Wandering Melbourne

Good morning, everyone! Happy Monday!

We had fruit (surprise!) and granola bars for breakfast before catching the tram to the Shrine of Remembrance. It was a war memorial erected after WWII but also a bit of a museum, so we wandered around there for a bit. Matt found it really interesting and they had state-of-the-art visualizations to depict a lot of the war history (like battle stations and movements). It also had a balcony with great views of the city so we checked that out.

Then we strolled through the botanical gardens right there for awhile which had some pretty plants and flowers. It had lots of different varieties of plants, too, like bamboo and eucalyptus. We ambled out of there and then walked on the promenade along the river in Southbank. There were a ton of restaurants. Matt was impressed by a really wide pedestrian cross-walk.

It was about 1pm by this point and we were starting to get hungry so we caught the tram back to the apartment and made lunch. Lunch largely consisted of leftovers and stuff we just need to eat before heading out tomorrow. We had salads, leftover pasta from last night, and cheese quesadillas. Fruit for dessert! We took a small siesta after lunch and lounged around. I did some more research on merino wool sweaters, because I really think I want to buy one but they are so expensive! But I found a shop on google that was only a 10 minute walk from our apartment so we decided to go shopping. I found two sweaters I liked, but the first one was a poncho that didn't seem very practical to me, since for the most part I want to layer it (the idea here is for layering when we get to Scandinavia). The other one was a lightweight sweater which is what I want, but I didn't like the blend of materials as much (it had 10% nylon, instead of cashmere and silk like the poncho). So I ended up getting neither, but if anyone has any pointers on buying merino wool I would sure appreciate it! Australia seems like a really good place to buy it since a lot of the sheep are from here or NZ. I'm also really interested in the merino wool/opossum fur blend, since after researching it sounds like that's the warmer, softer blend. Even though it weirded me out at first to wear opossum fur.

After shopping Matt decided he was craving ice cream, which doesn't happen very often so I was quick to take advantage of that. We (finally) found an ice cream shop and satisfied our cravings. It seems like if you're just wandering around you see 377 ice cream places but if you ever want one they are no where to be found. Quickly after devouring our ice cream we wandered by a "baked cheese tart" place which literally only served one kind of cheese tart in the original flavor, no other flavors or anything else. So Matt had to try that and he seemed pretty pleased with it. I tried a bite and it was interesting; it was both sweet and savory and hard to say which it was more of. The crust was cookie-like. Here's a picture:

Then we were starting to head back to the apartment when came by an area where a ton of people were hanging out. Turns out it was the Victoria State library. I decided I needed to use the bathroom so we went inside and then we ended up in there for like an hour reading books and doing puzzles and looking at paintings. It was a really cool library.

We finally made it home and started some laundry before Matt and I went to get dinner. There's a big Italian district here with lots of restaurants so we went to check that out. We found a place and got some great food; I got meat ravioli and Matt had a meat lover's pizza. 

That's it for today! Tomorrow we check out of our airbnb and rent a car to drive along the Great Ocean Road! I may not have any sort of internet tomorrow so I might not be able to post anything. I'll try my best though!