In four days we got a good look at Melbourne: walked up and down the city center, biked up the Yarra river and along the bay from Williamstown to St Kilda via the Docklands (it was a long day of biking, but this city is so biker friendly that we couldn't stop), enjoyed the city view from the observation deck at the Rialto Towers, visited a couple of museums, and strolled through the Botanic Gardens. One night we joined the pub crowds in Fitzroy, another night we went to a food exhibition called "Taste of Melbourne" where we sampled food from several acclaimed restaurants. The last night we behaved like the beautiful people we are: went to the theatre at the Victorian Arts Centre and then to South Yarra for dinner.
So, we did a lot, but what we will remember the most about our visit to this city is the "footy" (i.e., Australian rules football) game we saw at the MCG (or "the G", as they call the largest stadium with capacity for roughly 100,000 people). This was Simon's and my first Aussie-rules game. As you can imagine, the people seating next to us were starting to get annoyed by all the many rules-related questions I had to ask. But I think that in the end I had a reasonable handle on things. Some features are quite peculiar, for example, to put an out-of-bounds ball back in play, an umpire with his back to the players tosses the ball over his head like a bride throwing her bouquet: quite amusing. My footy-addicted friend Ashley had recommended the Bombers vs Hawks game. This was a crucial game. It was the last of the regular season, and the winner of this match would earn the last berth in September's playoffs, which determine the season's champion (of course I'm using the wrong terminology: the champions get called premiers and the post-season matches are the finals, or something like that). Both teams are from Melbourne suburbs, have lots of supporters and they exchanged leads a few times throughout this very important match, so the atmosphere at the stadium was super exciting. The game is fast, it doesn't stop very often (we saw the medical team taking care of an injured player on the field, while the play continued around them), and there's a lot of running, so the players are in great shape. In the end, the Bombers were the winners. They had the loudest fan base, including Simon, who wasn't very loud, but was decidedly cheering for them. Now we understand why Aussies love this game. It's so much fun... and those players are so FIT.
Next stop is Darwin and the Northern Territory: on to the outback experience.
Mercedes
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