Melbourne

Flew into Melbourne yesterday morning, the flight wasn't actually that bad. Good movies on the plane and I took a handful of melatonin so I blacked out for the duration of our flight. I booked our hostel (x base st kilda) because it was listed as one of the best party hostels in the world on a number of websites. It's pretty good, the rooms could use a cleaning but there's good amenities here. We originally planned on buying a van or SUV and driving up the east coast but Bryce is short on funds and will be flying home by the end of July. Luckily we found a rental service that is pretty affordable and the van we ended up renting is way nicer than anything we saw for sale. It's a 2007 Nissan with TV and DVD, gas stove, fridge, sleeps four and all the stuff we need for camping. It'll be our home for the next 22 days.

Melbourne is absolutely amazing, it reminds me of Victoria and Vancouver. It's an incredibly modern city, especially downtown, with huge art and restaurant scenes. St. Kilda where we're staying is like Old Strathcona and Whyte Ave but with palm trees. There are plenty of side streets and alley ways with cool bars and restaurants.

We spent today meeting our friend Brendan, who we met in Iceland, he's from Tasmania but is living in Melbourne currently. We met up at The Crown casino which is fucking huge. I've walked through casinos in Vegas but this place is immense. It's probably three kilometers long along the river and it has an enormous high rise in the center for a hotel. It's filled with fine dining, food courts, a movie theatre everything. We exchanged stories with Brendan about our travels since Iceland, he tried to move to Denmark but had visa trouble, he's now here probably going to work at a ski resort. He showed us around the city center and took us to an awesome hotel bar and bought us beers and pizza. The high rises attached to the hotel houses the police HQ and the head office of the worlds second biggest defense contractor. The whole downtown core is lined with sky scrapers and gorgeous apartment buildings. Brendan mentioned a friend was paying ten grand a month for rent in one building. We said goodbye and headed home. On the way we bought tickets to an Aussie Rules Football match at the MCG Stadium which holds about 90,000 people. Should be awesome.