That wasn't your ordinary ride in a tin can across a pond

One of the many vineyards outside melbourne 

   Day one proved to be a surreal experience. There is no where to start but the beginning I suppose. We took off from L.A. at what would be 1:30am Kansas time and finally landed at what would be 5:30pm Kansas time 8:30am local Melbourne time. The flight, as expected, was long but the personal entertainment systems and their many gadgets made the trip much easier. 

Once landing and going through immigration and customs we met up with our tour guide and shortly there after took off to our first scheduled event. One of the first observations that everyone quickly made is that they follow suit with the Europeans on driving on the opposite side of the road as well as the driver being on the right of vehicles. We also discovered that parrots fly around wild as sparrows would at home. 

Even though exhausted I still was able to enjoy making friends at the sanctuary

     We went to the Healsville Animal Sanctuary, home to many native species ranging from as well as a emergency care and rehab center. On the way I was able to get my first look at Australian land and country side. It was very interesting to see the acres or as they would say were kilometers of vineyards for many different wineries. This as well as noting that cattle are often pastured together with sheep here proved to be some of the most interesting points of our journey to me. Once to the sanctuary we were treated to a staff based tour, our first close up encounter with a native Australian. It was very interesting to me to talk with our guide about various cultural differences and to learn more about common slang for the country. While at the sanctuary we had many close encounters with a wide range of animals and were able to see some that even zoo’s back home don’t often have. Some of the most notable to me were the Tasmanian devil, the many    species of parrots, and of course the kangaroos.  

The view overlook of the Yarra river to downtown Melbourne

As the day came to a close I was still trying to grasp the fact that I am in Australia, there is so much to take in and learn I don’t think it has completely set in yet. Eating at La Camera, (a fine Italian restaurant) was over first run in with a bit of a language barrier. We quickly learned that entree mean appetizer and main is the main course. This as well as having no regular beef, only veal lamb and chicken were the only major differences. I noticed, as expected that their meat here is much leaner in general due to the difference in quality standards on IMF (Intramuscular fat) content in the meat. That’s all for now, as the Aussies say it good on ‘ya for keeping up with me thus far, be looking for more to come!