Victoria Australia - Home to Melbourne (pronounced Mel-bin)

This past week (August 8-11) we were in Victoria.  The whole purpose of the trip was to go and see the Broadway musical "Wicked" (not on Broadway obviously).   The play was in Melbourne, so we flew out on Friday evening and arrived at our hotel around 1:30 in the morning.  Now, it was a good thing we arrived at that time, because the driving is disasterous, let me tell you.  So, I am going to try and explain this, but keep in mind we drive on the opposite side of the road, so a right turn here is like making a left turn there.  So, they call it a "hook-turn"  yeah exactly what is that?  Well if you want to make a right turn in Melbourne you have to pull into the left lane, sit there and wait for the cars to stop driving past in the right and make sure there is no tram coming down the middle of the road then you can continue and make your right hand turn.  Yeah, I know what you are thinking and believe me we thought it too.  What on earth!  So, we didn't see any accidents while we were there, but there was no rush hour traffic and well, it was the dumbest thing I have ever seen, glad I wasn't driving.  

Saturday we went for a drive called the Tall trees and vines tour.  It was a nice drive, obviously there were many vineyards and tall trees.  There are some pictures posted on my picassa  (http://picassaweb.google.com/eckraft) it should be under Victoria...something.   That night we walked the streets of Melbourne to find a place to eat and found this small place in an alley.  I know, sounds creepy, but it was one of the best places I have ever ate.  Sunday we went to the play, which was pretty amazing.  The singing was excellent and I think Joe even liked that, but you may want to ask him yourself when I am not around.  I would recommend it. 

Monday I think was the best part, we went on another drive, this happened to be along the ocean, hence the name of the drive being called "The Great Ocean Drive" it goes from Geelong (pronounced jilong) all the way west to Adelaide.  We didn't make it that far as we had to return to the airport.  However, the scenery was breath-taking.  We hope that we will have time to get back there to do that drive, because we missed an area, which was about half hour out of our time frame and is supposed to compare somewhat to the Oregon coastline.  So, hopefully we will have a chance.  We shall see, there are so many places to go and see here.

We hope everyone is doing well back home, the days are getting longer here so we are pretty excited summer is finally in sight after one really long winter.  With our days getting longer I know yours are sadly becoming shorter.  Can't wait to see you all in September.