Day 5 - still in Melbourne

Today we take the metro out of the city to the suburb of Spotswood. Our first destination is Scienceworks, a science museum where science and technology come to life. After entering, we join a tour of the pumping station. Laurrie, a retired Australian, explains the facility and its historical background. He speaks very Australian English - nasal, drawn out, and barely moving his mouth. As a group effort, we understand about half of what he says and make assumptions for the rest. After the tour, it confirms our initial suspicion that the museum primarily caters to children. We are the only adults without children. We actually like children, but since there are so many here, we quickly become somewhat annoyed. Most children scream, push their way through without hesitation, touch everything with sticky hands, and start crying even though the museum is really cool. Somehow, we manage to try out the exhibits and find out that we can pull more than our body weight (which is very good), both of us have very good hand-eye coordination, but I don't have a really strong grip.

In the afternoon, we head back to the Shrine of Remembrance. The shrine was built as a memorial for all men and women from Victoria who served in World War I, but soon it became Australia's central memorial for all 60,000 Australians who died in the war. Today, it serves as a memorial for all Australians who served in the military.

It's not as warm anymore, and we take some photos of the skyline from the shrine's observation platform. Then we visit the Royal Botanic Gardens and see truly colorful and extraordinary plants.

On the way back, we make a detour to the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) since admission is free. Dennis quickly gets bored of the art, and we walk back to our hostel to rest before dinner. Later, we have a burrito at Guzman y Gomez, a Mexican fast food chain. So far, we can't complain about the British influences on the culinary scene.