At the G and Southgate

Yesterday Erika, Kelsey, and I headed over to the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG, the G) for a big tour of the arena and grounds. The MCG has existed in some shape or form on that location for 175 years, and the current stadium seats over 100,000 people and hosts cricket and AFL matches, including the annual AFL Grand Final, and also the 1956 Olympics.

The tour was excellent and we were able to see the stands, the locker rooms, media rooms, go on the field, and really go behind the scenes of the arena. Kelsey was even more excited than we expected, and must have made her family proud! We finished the hour-and-a-half long tour and then visited the Australian Museum of Sport. We learned more about the history of AFL (it's older than baseball!) and saw the Olympics exhibit, featuring the 1956 Olympic torch and hundreds of medals, suits, and equipment from all of the games that Australia has participated in (all of them.) We saw Cathy Freeman's tracksuit and Ian Thorpe's swimmers from the 2000 Sydney Games.

Around 2pm we met up with Megan and got a late lunch at the Southgate. We met up with Alex and walked around the city for a while and then headed back to the Southgate to see the famous fires along the river. We finished the day with a great dinner with beautiful views of the city.

Today we're off to the Healsville Sanctuary to meet lots of animals.