Wow, does Lygon Street ever have a ton of places to eat! It’s just north of the CBD (central business district), and it has any type of food you could ever want right there in the food district — Indonesian, Nepalese, Thai, Italian (including a place that’s frequented by tennis great Pete Sampras during the Australian Open), Japanese, Greek, and so much more! But anyways, tonight I ate at an Italian restaurant called DiMattina’s, on Lygon Street in Carlton. It was a pretty cool place, and IFSA had organized a travel info night for us with this guy named Safari Pete. He showed us a ton of photos from different trips and tours that we can take all over Australia. I got lots of good tips and ideas of cool places to go, including Tassie for a few days (I might try to do that during spring break the last week of September possibly, I dunno), as there’s an option where you can hike across Tasmania in something like three or four days. That’d be sweet! And sometime I also wanna go see Sydney (of course), and make my way up to the Whitsunday Islands between Brisbane and Cairns to see the reef while snorkeling and catch some rays on two of the world’s top ten beaches! I’m considering those as my “must-sees” at a minimum. Beyond that, I’d of course love to go into central Australia to see Uluru and Kings Canyon, that’s probably next on my list. And now after that Western Australia has crept up there, particularly the tours between Perth & Darwin (and shorter tours to and from cities between there, like Broome and Exmouth), to go see Karijini National Park in particular, which I’ve heard a couple people say is the most amazing national park in all of Australia, which is really saying something. That one’s between Broome & Exmouth. But then there’s another very cool one between Exmouth & Perth called Kalbarri National Park that I’d also like to go see. And apparently the WA coastline is stunning too, with lots of cliffs, and even a few good reefs that you can get to just by swimming/snorkeling from shore! But being realistic, and considering my time and money that I have to work with, it’s not too likely that I’ll make it over to WA. But a guy can dream, can’t he?
And the day wouldn’t be complete without some weird news. For all you who grew up watching Winnie the Pooh, you might enjoy reading about Tigger on trial! And suppose you’re a fisherman up in Siberia, just relaxing and enjoying a vodka, when out of nowhere a hippo pops his head out of the water. How would you react? And when the Brits get mad, they take some serious action: they ban peanuts. And in case of you are having a rough go of finding a good job, the UK is offering some … interesting … opportunities.