Saturday July 7, 2007, 8:20 am

Today is my first official day in Melbourne. Yesterday was spent exploring with a girl named Brittany that I met at the airport who is also studying at Deakin this semester. Even though we were exhausted and it was cold and rainy outside, we decided to go downtown, a 35 minute tram ride away. We walked about 10-15 minutes through a residential area until we approached Wattle Park, an area with a bakery and a “milk bar” and a pharmacy and a salon and some other small restaurants. We got our tickets and got onto the tram- nothing special, except for the whole steering-wheel-on-the-other-side-of-the-tram thing.
About 15 minutes into our trek, an older man came over and asked Brittany why her foot was on the seat in front of her- something I could have easily done without realizing- and proceeded to give her a ticket. I asked the man nicely where on the tram it says that you will be given a fine if your foot is on the seat, and he told me the rules were clear, on their website. The man got off of the tram at the next stop and another man approached us saying “man, what an asshole.” We ended up talking to that guy, who was from Memphis and trying to stay in Australia to work and be with his 5-year-old son, for the rest of the ride into the city. He gave us various pointers on living and traveling around the city, like the way to remember the order of major streets in the city- King William, Queen Elizabeth Swanston- a way to remember that King Street is a block away from William Street which is a block away from Queen Street, you get the point. He also mentioned that laws around the city are based on common courtesy- like not putting your foot on the seat in front of you.
We arrived at Flinders Street station- one of two major train stations in Melbourne- lost and hungry. We found our way to Melbourne’s visitor center, which was right across the street, and got some maps and a good sense of what to expect from the city. Despite having received all sorts of information on where to eat, we wandered for about 25 minutes until we found ourselves in the Royal Arcade- a beautiful walkway between buildings with shops and high ceilings and two statues named Gog and Magog. We enjoyed lunch and a cafe latte in a prime people-watching location. After a long afternoon of wandering in and out of shops, we got onto a tram to go back to Wattle Park. The tram was packed and going smoothly until BAM! Everyone thought we just hit an orange cone until the tram driver stopped the tram and got out of it. It turns out a person was a little too close to the tram when it passed and got knocked out. Police cars and ambulances rushed to the scene. This incident caused the trams on the same route to stop for about 20 minutes. When the trams started working again, we got on another one and headed back home. What an eventful day!
Today I woke up around 4:30 am, read some magazines and snooped around the kitchen for some tea (which I found and drank outside). Brittany and I are planning to go to a supermarket and get some food so I don’t have to steal a tea from one of my suitemates again.