Submitted by Gabriella Van Winkle on the 2019 spring semester program in Sydney, Australia…
This weekend, a few of my friends and I flew to Melbourne which is very close, only about an hour flight. During my time in Sydney, I had many people tell me to visit Melbourne. I was told that it has a city feel like Sydney, but also a European feel to it, so a mix of both. I definitely saw this as soon as I arrived. It has the high-rise buildings, trains, and busy sidewalks like Sydney. However, it also has small quiet parts with buildings that look so old like some buildings you would find throughout Europe. Since I’ve been living in a big city for the past three months, it was nice to get away and experience the cute little quiet parts of a new city.
We had a whole list of things that we wanted to do and see while in Melbourne, and I think we accomplished almost all of it! On our first day there, the only sunny, hot day of the whole weekend, we visited the Brighton Bathing Boxes. These are small cabannas that people own and some that can be rented out on a tiny beach. They are all painted with different designs and are a large tourist attraction and great for pictures. The next day, we did a tour of the Great Ocean Road and the 12 Apostles. The Great Ocean Road is just a road where you drive along with beautiful views of the ocean the entire way. The 12 Apostles are rock formations that all stand separately from one another. I was shocked to find out that there are actually only 8 apostles, but it was named 12 because it sounded better! The views and picture I got to take were breathtaking. On Saturday, the weather was cold and rainy so we checked out the National Gallery of Victoria. There were so many fascinating paintings and they had a very cool fashion exhibit up. We then saw some street art graffiti on the famous street for it, Hosier Lane. Finally, on our last day, we went to the Queen Victoria Market, which was a huge farmers market with everything you could ever imagine.
