Wednesday, February 29, 2012

farewell summer.

Sadly, the last day of summer in Australia was yesterday.To send it off the right way, I'll share some highlights from the last couple months.  So here's to the sunniest season of the year!

Australia Day:

Australia Day is January 26th. It is a day of beach time, barbecues and fireworks. We of course made sure to enjoy each one. We started the morning and stayed pretty much all afternoon at the beach. It was a great time relaxing and soaking up the sun with good friends! Later Megan and I attended our first Aussie bbq. NomNomNom. It was fantastic. Everyone brought their own meat and we shared great salads and desserts. To end the day of celebrating AUS, we made our way to the city to watch fireworks over the buildings. Who doesn't love a good fireworks show!?
(Our Red, White and Blue for Australia AND America) 

(fireworks in the city)
 The Tennis:
The Australian Open was going on the last two weeks of January. Such great fun! We went to the actual tennis courts one of the saturdays and watched some really great matches. It was also Heineken Day so the courts were filled with lots of young, fun fans. It was a perfect day to go. Since we weren't up for paying for more court tickets, we watched the last big matches at Federation Square in the city. The place was absolutely packed both nights that we went! There were tons and tons of tennis fans in Melbourne.
( at the Australian Open)

 ( enjoying the tennis at FedSquare)

 ( watching the match with thousands of our closest Melbournian friends;))

Live Music. Yes Please:
Melbourne is full of live music events! The St. Kilda Festival and Melbourne Symphony Orchestra were a couple we attended over the summer. The St. Kilda Festival was a week long festival that had tons of live bands, carnival rides, markets, food venues, etc... It was full of culture and fun! We were finally able to go the last day and very much enjoyed it! Heaps of people were walking around and there was music every which way we turned. 

 (Iuliia, Melanie, Nina and I enjoying the music)

We also experienced the performance of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra at the Botanic Gardens. I absolutely loved it both nights that we went! Everyone brought blankets, had picnics, drank wine and took in the music. The first night Melanie and I went was the perfect summer night so we laid on our blanket and soaked in the night and orchestra. The next time we went it was a much larger group of us. We spent that night mainly chatting and catching up. Outdoor venues are the best.  
(our MSO group)
(free, live and outdoors: love)

The Cotter Family Visit:
Megan's family came to Australia for a couple weeks to visit. They were so sweet and invited me to join in on some of their fun adventures. Two of the big ones were driving along the Great Ocean Road and visiting the Melbourne Gaol. No one can come visit Melbourne without seeing the sights along the Great Ocean Road! It was a perfect, sunny afternoon which allowed us to see some of the places that the rain prevented on the trip before!
(the sunny Twelve Apostles)

( The Cotters minus Megan's oldest sister plus me)

The Melbourne Gaol is the oldest prison in the city. It is no longer in use so there are all sorts of tours that go on in the historical building. The tour the Cotters and I went on began with us being "arrested." I use this term lightly because they didn't even handcuff us but it was still fun. We were locked in a jail holding cell for a couple minutes so I guess that was good enough. The Gaol has all kinds of interesting stories  about past inmates to read about. There are also ghost tours you can go on so just knowing that made the trip even more exciting for me. (If you know me, you must know I love spooky stuff).
(hahahahah. Mom, hopefully you won't see this again.)

 (the bottom floor of the prison)



 Queen Victoria Night Market:

Every Wednesday night of Summer the Queen Victoria Market turned into the Night Market. I am so sad this is now over! There was food from all different countries, heaps of little shops and live bands everywhere. I tried my first crepes, calamari, Spanish donuts and honey dumplings there. Last night a group of us went and we got food from Italy, Korea, Greece, India, Mexico, China... The options were endless. It was a perfect way to spend our last night of summer.

 (walking into the chaos of the market)

(food from West Africa)
(my roomies)


1 comment:

  1. Abby, you did one of my favorite things ever..Scuba Dive. Also, I would have killed to be at the Australian Open. If I ever got to see Roger Federrer, my life would be complete along with scuba diving the great barrier reef.

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