St. Leonards with the family

okay my friends, it's time for another blog update :) I just got to St. Leonards, which is a beautiful little beach town south of Melbourne. Yesterday after my couchsurfing host dropped me off, I caught the train back into the city and had some beers with my buddy Jon who couchsurfed with me in LA.

He had a comedy show last night at a bar in Northcote and he was awesome! I didn't have a place to stay so he was sweet enough to let me sleep on the couch in his kitchen (true COUCHsurfing). When he headed off to work, I left and walked in the rain (with my two 30 lb. backpacks!!) to the tram stop closest to his house, asked someone if that tram went downtown and they said no but pointed me in the direction of one that did. When I walked up to that one, I found out I still wasn't at the right tram stop so I walked a few more blocks and finally was at the right one. I took the tram to Flinders Street Station downtown and caught a train to Geelong (pronounced "Jah-Long"). While I was waiting for the train I started talking to a French girl named Matilda who is also backpacking through Australia. She's been in the country for a month now and has already been to some of the places I want to go: Perth, Adelaide, the Great Ocean Road. When we got to the train station at Geelong, my dad's cousin Richard met me there and offered to drive Matilda to the town she was headed to, Queenscliff. He showed us around the little beachy town of Queenscliff and then took me to a pie (meat pie) place for lunch, and then to his house in St. Leonards.


I love it here! It reminds me of a more rural Avila, and the beach is only two blocks away. Other than when we were in the car I haven't been down to the beach yet. I think I'm going to walk down there in a little while. I won't be able to lay out at the beach this weekend because we're supposed to get a ton of rain and wind and the temperature tomorrow is probably going to be around 18 degrees (64 F) but hopefully the reports are wrong and it will clear up sooner.