Trains, Trams, Transportation

Yesterday was a long day for us! We started it off with a complimentary breakfast at our hostel. I had toast and figured I better try some Vegemite. I should have put it down after I smelt it, however, I am in Australia and what would I be if I didn't try any Vegemite. I put just a little bit on the corner of my toast and took a bite. ICK! It's not good at all. Its a salty, bitter, yeasty taste that you cannot get out of your mouth quick enough. I felt as if I were on a Fear Factor contest and had to swallow it to win a prize. Although there was no prize, I did swallow it and vowed never to try it again. Ewww.

We needed to get into the city to set up a bank account and look at an apartment. That means we needed to hop on the train and figure it out. It's so great that everyone here is so friendly because we just asked where to go and they tell us exactly what to do. We got a MyKi transportation pass. It was $3.50 to travel on a train, tram or city bus for the entire day! That is a really good price considering an hour pass in Calgary is $3 to ride the train. We will need to look at the monthly passes though because we will be using the transportation frequently. 

Once downtown we opened up bank accounts and met with a realtor who had an apartment to show us! It was about half a step up from the last one and all though he tried to say it was clean, it was not..at all. He also was anxious to get our money which made us walk away from him. We then walked to the mall and began looking up apartments on GumTree (a classified website) and other realtors websites. Being a Saturday, no one answers their phone and there are very short business hours for those businesses that are opened! 

The adventure back out of the city was an adventure. We ended up getting on the wrong train that was taking us in the complete wrong direction! We got off at a stop and used a help desk to ask what train we should be on. He said "Platform 5, its arriving right now, you betta get to it quick!" We saw it coming and ran up the escalator and back down to get across the tracks and made it into the train just as the doors were closing. A few more train swaps later we were back at the hostel where we decided to further search for apartments when we got a phone call back from one of the possible apartments. We hopped back onto a train right away and went to go see it. It was nice, but it wouldn't be available until next Friday! 

We took a long stroll downtown, through Chinatown and other really cool streets. After walking for a long time with tired feet we finally found a restaurant to eat at that was reasonably priced! I had a pomegranate, feta, quinoa mesculin chicken salad. It was delicious!!

By this point (9pm) we were dead tired and ready to get back to the hostel to sleep! However, the trains don't run as frequently so we needed to wait for a train for a long time. We did make it back by 10pm and fell asleep right away. Ahh! 

Today's Australian Phrase: "How ya going?"