has painted one and this exhibit has been in quite a few places around the world in effort to promote peace and understanding between us all.

CUBA!!!!

IRELAND!!!!....who else?!?

The exhibit was quite a site to see!! It would be great to have something of the sorts put up in the states. They were each very unique and beautifully done.

Here we continued our hot dog diet. A super pancho for a dollar was the size of two real hot dogs. Super panchos are one of those things you need to see to believe, but we ate many of them.

One of the days we walked the streets and found a large artist market that sold all kinds of cool things. including hand-made shoes, unique jewelry and clothing, and was playing music and selling food. A good couple of hours were spent walking the stahls. I was also able to indulge in my money collection liking. I bought a braclet made of original coins from the 30´s and 40´s of Argentina. It is always so amazing to me to see the creativity people have and how they create some of those things. Also in this area, there is the famous BA cementery. This city like cementery is were the elite of the elite are buried, including Eva Perón( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eva_Peron ). The cementery was also oddly occupied by many amny cats.

We also made our way to the famous ¨La Boca¨ area. The tango filled streets are painted in the most brillant colors. The most artistic set of streets I´ve ever seen, is an old port that has many good restaurants, tango dancers, and art.

We spent a lot of time with Leah and Kelly, the two cousins that live there. They gave us an inside look into Buenos Aires...mostly the FOOD! We tasted our fair share of restaurants, but there was one i found most impressive, Siga La Vaca (¨follow the cow¨). We paid 55 Argentinian pesos (approx. $15 USD) This was a buffet place, but before I go any further, let me stress how much Argentina prides its steak and wine. For this 55 pesos, we got all you can eat salad bar, and amazing salad bar with all kinda of good cheeses, meats, salads etc.... also included is all-you-can-eat meat (now don´t start drooling yet Courtney, or any other football players reading this). Some of the best meat I´ve tasted, you could get anything from bloody steak to pig, sausages, any part of the cow, intestines....any meat, you name it, it was there bloody and ready to be served. After filling up on that, they included a dessert...won´t even start there. But to top it all of, each person got a liter of argentinian wine (one bottle) or a liter of beer. I´ve dubbed it the best deal I´ve ever gotten!
We didn´t eat there every night, for fear of a heart attack, but sampled many other steak places and had steak and wine every night for about 6-10 USD. I can´t describe it. For any meat lover, this is the place to come.

Well to put it lightly, this is all I really remember after 2 1/2 weeks of being out of there. The only bummer was we never could get tickets to see Manu Chao live in concert,. they sold out too soon But all in all Buenos Aires is a place to go.