Australia: Day 11, Melbourne, Phillip Island

We started off the next morning by taking the trolly to the Queen Victoria Market. It was a huge market where I did most of my shopping.

This guy was making all these paintings. He was great to watch and Karen bought one of his pieces showing the Twelve Apostles.

I love that paint that's super thick and goopy.

My one regret from this trip is not buying this piece. I fell in love with it, but didn't want to deal with carrying it around and getting it back to the states. I also had spent a lot of money and didn't want to make a big purchase. Kicking myself...

The picture is deceiving, I bought so much.

Using public transportation. It was so nice and clean.

Enjoying beautiful Melbourne.

There was a giant screen videoing everyone walking in front of it, and then showing it in real time, so of course everyone walks in front and waves at themselves, myself included. Do you see me?

I loved this little area in the middle of downtown Melbourne. There were a bunch of office buildings around and people just chillin. Maybe their lunch hour? It reminded me of Bryant Park when the weather's nice. Melbourne actually reminded me a lot of a cleaner NYC.

That evening we drove to Phillip Island to see the famous Penguin Parade. Every night after the sun goes down the world's smallest penguins, standing at 13 inches at their tallest, come to the beach from the ocean and waddle up the sand into their little homes.

They were very strict about the no camera policy. The park rangers monitoring us were no joke. We weren't allowed to talk, stand up, pull anything out that resembled a camera, etc. It felt like they were the secret service or something.

Buuuuut, maybe I snuck a little photo while we were all waiting on the sand for the penguins to show up.

And then MAYBE I snuck this picture of a little penguin. I could not help myself. But I really had to be so stealth. We saw some people get caught and the guards went crazy. It was no joke. Karen and I took a little video, mostly because we wanted to capture the sounds the penguins were making, but you also hear us whispering because we're so scared of the park rangers. It was pretty comical.

The daily ten

Roommate dinner at Max Brenner.

After the boss man threw a wad of paper at me I thought quick and grabbed the little nerf gun on my desk and shot him. It was actually pretty hysterical. He didn't even see it coming.

Subway for lunch. So good!

Paid my utilities bill and cell phone bill. Hate paying bills, but love to have it done.

Found a stool to sit on while we waited for our table at dinner.

Had a pleasant exchange on the subway home after work.

Was able to do a favor for a friend.

Got the guys to clean up after themselves instead of having to do it for them.

Wore DVF.

It was a beautiful day and I didn't have to wear my heavy coat!

Australia: Day 10, Lorne and Great Ocean Road

We found our hostel in Lorne in my travel book after we'd arrived in Melbourne. We just looked up a place that had a decent price and drove there. It ended up being the best place we stayed. We had our own little "studio" with a kitchen and food to make breakfast the next day. We loved the Waverley House!

Karen making breakfast.

Enjoying our delicious breakfast on a balcony with a nice view, pleasant weather, and birds chirping.

My very first backpacking trip. Special thanks to Mike for letting me borrow his backpack!

This photo was hanging in the hallway of the Waverly House. It's a photo of the Waverely House with....... the original occupants? I'm not sure about that...

Inside the house. Our studio was upstairs on the left.

Sitting there "so well behaved", as Karen said.

We saw these signs a lot but never saw any crossing. :(

We took a little scenic stop, and now I can't even remember the name of this stop. It's probably in my travel journal.

Yikes. I was in my rainbows and Karen was in her Jessica Simpson flats. I don't know why I remember that.

The ferns were so pretty.

There were so many steps. I was seriously winded.

Our rental.

Sooo, Teddy's Lookout seemed like a nice place we'd wanna see. We followed this sign on this ridiculous hike (after all those steps, and still in our inappropriate footwear) and it just went to a street. I was so angry it was all for nothing.

And then we started driving to get on the road and saw another sign, with an arrow pointing he opposite direction. There was no tough hiking involved, and this amazing view was the result. (Yes, I changed shirts in the car. It was much warmer by that point. I had at least wardrobe changes this day.) The road below is the Great Ocean Road. Like PCH, but better.

Stopping at a little lookout. Yes, another outfit. I had a couple little sundresses so I needed to wear them when I could!

The beautiful ocean road turned to the gorgeous country side.

We starting seeing smoke that was in the direction we were driving, and suddenly were right next to the fire. We assumed it was controlled because there were no fire trucks around and no one seemed panicked.

Karen snapped this photo while I was apparently in deep thought.

The first bit of The Twelve Apostles.

My best photo. It was tough to get a good one with it being sunset. The sun was so bright.

After leaving The Twelve Apostles we started driving and seeing signs for other tourist sights. I told Karen I wanted to go see the blowhole. (This was, after all, our day to just see whatever we wanted as it came. Why not see a blowhole?)

Cool blowhole!

The daily ten

I drank my Daily 8.

Dinner with the girls.

Catch up with Chels.

Tons of progress on the big project; the help I received made me most happy today.

Work friends are back from London.

Friendly man at work told me they should roll out the red carpet for me tomorrow.

Rob bought me gnocchi for lunch.

Got a hilarious text that was meant for someone else.

Currently on the couch watching Keifer on last night's Letterman, in my super warm socks, kangaroo slippers, and Yankee snuggie. Aaaahhhh.

Found out Taylor Swift is coming on tour.

The daily ten

Getting an email that honestly made me laugh out loud at my desk the whole time I was reading it. So funny.

Emailing my aunt.

Rekindling a facebook friendship.

Not being caught in a bad romance.

Flipping through the guide and coming across an ANTM marathon...from season 1.

Making quasi plans with a good buddy for next week.

Unexpected free lunch.

Crushing on a Brit.

My nails are the perfect length.

Ash and I discussed adult gymnastics at Chelsea Piers.

Australia: Day 9, Ayer's Rock, part II

The next morning started off before the crack of dawn. We had about a 20 minute ride into the park to go see Uluru at sunrise. We were disappointed that we couldn't get up close to The Rock the day before on our camelback tour- it was just in the distant background.

We'd read a lot that The Rock is cool to see at sunset, but way better at sunrise. That was definitely true.

I sort of thought the sun would rise from behind The Rock, but it didn't.

We took a million pictures but my camera couldn't quite capture the different hues The Rock turned as the sun came up so I just chose this one.

Sunrise with the moon still in the sky.

Walking around The Rock. Everything was so pretty. Again, obviously the pictures are nothing compared to being there in person.

I was obsessed with this golden grass, especially next to the red ground.

It's a touristy thing to do to climb The Rock, however, it's also very controversial. Initially we'd planned on climbing it, but after learning how the Aboriginal people considered is a sacred place I didn't feel right about it.

Turns out it was closed anyway.

It's a pretty dangerous climb, and people have died doing it. You can see here one of the most tough parts of the climb is the beginning, and there's a chain link fence to help support.

More of the fence.

I loved this huge cut out of The Rock. It reminded me of a tidal wave.

Since we weren't climbing The Rock we decided to go for a walk around it. It was about 10k and the last third of the walk was tough. It got to be pretty hot and there were so many flies. Honestly at any given time there'd be seven or eight flies just chillin on our flynets. Sick.

Take note of the trees to compare the height of The Rock. The trees were a few feet taller than me.

I was honestly wishing I could have a full body flynet. Those suckers land on you and then you brush them away and they land right back.

A rest stop.

At this point we were about 3/4 of the way around. The first half went really quickly and then the second half really dragged. I'd take off my fly net for a photo and couldn't wait to get it back on. These flies are honestly enough to drive a person insane. I remember at least once just flailing my arms and running and brushing myself off because they wouldn't leave me alone!

Aboriginal hieroglyphics.

The Rock is oblong shaped. Sooooo wide and skinny.

Our path for miles and miles.

Luckily we made it back and it was a miracle that we didn't miss our shuttle. By the time we were back around there were so many people there and soooo many shuttle buses. The buses to get back to the resorts only left every few hours. We finally realized ours was driving away so we went running after it and luckily caught it. We were very lucky because if we'd missed it, we would have missed the shuttle to the airport, which would have meant we'd miss our flight. The only flight leaving that day. We got very very lucky. Thank goodness we didn't have to hitch hike! I loved the Outback, but 24 hours is definitely enough time. Any longer and I would have gone crazy. The little resort had a super nice hotel, a cheaper hotel, and a hostel. There were a few souvenir shops and delis and restaurants. Everything was expensive since there was nothing else for 280 miles, except one grocery store, which is where we bought our dinner and breakfast.