PACKERS!

Sebel Reef House Hotel, Palm Cove-  SUPER BOWL!!! YES YES YES YES YES!!!!  One of the first things I looked up when we started planning this trip was where we could watch the Packers play when they made the playoffs and of course made it to the NFC Championship game.  We figured out that the game would be on at 7 am on a Monday so we figured the only thing that would be open would be a casino and we were correct.  We actually could have watched it in our hotel room also but we were committed to the casino so we got up at 6:15 am (which came much too early after a fun previous night) and got a cab to the Crown Casino. 

We walked in and found the sports bar where about 10 people were gathered, roughly half cheering for the Bears and the other loyal Packer fans.  Obviously the game started as well as we could have hoped and after just minutes I was already at least 3 stand-up-and-fist-pumps in.  With the 14-0 lead at the half we decided to celebrate a bit with some halftime bloodies…not quite up to deck bloody standards at the Nechvatals but oh well. 

Shockingly Australian Bears fans are quite similar to the species we know and love back home.  You know…talking trash while down 14…yelling awkwardly loud during commercials about how good Cutler is while he is pouting on the bench with a boo boo on his knee…ok getting off track with some hostility that seems to have carried over from during the game.  Overall just a great game but we did really miss not being able to watch it with family/friends back home.  It wasn’t the same when only the two of us could celebrate.  We had our jerseys on for the walk back to the hotel and only got one comment from a business guy from Chicago...basically no one really cared is what I’m saying.  So my solution is to bring it up every few hours so we can talk about how awesome it is.  We are already disappointed about not being able to watch the Super Bowl with everyone but we’ll represent from New Zealand at some horribly early hour on a Monday morning. 

After a much needed nap we headed out for our last night in Melbourne.  We’re both very sad to be leaving this city but we’ll post more about that another time.  As for the evening we took a tram (for most people the tram is just a form of transportation but when on vacation it becomes a tourist attraction for us) to St. Kilda beach to walk along the shops, boardwalk, and pier.  Just like the Yarra River, the water all along the ocean coast is brown so we again just ignored it.  The views of the city were great though and we took our favorite picture from the pier (see photo). 

We finished the night with one last tourist activity by going up to the top of the Eureka Skydeck.  This tower has views from the 88^th floor and we really enjoyed it because we could stand up there and look at all the places we had been during the week.  It was a great way to finish our time in Melbourne!

The view of Melbourne Park (tennis grounds). 
The large stadium in the upper left is the cricket grounds.