Jetlagged, but worth every second! (Melbourne)

We started off by staying around Federation Square in downtown Melbourne. It's basically a really modern group of buildings - I've never seen anything like them! The visitors centre is there, too.



It's also the Spring Racing event, so I saw TONS of people dressed up (full-out too, with large hats and crazy outfits) getting ready to watch the races. I wanted to take photos of them, but I felt kinda funny. To give you an idea, here's a picture of the Ambassador of the Spring Racing Carnival, yikes!


For lunch, we ate at Lord of the Fries, which is a vegetarian joint with amazing veggie burgers and french fries - I loved every second...


Lord of the Fries stands right outside of my favorite building in Melbourne... the whole city is actually incredibly modern, but Flinders Train Station is still in the traditional Victorian style. It's absolutely gorgeous.



We then walked over to the Royal Botanical Gardens, where I took lots of pictures of flowers just for fun - some of them looked alien-like...


Next to the Botanical Gardens is the Shrine of Remembrance, which is a memorial to all Australians who died in WW1. It was a HUGE monument...

We then walked to the National Gallery of Victoria, which is home to contemporary art and photography, along with more traditional European art. We mainly stayed in the photo/contemporary area - I LOVED these photos by Olivo Barbieri (Siena 1 and Siena 2) - from far away, they look like miniatures/dolls, but these are actual photographs - amazing:



I also have a confession to make - I've fallen in love... it's still early in the relationship, but I have a feeling that it's going to last throughout my stay in Australia:

We then jumped back on the train with coffee in hand, back to Hoppers Crossing. I'm about to join the group in a game of SingStar - Australia will never know what hit 'em.