Saturday Morning August 8,2009
We have safely arrived in Melbourne. We left yesterday afternoon from Cairns. Donna was pleased as she finally had a window seat. Jack had his aisle seat but the price we paid for it is that we were towards the back of the plane surrounded by infants and toddlers. The babies had difficulty with the air pressure so needless to say they did some loud crying. It wasn’t too bad when you had your ear phones on to watch the movie… which we both enjoyed. It was a comedy entitled “My life in Ruins”. Throughout the ride Donna kept looking out the window at the scenery. She was impressed with the miles upon miles of undeveloped land in Australia, the Outback. The first part of the journey there was lots of land that appeared more red in color and as we approached Melbourne it became greener. The land was not very mountainous,. When you spotted a road it went for miles with very few paths off the road. Traffic on these roads was non existent. Gary from England told us that on some of these roads you might travel for 24 hours before seeing another car. What they do is carry their fuel with them on top of the car and fill up as they go. The pictures you see are actually in reverse order (that's the the way the blog downloads).

We arrived in Melbourne and got a chauffeured ride to the hotel. We rode in a Mercedes with 2 other ladies, The chauffeured ride was not like the vehicles Jack drives…it was comparable in size to a Nissan Altima. Jack got to ride in the front and boy did he find that strange. When he first got in he tried to get in on the right …but wait in Australia that is the drivers side. So he went to the left side and kept saying how weird it felt, sitting on that side with no steering wheel in front of him. This was our first car ride in Australia as all the others have been on public transportation or tour buses.

We didn’t arrive at our hotel until after 6:30 but the city was hopping. The driver kept saying it was because of the AFL (Australian Football League) games. Our hotel is within walking distance from the Melbourne Cricket Grounds. This is also the sight of the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. SO…we quickly got checked in, dressed for the colder weather and headed out to the game.

By the time we got there they were announcing that seating for General Admission was now only on the upper level. On the upper level we spotted a woman and asked for info on how to get to the other side. In talking with her we shared with her how we were from the US, had arrived less than 2 hours ago and headed right here to see the game. She then said oh let me take you to better seats. She took us all through the arena, stopping to introduce us to people…her best friend, coworkers, security. She saw our tickets and said don’t show them to anyone where we were going. Next thing we knew she handed us 2 Crossover passes that got us into the members reserve section. We were on the field level and had our choice of seats from row A to Z. We chose the middle.

The game is a fast moving game with no stoppage of the clock. They play 4 quarters. Over 55,000 people were at the game. The game is a cross between soccer and football with Australian rules. Garrett, Jack thinks you would really have liked this game. The game is a high scoring game. Certain plays earn six points and others earn one. Players use there hands and feet to play the game.

Even the refs have a part in the game, either throwing the ball backwards to get the game in play when out of bounds or throwing it hard on the ground to make it bounce (like for a tip off) when a quarter begins. The players don’t wear any protective gear. The fans really get into the game. They are a friendlier group than at our football games as it is more family friendly. Beer can not be brought into the stands. Drinking can only be done at the bars and only adults are allowed inside. It was a fun night. It is definitely a much affordable place for families to go than to our football games. General admission is only $22 and you have a wide choice of seats. Very few sections are reserved seats. So you can get there early and get a prime seat. There were 4 levels of seating and the stadium can hold up to 96,000 people. The woman we spoke to said that she thought the crowd would be a little less tonight as the weather was a bit cold. We also believe there was another game in town at a different venue on the other side of town. AFL (pronounced IFL) is a very big thing down here.