Day 23: Art Museum and Windy Beaches

This morning I woke up around 9:30 to eat some breakfast and to do some research related to my thesis before we met as a group at 1:00pm. I managed to get a small bit of work done, though the researching was rather slow. 1:00pm eventually came though and I went downstairs to meet up with the group.

The activities for the day began at the Melbourne Museum of Art, situated across from Federation Square in the center of Melbourne. We took a quick tram ride (actually it was long, overcrowded, and slow - so "quick" in tram terms) to the Museum and proceeded inside. No ticket was required to see the art, but Anoop said we could be reimbursed should we decide to go see one of the art shows. The only show available was a German Art Show and after the briefest glance at their advertisement, I decided to go look at art from the other European countries. I really enjoyed walking around over the next couple of hours and gazing at the artwork and sculptures on display. The museum was quite massive and even with two hours time we did not get around to all the exhibits. Here are a few pictures of some pieces of art I thought were interesting:

Sculpture of Clams (Not sure what meaning it held.)

Anoop pondering the implications of a massive painting

Stained Glass Ceiling

Land Ho!

About 15 minutes before we were scheduled to meet as a group again, I went down to the museum lobby and called JetStar. Our flight to Auckland is a couple of days away and I figured I should go ahead and prepay my checked baggage over the phone... (Thankful for Southwest Airlines!)

We left the museum around 3:00pm and headed for St. Kilda Beach on yet another absolutely enchanted tram ride. Several hours later (OK, it was really only 20 minutes or so), we arrived at the beach. We had to walk a little bit, but the beach was quite pretty and very windy! Plenty of kite boarders were out in the water, but most everyone else was on the sand working on a tan. (The water was cold.)

St. Kilda Beach

The longer we were outside, the colder the wind felt and eventually we retired to one of the local restaurants to grab a bite to eat. Most everyone ordered a $5 pepperoni pizza which turned out to be much larger than what one person could (or perhaps should) eat. Properly fed and watered, we headed back to the Village.

I got to my room and proceeded to debate about whether or not to blog before deciding to take a short nap. 3 hours later I woke up to find the sun sinking low and decided to get some blogging done as well as research some buildings in New Zealand that might work as case study material. I worked for a couple of hours before deciding to call it a night and get a proper night's sleep. Tomorrow would be our final day in Melbourne and I wanted to enjoy every last minute!