Melbourne & Back

On of the trips that I had been planning was to go to Australia, specifically Melbourne for the Aussie Open.  As for being a tennis fan and coming from a family of tennis people this was just one trip that we would have to take!  Mom and Dad took the initiative of planning the whole thing and it was a fantastic trip.  Of course we had our bumps along the way but as we look back it was a great time.  We took about 2 weeks to see only a small part of the country.  When Mom found out that Australia was the size of the US, she decided to only visit a small part and focus on Melbourne plus it’s surrounding area.  We found a lovely little apartment that we hung out in for the first week and then hopped to different towns during the second.

Our first week was discovering the different parts of Melbourne and enjoying the Australian Open.  We hit up the tourist office and they recommended that we take the free city bus tour to get a better idea of the city.  I think this was the best thing that we could have done.  This tour gave us a better idea of how the city was laid out and where the different things were in relation to each other.

We hopped off at the Queen Victoria Market and wanted to walk around.  At this market, we were told that it was one of the best places to get souvenirs.  There was also a great section that you could get fresh veggies and fruit.  We decided to pick up a few things since we had a full kitchen back at the apartment.  Our next trip, at the market, was to the Meat counters.  Mom really wanted to get some lamb since we were in Australia.  We found a great vendor that we got a lot of lamb from.  We thought it would be a good idea to pick up some lunchmeat while we were there.  There was a deli counter next to the lamb counter and I asked the lady if they had any gluten free lunchmeat.  She said that they did have some turkey.  Then she asked how many kilos.  Well…. the conversion got a little messed up and we purchased about 1 kilo of turkey… which was about 2.2 pounds. opps!

And yes, we did mangage to finish all of the turkey.  We just had quite a few turkey sandwiches for lunch!
They also had a vendor that would sell you a bottle of wine that you could come back and refill for a reduce rate.  It was quite a fun market to see all the fresh produce.