Day 1 in Australia (6/3/22)

Today was the first official day of the trip. Most of us made it to the hotel by noon and were ready to get started (sorry Jules and Eli). We were all excited to finally be in Australia and get the trip underway. 

We got started right away and began walking towards the MCG, Melbourne Cricket Grounds. Since most people had just gotten off the plane, we decided to stop at Nando's before we got too far. The food was good and gave us all time to talk to one another.

Once we actually got to the MCG, we started with a tour of the grounds and its facilities. Our tour guide, Malcolm, was an extremely passionate 50 year member of the Melbourne Cricket Club. We started off by walking around the ground level of the stands before being able to walk down to the massive field itself. After seeing the field we went down to see the team and umpire facilities while also learning a lot of the differences between the preparations for cricket and Aussie Rules. Next, we went back up to the second level of the stadium and got to actually walk through the members areas as well as the broadcasting booths. This was really special and interesting to see and hear about as the areas are exclusive. After that, we ended the tour back on the ground level and were handed off to go see the museum.

The museum was also interesting as it provided a lot of history about the grounds, cricket, the AFL, and Australian sport in general. We met Wally, another tour guide of the grounds, and he was nice enough to show us and explain the design of cricket balls. The museum also was unique as it was extremely interactive and kept us engaged.

After finishing our main itinerary item for the day we walked back to the hotel. But on our way back we stopped at Hosier Lane where there is a ton of really cool graffiti art. The last thing we did for the day was to get dinner and go out and walk around Melbourne to hang out as a group.

After a long and eventful day, most of us were beat and ready to go to sleep so we went to bed early to be ready to go for tomorrow