Melbourne (the r is silent)!

Well, it's that time again for me to put aside the procrastination and push forward with this! :) After the Gold Coast we flew straight into the freezing cold of Melbourne! Luckily I was prepared with my red racing stripe spandex to stave off the cold, the two of us have been through some cold times, and I was not let down as usual! :)

We flew in super late on Friday night and didn't get in to our hotel until about 2 in the morning, luckily there were huge pictures of Mick Jagger plastered all over the walls so we felt very safe getting to our room! Our friend Laura who is from Texas and graduated from BYU but is living in Sydney for work, flew down to meet us and got there first thing Saturday morning! It was way great to change things up a bit with someone new, but she may or may not have been ready to pull her hair out by the end cause she couldn't quite handle us and by handle us I mean we might be a little overwhelming for most people at times, like anytime we're awake! :) I mean I can't speak for everyone but I know I'm pretty pleasant and fun to be around always, so maybe I'm just being paranoid! :) haha


This was our hotel, I think it says "Classy, yet moderately priced with a mean continental breakfast" how about you?

Saturday we just spent the day exploring the city and we were there on a weekend of some big design thing that was going on throughout the whole city, so there was different stuff set up and on display. It's a cool city, very European compared to Sydney and just beautiful! This was also the big day we got to see Wicked, which was pretty much the whole reason we came! It was the Australian premiere of the most amazing musical of all time! Not too many people had heard about it and I just sat through the whole thing thinking, "These people don't even know what kind of a treat they're in for!" :) The cast was phenomenal and it was just as good as ever. That night we ate some authentic Greek that stays open all night and then went clubbing at a place called Qbar, that was recommended by our receptionist..... It was as good a time as you can have as far as bi-clubs go..... :) haha Needless to say we were getting looks from both sides.... awkward!


Here's our yummy Greek, I would also like to mention Brighton's sweet vest, she searched high and low for this, just so she could take a little piece of Australia home with her!

On Sunday we went searching for a ward to go to church. Brighton and Wendy had a friend who had just gotten home from Melbourne and told them where to go, so we set off on a 2 hour long adventure and ended up only missing sacrament, yay for us! We also chose the perfect week because it was soup Sunday and the ward just welcomed us into their fold and we were fed mighty fine! We even had a few offers to come over for Sunday dinner, but we still had some exploring we wanted to do! After that we went back into town where they had an open house with alot of the famous buildings for free and we got to see the Regency Theatre Ballroom, St. Peters Cathedral, Capitol Theatre it was all very cool and the architecture was incredible!! Later on we ate dinner at a place called the Pancake factory cause we had a coupon for buy one get one free short stack. We didn't know if that would if that would fill us up so we decided to get a side of potato skins to share, there was a regular for like $8 and a large for $12 when we asked the waitress if a large would be enough to share she just said, well it depends on how hungry you are, we should have taken that as a sign..... So we ordered the large and this is what we got....


Needless to say, we all got our fill and then some, we actually almost couldn't finish and thought about taking it down the street to help the less fortunate :) haha


Don't worry though, we found our midget twins in that very restaurant, they were so funny and short!


Wendy loves this street, and for anyone who knows Wendy the reason why should be very clear!

Monday was our last day in Melbourne and we decided to hit up the botanical gardens right by our hotel, they were very pretty, but let's be honest a bunch of plants can only capture my attention for a brief time period and it was long before we were trampsing through the bushes making up stories as though this were our native bush!


This bird thinks just because its got a long droopy neck it's better than me, but I'm here to tell you that's not the case, so what if my neck is vertical and unstretchy, I'm still a person!

Later on we headed down to St. Kilda's which is right by the coast and where we heard they have some really good food! We ended up eating at this Italian place that was really good. Then we took a walk along the beach, the beaches aren't near as nice as the ones in Sydney and it was freezing cold!

So we're at the restaurant getting ready to order and they have pizza which sounds so delicious but they only have a small and a large. Small doesn't sound near big enough to be filling but I'm not quite sure if I can handle the large, but price wise it's not that much more. So I ask our cute little ole' Italian waitress about the sizes and she says, "oh yeah for sure a small will be plenty for you, there are 4 big pieces, the large is too big there are 8 pieces, small is fine", so naturally I hesitate for a minute and then order the large all to my self. Well later on she comes out with everyones food, Wendy and Laura ordered pasta and Brighton had a small pizza and then makes her own special trip for my massive family size pizza all to myself, sets it in front of me and says, "Here's for the hungry girl!" haha That was the big joke the rest of the time!


I had a midget in my pocket I was planning on sharing with....



I guess I thought we were playing thumbs up 7 up!

That night we went up Eureka tower, you go 99 levels in 38 seconds! It was crazy fast and made your ears pop like crazy! Then of course we had to check out the casino in Melbourne we heard its the best one around, but to my dismay they only had 1 craps table, what a joke, and it was a $10 min, I know I come across as a high roller, especially the way I'm wearing the same clothes in all my pics, but at this point I was running out of my money and as much as I wanted to win big I didn't want to lose big either! :)


This was on top of the skytower, people were just wanting to snap our pics like crazy, who were we to say no?


This was our $14 big deal movie theatre where we had the place all to ourselves and we couldn't help but wonder in what era our awkward chairs had been the "it" thing!

Too much fun?

This is one of the sweet beaches at Byron Bay! Finally a background that will do these girls justice! :)


This is the most popular beach in the Gold Coast... Surfer's Paradise the possibilities sounded endless!! Oh, and I'm sure there were some cool beaches and stuff too...

Ok, so I'm not really sure if anyone is still going to read this or not, but I feel as though it's a half done project, and I'm no quitter.....


Saturday July 12
This was the day we were supposed to fly to the Gold Coast! It was pretty much my last day in Sydney and we had been planning all along to wake up and watch the sunrise one day.... Never happened surprise surprise, so this day we made a special effort and despite only getting a few hours sleep we still woke up and got to see it! It was so beautiful, looking back it seems surreal, like I'm not really sure it even happened! After that we took a long nap and then started our fun task of packing! When we decided we were gonna travel to the Gold Coast and Melbourne, all we really thought was, hey let's by the cheapest tickets possible because we're all poor... Those cheap tickets just included bringing a carry on and no checked luggage which meant only our backpacks. This would have been fine except for the fact that we were gonna be gone 10 days and the Gold Coast climate is super warm and the Melbourne climate is super cold!


This is our finished product, somehow we managed, I mean it's not that abnormal to wear the same shirt for 5 days straight right?.... Maybe part of our success at this kind of thing contributed to part of the reason all of us came home single?.... :)

We got into the Gold Coast by the time it was dark and rented a car and set off on our way to a friends Uncle..... The only issue is that they drive on the wrong side of the road.... I drove and kept thinking I wish I had bought more insurance on the rental car... :) It was quite exciting and very rewarding when we made it safely!


This is just one of your typical, "Hey, mom look I'm driving on the wrong side of the road" shots... No big deal!

Sunday July 13
We stayed with Gary and Pauline from South Africa! The Gold Coast is set up with a lot of man made canals that run through out the city and eventually go out into the ocean. Gary and Pauline house was right on one of the canals, and it was awesome! They are the greatest and took the best care of us ever! They showed us all around the Gold Coast Sunday morning and took us out to breakfast! Later that day we just spent some time laying out at the beach and soaking in the rays!

Monday July 14
Even though we had quite a few days in the GC we knew we had to get down to business quick! That's why naturally we decided to go to Warner Bro.s Movie World! It's a theme park set up similar to Univeral where you experience a movie through a ride! It was pretty cool minus the fact that it closed it 5, apparently all Australians have somehow genetically altered themselves to where no one needs anything after 5 o'clock, because nothing is ever open :) haha


This was the actual batman boat used in Batman forever!!


This is in front of the Superman ride! It was a way sweet roller coaster that helped us beat the laws of physics as we flew every which way??.... :)


Strangely enough, we actually ran into the real batman whilst he was promoting not only his batman signal but also the chicken strips available for purchase at any participating food stands!


Badda Bing Badda Boom!

Later that night I got to play soccer with the boys! It was so awesome! One of the first things I did when I got to Sydney was buy a soccer ball, and even though Wendy was so great about passing it around with me, I just don't think it was that fun for her haha!! So Gary invited me to play with their mens indoor team, it was 4 on 4 and rather than having walls it was just big nets around the whole field so it never went out and the goalie had an arc he had to stay in and we couldn't enter that arc. It was very fast paced, but ya know I showed a few of them what was, and by that I just mean I think they were afraid to hurt me so they backed down :) haha I still scored though and we won, so it was like what more could I ask for?!!


This was a sweet action shot Brighton captured during the heat of the battle! :)


Put me in coach, I'm ready to play, today!!

Tuesday July 15
We spent most of the day at the beach while the weather was nice! We ate lunch at this cute Italian place called Mama Roma's. All the restaurants in the GC are half price at lunch cause most people just come out for dinner so naturally we loved that! I ordered a sweet shrimp pasta dish and the thing I love most about the seafood here, is that you actually get seafood... A lot of places are super skimpy on the shrimp but hey loaded me up and it was delicious!

That night Gary and Pauline took us out for a cruise around the canal in the party pontoon! It was way fun, but the weather was terrible and it rained like crazy! It was still awesome to see all the incredible million dollar houses!

Wednesday July 16
Found us at the outlet malls cause the weather was still bad, we shopped til we dropped and later went to lunch at some old friends of my parents! They had a beautiful house in the country and fed us an awesome home cooked meal of roast and veggies! They were awesome and we ended up staying and chatting with them all night and left only after we promised if we came again we would stay with them next time! I can't get over how amazing everyone has been to us!

Thursday July 17
We went to Byron Bay! Total hippie town, it was awesome! I've never seen so many hippie love vans congregated together in one place! The beaches were beautiful and we laid out all day and then got to watch the sunset from the light house which is the eastern most point in all of Australia!


Although this picture looks like Wendy tried to catch us unawares (impossible to happen to me....) she's actually really trying to get a good pic of the two men in the background, they proceeded to hit on us using what I felt like we very unorthodox methods, but maybe thats just me I mean maybe lots of girls fall for the old, I just got outta prison and I'm really lonely line?
That night we got to see Batman the Dark Knight it came out 3 days earlier than in the states so we felt like pretty big deals after getting to see it before anyone else!!

Friday July 18
For our last day in the GC we went up a building called Q1 it's the tallest residential building in the world and gave an amazing view of the endless beaches along the Gold Coast and at all the intricate man made canals that clutter the city! When it was finally time to leave, we were all super sad 1) Because it was the first time we had legitmately been able to layout in the sun 2)We saw lots of hot surfers without wet suits and 3) Gary and Pauline were so great we felt like we were home!


This was just part of the incredible view from Q1, somebody really good must have taken that shot.... :)