FROM CINCY TO SYDNEY

"Letting go of the handrails, taking off your tie and swerving off that predictable road you've been following for years onto a strange and bumpy path just might, with a bit of luck get you lost"


Last weekend a group of 32 of us boarded a plane for a trip down south to Melbourne in the state of Victoria. This trip was strictly planned by us as a group, no travel agents involved. We flew a budget airline called tiger airways for only $90 roundtrip. Melbourne is the next largest city to Sydney. There is actually quite a "rivalry" between Sydney and Melbourne that dates all the way back to the gold rush in the 1800s (Yes I have learned a little bit while here.)

We thought since this airline did not get very good reviews we needed to get there really early. The roommates and I took a taxi to the airport, as this was cheaper than taking the train. We arrived about 2 hours early and were expecting to wait at security. However, their domestic security in Australia is not like America's As my backpack was going through the x-ray machine I don't think the guy even looked at the screen. They also never checked my ID once. Needless to say it took us about 5 minutes to get through security and to our gate.

Melbourne has some cooler looking buildings than Sydney but Sydney is cleaner and has much nicer beaches (always a plus.) Upon landing had an hour drive from the airport to the city because this was the cheaper place to fly into. We organized a bus to take us from the airport to the city for only $12 a person.

Upon arriving to our hostel we were checking in and they said that we had to be paired in groups of 8. We quickly had our 8 and were ready to go, however they had booked us for 3 nights. Most of the rest of the group booked their return flight from the city airport and only had a 15-minute drive, but we just booked the same airline. Since our flight was at 530am on Sunday morning and an hour drive we decided we would only pay 2 nights and just stay up all night and sleep at the airport and on the plane.


We were pretty tired upon arrival and most people went to bed. A couple of the guys and I decided we wanted to walk around a little bit and see what the city was like. We ran into a few sketchy people around the city and even had one guy try to fight us because we wouldn't give him two dollars. Lucky for him he had a friend come hold him back before he could touch us. We knew we were in for an interesting trip.