Queen Victoria Market

Which dip to get?

The fancy area of the market: Cheeses, breads, wines, candies

Pumpkins only $20 each!

So many different areas of the market...

"American" doughnuts

Where's the hole?

The bargain area of the Market

Rewine quickly became one of my favorite places.  This guy brings barrels of locally produced wine to the market, and refills your bottles with whatever wine you want.  PLUS he gives free tastings of all of his wines.

And you can buy in bulk!

Phillip Island

So Laura has started a research project with some folks at Phillip Island studying wing sizes of different penguins around the world.  One of the perks is that she can get some backstage passes to the famous "Penguin Parade" at Phillip Island.  From the website:

Each night at sunset, the world’s smallest penguins, the Little Penguins, emerge from the sea and waddle ashore to their sand dune burrows.
This is a truly memorable natural wildlife experience.

Experience the wonder of Little Penguins coming ashore after a day’s fishing at sea.
http://www.penguins.org.au


And everything you've ever wanted to know about Little Penguins
http://www.penguins.org.au/images/stories/pdf/penguin-calendar-final.dat.pdf


As it turns out they don't let you take photos of the Little Penguins for fear of damaging their eyes.  But here's one from the Adelaide Zoo, just try to imagine hundreds of these little guys ambling up the beach at dusk, it was incredibly cute:

Anyway here are some of our pictures from the day:

A wild wallaby!

Laura loving the display of sharks eating penguins!

The sign by the parking lot as we were leaving.

House Party & Microbrew Festival

Start off with some photos from a house party with the exchange students:

And the Melbourne Microbrewery Festival.  Awesome beer at relatively cheap prices!

Laura getting her favorite beer of all time.  Temptress from Holgate Brewery in Victoria. "Dessert in a bottle"

Random Melbourne Things

We decided to check out some cool bars in Melbourne one night.  Here is some interior shots of The Carlton Hotel Bar

And '1806'

We also went back to Pompeii at the Melbourne Museum (Round 2!)

Then on to Rod Laver Arena

Some shots from the Royal Botanical Gardens:

The Yarra River running through the Melbourne CBD.

Trip to Sydney (Sep 30th - Oct 6th)

Since my class schedule consists of 2 intensive weekend courses and 2 courses that meet just Tuesday nights and Wednesday mornings. I am able to schedule some long weekend trips. And by long weekend I mean Wednesday afternoon until Tuesday morning. Laura and I headed up to Sydney to hang with the rest of the Anderson crowd (Sabina, Sam, Kate, Greg, Nikki, & Day).

October 1st and 2nd - Laura and I drive down to Jervis Bay from Sydney, where they claim to have the whitest sand

in the world. (The Whitsundays actually lay claim to this as well, but I will be heading there in November to test out the difference). Along the way there is some beautiful scenery, driving down the Pacific Highway. We stopped here and there on the way down looking at the beautiful coastline and enjoying the sun. Eventually we made it all the way down to Hyam's beach and spent the night in Vincentia.

Scenes of Vincentia:

As it turns out U-turns are illegal in Queensland.

Opera House!

Critical intermission help:

Where are we?

Latin Music Festival at Darling Harbour:

And Uberbar for Oktoberfest:

This place is open at around 3 am at the rocks in Sydney if you're ever looking for late night food.

Sydney Aquarium

Laura's Birthday party at the UCLA Sydney House:

International Food Festival

Solar powered boat!

Sydney Zoo

The butterflies were pretty vicious

And that was Sydney!