Adam and his girlfriend Sofia are good friends that we have known for a while and are both studying at Monash University in Melbourne. They were waiting for us when we exited the baggage claim area. It was good to see them both, and a little strange to meet them so far away from where we normally see each other.

It had taken us a while after we landed to find out our bags didn't make it and to submit a claim with the airline, so our friends had been waiting a while. The same thing had happened to them before though, so I think they assumed that's what happened to us, rather than assuming that we weren't coming and that we had just told them to meet us at the airport as a prank (but that would've been a good one).

Their friend Jason had driven them to the airport and drove us all back to their home outside the city. The weather was cool and cloudy, and as we drove in Lesley and I took note of our new environment, which included speed limit signs in kilometers, billboards that you wouldn't see in America, and, of course, driving on the wrong side of the road. I also noticed the cars there were a little different looking than cars in the US, though some of them seemed almost identical with different names or slightly different looking head and tail lights. And of course the steering wheel was on the right side.

After a roughly 45 minute drive, we arrived at their shared house in the suburbs near their university. Since we didn't have any luggage to unpack, they went ahead and gave us a tour of the house and we got ready to go on a tour of their campus. Australia measures temperatures in Celcius and temperatures were in the teens (roughly in the 50s Fahrenheit). We didn't have our jackets with us so we had to borrow theirs before heading outside.

As we walked to campus, Adam and Sofia admitted that their neighborhood is full of bogans (the Australian equivalent of hicks). We passed a shopping cart in a tree (which had been there since they moved in 8 months before), a couple printers near the street, and a few cars parked on the lawn (which didn't seem that uncommon in Melbourne). I don't want to give the wrong impression though because overall their neighborhood was a standard, quiet, and safe suburban area.

We arrived on the campus and they gave us the tour. Classes started on campus in the early 60s, so it didn't have the old architecture that many colleges have. We didn't spent much time there, and then took a relatively nice bus from there to the nearby suburb of Glen Waverley, though it seemed like another neighborhood more than a suburb.

Melbourne has a very good commuter rail network that was largely built in the late 1800s. These neighborhoods, or suburbs as they'd be called in Melbourne, typically center around the rail stations, with a fairly walkable, low-density, commercial neighborhood center with restaurants, shopping, banking, etc. Outside of the commercial centers are predominantly houses, like in any other suburb.

Anyway, upon arriving in Glen Waverley, we went to Bob's Kitchen, which has the most un-Asian sounding name of any Asian place I've ever been to. They had fantastic Chinese dumplings that Lesley talked about for the remainder of the trip. While prices in Australia were overall very similar to those in the US, one nice thing is that tax is included in all purchases and that waiters don't expect tips. This meant that we ended up paying the price that we saw on the menu, which was always a round number.

After lunch, Lesley and I were still hungry, so we stopped by the Pancake Parlour, which, according to their website, is apparently a Melbourne institution. Pancakes in Australia seem to be considered more of a dessert than a breakfast and we were offered ice cream with our pancakes. We got "The 'IT'", which had pancakes with banana and walnuts. It was good and filled us up.

Following that, we went to a shopping center and walked around. There, Adam called the airline about our luggage and was told that the airline would deliver it to their house that night.

There was a grocery store in the mall, so we went there to pick up anything we might need during our time staying with Adam and Sofia. Overall the stuff at the store wasn't really that much different than what you'd find in the US. There were a few interesting differences. For example, eggs were not refrigerated. Apparently eggs don't need to be refrigerated at the store. That was really mind blowing for me. Some food there was slightly different, like Rice Krispies were called Rice Bubbles and raisins there all come from sultana grapes and are just called sultanas. Seeing a box of cereal called Sultana Bran seemed a little strange to me. There were a few different kinds of teas there than I'd ever heard of before, so we picked up some of those. They also had apple and black currant juice, which I'd never had before - so we got some, though I never did get to drink it. Doritos were introduced to Australia in 1984 and have different flavors there than in the US, such as Sweet Chili & Sour Cream.

After the store, we headed back to our friends' house and just hung out. They introduced us to the Tim Tam Explosion, which is also called the Tim Tam Slam, or Tim Tam Suck. Tim Tams are a popular Australian biscuit (cookie) and the Tim Tam Explosion involves trying to drink a beverage (we drank hot tea) through the cookie before it falls apart, and then eating the cookie. It was pretty good and not too messy if I ate the cookie before it melted.

Anyway, that night we played dominoes (no crazy Australian dominoes game, just some crazy Mexican dominoes game), had pasta, and watched the Simpsons. Lesley and I were really tired by the end of the night and started to doze off just before our luggage arrived around 11:30 PM. It had been a very long day and we were happy to finally be able to brush our teeth and go to bed.