Things I Learned from Melbourne

- Roo is delicious. Just eat it. Eat it every day. All the time.

- Vegemite is NOT delicious. It tastes like someone poured soy sauce into perfectly good beer, used wicked sorcery to get it to the consistency of shoe polish, and decided to ruin your bread by spreading it on top. Because they hate you.

- No matter what you think your tolerance for heat is, you can always learn to push it a few degrees further. You might be left fit for nothing but slumping over like a dead bumblebee, but by gum you will live to see another day. And Melbourne's not even that bad compared to the rest of Australia. On that note, don't go to Perth. Just don't.

- Don't use Stingose (the Aussie version of Caladryl that dries white and crystalized rather than pink and filmy) and tea tree oil together. You will give yourself chemical burn. And if you do this on a bite on your throat, it will look like a hickey.

- Even if you haven't gotten sunburned the entire time you've been here and you've only got a week to go, don't skimp on the sunscreen just because you're almost out and it's an overcast day.

- If you choose to ignore the above, aloe vera gel is nice.

- Movies are fucking expensive. To avoid paying $15AUD for a matinee, try and see double features for $13 at the beautiful beautiful Astor Theatre in St. Kilda. Or some of the random stuff they have at ACMI. Or see stuff at Moonlight Cinema, because if you're going to pay that bloody much for a movie you might as well see it in the lovely Royal Botanical Gardens with a picnic and cool bats flying overhead.

- Beer is expensive, too. A pint can cost $8AUD, most of the time by default they'll serve you a pot (half-pint) for 4 or 5 dollars. That being said, there is a beer called Piss that, yeah yeah I know it's called Piss you can think it's hilarious or you can think it's gross, but it is the best beer ever. It's advertised as being "100% natural." More snickers. Beez Neez is my second favorite, a honey wheat variety. Huzzah.

- Oh yes, and public transportation? Guess what. Expensive. A two-hour period of travel costs $3.80. The hell? A monthly pass costs over a hundred dollars.

- They don't do the tipping thing here. Save it for bus fare, I guess.

- Don't go to King Street.