Made it from the airport to my hostel and was immediately underwhelmed by the neighborhood. I am staying in the Minneapolis knock-off, the East Fremont, the kale-and-oats part of Australia? Bloody Hell. Fucking hippies. My hostel was above an "authentic" (this damned word has been following me like a bad smell this week) British Pub, so I at least had that to look forward to. AND I was only a fifteen minute walk to the beach, which was gorgeous. Lots of overpriced, organic coffee cafes and free-trade soap stores. I grabbed breakfast/lunch and headed to the water.
With nothing to do calling me and only five hours of daylight remaining, I just walked. There is a fantastic pedestrian walking path that seems to go on indefinitely (well, 17km the one I was on) which took me from St. Kilda (hipster and hostel central) to Brighton, a beach town like any of the ones you might find in Northern Cali. But with rainbow lorikeets and magpies. Brighton's beach also has some of the old bathing houses (and replicas, I suspect) which were fun to take pictures of.
And then I was done. Just... Let's go back to the hostel, get a shower and pass out. Well. I aimed too high. Turns out my hostel was a major party spot. The living room was packed with people drinking and being young. The music was blasting (they actually had a fifteen minute remix of that Eifle 65 "Blue" song.) And the "pub" bellow was not a pub but a bar with loud, shitty live music that went on until just about 2am.
The situation was so bad the front desk guy was like, "yeah, this place sucks. Here's your refund," when I checked out the next morning. I decided to give that AirBnB a try... And I love it!!! Slightly cheaper than the hostel but just a housemate instead of a bunch of kids. My hostess is a lovely lady named Vivienne who, if you are ever going to Melbourne, I'd reccomend staying with.
Another thing I took care of besides securing new accommodations was I booked a bus tour to Phillip Island for the next day. 
"Dafaq is wrong with this human???"
Wanna take a selfie? No? Jerk.
Cow.
Better than watching cows get milked.
"There is no one here but you and me. Gimme food." Whilst striking his best come hither pose.
Ermegerd. Koala in da tree.
I could be watching sheep getting sheered. Or.
Sunset! Time to watch the penguins come out of the water!
You aren't allowed to take any photos once the sunsets when the penguins come out. I had a fantastic seat though and saw hundreds of penguins!
Looks like this.
Sometimes it's okay to be on a schedule.
I will forevermore think of Tim Minichin when I see a church.
Beautiful station. I feel like I am in Mumbai... (It's a joke about the history of this station. The building plans for this station and the one in Mumbai got switched and ended up being built in the wrong cities.)
I see Sherlock everywhere
This couldn't be a blog post without some sort of beverage...
It's E.D.C. all over again. So close but so far... (This is from Vegas last summer where my mom got tickets to E.D.C. while my friends and I didn't so we tailgated. 'Cause we are BAMFs.)
I caught one! You can see planes on the fid between my hand and the man's head.
Spoiler: I don't die.
This is Stu. He helped me get a Myki card, bought me a bag of kangaroo food for my tour, gave a chocolate which I am eating now, and when you book a tour with him, you get a free pizza. So. Cool.
I actually want to do a full Rant about bus tours someday, but let's finish this postcard.
The bus tour turned out to be great. Fed some wallabies, pet a koala, saw penguins, saw more koalas and a kookaburra, went to a farm (where I ditched the group to walk a trail)... It was a lovely day! Pics or it didn't happen!
I know we are supposed to hate day tours, and I sometimes mock them, too, but when you don't have a car they are cheaper than taxis and buses don't go everywhere.
Aside from getting very lucky with the day tour I didn't hate, I walked around the Melbourne city center, the CBD as it is called, the second night I was in town. Yeah, going back in time a little. Wanted to keep the tour stuff together.
So. I'm downtown that second night. I have a new place to sleep. I have a tour for tomorrow (which I actually missed originally. Forgot my Myki card/team card and had to buy a new one. Missed the tram I needed and the alternative route got me close but still 1.5 km away. Google maps spazzed and said I was at Chapel when I was at Olong or something so I ended up having to run/waddle an extra km on top of the 1.5 I knew about. And then I somehow overshot a turn I needed. According to my FitBit, it was 3.7km of wandering. Missed the bus, Stu, that guy from before, called me a taxi, and I intercepted the bus at their last pickup. Never give up. Never say die.)... Where were we... Oh yeah. Hotel and tour, booked. I still had a few hours to kill so I walked around Melbourne.
If you don't have a town square, you'll never have a revolution! It's that simple.
About....here I realized I loved Melbourne.
Victoria market. I almost didn't go after Kuala Lumpur's lame-ass market, but this one was a great mix of food stalls and swap meet.
So. I wanted to catch a sporting event while I was in town. Anything would be cool. It's not cricket season, but maybe I could find a footy game or rugby (!!!please!!!) or soccer/football. Turned out there was a cup game, the first game of the International Champions Cup, being held in Melbourne, a big deal event that had over 80k people in attendance, between Real Madrid and AS Roma... Just for shits and giggles, let's go walk toward the game. Let's maybe enjoy the energy outside the stadium...
I thought maybe I could just watch the fans, maybe listen to the cheering... They aren't sold out???? Then, while in line, a guy offers me his ticket for half price. I was skeptical. I was worried about being swindled, but I took a chance. He walked me to the gate, watched me through the turnstiles...and it totally worked!!! And it turned out to be an amazing seat!!!
It ended up being a fantastically dull game where all the fans were so bored we made a game of getting paper airplanes onto the field. And at no point did the officials clear them off. So, if you were watching the game and noticed the audience would randomly get really excited, that's why.
That wraps up my first three days in Australia. Oh. Well I mean. Today was kind of a big day, what with the skydiving and all, but all the pics from the jump are on a U.S.B., and I can't do anything with until I get to a computer.
Skydiving. Wallaby feeding. Koala cuddling. Major sporting event attending. Penguin parade viewing. Sightseeing. Eating. (Had some really surprisingly tastey meals for cheap) I can't believe I did this without a camera crew. M.T.B., you dropped the ball and I'm not finished yet!
I guess that will do for now.
Regards,
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