Seeing the Sights

These last couple of weeks have been a mess of school and exploring. With school just starting we had to go to class but in our many hours of free time we took in the sights. The first event we thought would be major was this Holi festival being thrown in St.Kilda, only a 30-minute tram ride from my house. None of us really knew what to expect other than there would be colour everywhere, we threw on some clothes we were okay with getting messy and off we went. When we arrived it was dead. There were maybe 15 other people there and that was pushing it, not what we expected at all! But we went in anyway and took in the sights, mostly having fun with the colour they provided us as we took turns spraying it at each other and having colour fights. Once this ended we were allowed to leave and return as many times as we wanted so some went to the beach. I did not partake in washing off the colours as it added some pizazz but others washed their war paint off and then headed home only after an hour of being there. A few of us stayed behind, went back and, and enjoyed the festival. As a couple of hours passed it started to fill up and before we knew it we were having colour wars with random festival goers. It was a very energetic and overall happy environment as that is what Holi is all about!

Another sight I saw was the Royal botanical gardens where we saw lots of green plants but not many flowers. The experience was fun though as we also saw the war memorial that sits right outside the gardens and got to experience a ceremony that would usually happen on remembrance day. A beam of light passes over a block on the middle of this large marble floor and it was very interesting. Anyways back to the gardens, some took a lot of photos but i just opted to view the plant and wildlife therefor not much was captured on actual photo evidence. But we did get lost once or twice and saw a spider catch, kill, and then wrap up his dinner for later in one of his webs. Don’t worry though it wasn’t one of those huge spiders you hear about when people warn you about Australia. Just a normal sized one.

Wednesday rolled around and of course, we had to hit the night market, a couple of us got dinner and I had this huge bowl of noodles that were miraculously floating with a pair of chopsticks in them. Who knew chopsticks could float? Anyhow, we ate some of the cool food that is very hard to find back home, got a drink, then cruised around watching the various live artists and experiencing the culture of Melbourne at night. Also side note, there is this food stall called Canadian Hotdogs…who knew that was the one special food Canada had to share? Not like we have poutine, beavertails, or anything else

Finally, over this past weekend, the weather spiked to an all-time high. Friday, March 1st, Saturday the 2nd, and Sunday the 3rd were all 35 plus with the 2nd reaching 40 degrees Celsius. Of course, we had to spend the whole day at the beach because our house does NOT have air conditioning. So, we spent most of the day on Friday and Saturday lounging in the water at the beach as there is a shallow area perfect for sitting. I can also proudly say I managed not to get burned this weekend which is very impressive as I rarely use sunscreen back home but here even the most tanned people need it as the sun is STRONG! On Friday we spent the WHOLE day there as we got there around noon and left once the sun went down. The sunset was beautiful over the water though and it was breathtaking. While the next day we basically went there to cool off then came home a few hours later and watched a movie at a friends place who has air conditioning. Honestly, this past weekend has been great but I’ll take the 25 celsius weather back, please.