sports on sports on sports.

Today was a sports filled day as we toured the National Sports Museum, Melbourne Cricket Grounds, and the Rod Laver Arena. The National Sports Museum was both dedicated to Australian sports as it was the history of the Olympics and conveniently located below the cricket grounds. It was really neat because the guides of the museum were former Australian Olympic athletes. The guide I spoke to was named Maureen Caird. She ran in the 80 meter hurdles in the Olympics in Tokyo, Mexico City, and Munich and won the gold medal in Mexico City. It was extremely interesting to hear about the changes in the Olympics from her perspective. When we finished in the museum, we headed to the interactive part, which was extremely similar to the one at the Australian Institute of Sport. After that, we met up with our tour guide, Leslie, to tour the Melbourne Cricket Grounds. The Melbourne Cricket Grounds is the largest sports stadium in Australia and can fit up to 100,000 people and one of the oldest as well (constructed 1853). It was also used for the 1956 Olympics. In comparison to the Sydney Cricket Grounds, I find it interesting the two remarkably different styles and environment. While both were constructed in the 19th century, the Sydney Cricket Grounds are all about preserving tradition and keeping the old stuff, new. The Sydney Cricket Grounds look very similar to what they did back in the 1800s, but by looking at the Melbourne Cricket Grounds, I cannot tell what was originally part of the structure—if that even exists. The Melbourne Cricket Grounds are very modernized and sleek, while the Sydney Cricket Grounds are very old-fashioned. 

After we finished the tour of the MCG, we had a couple hours to kill before our tour of the Rod Laver Arena so we grabbed some lunch in the café located in the stadium. Luckily, there were televisions showing the NHL playoffs because lunch only took about 20 minutes. When it was finally time for the Rod Laver tour, we walked down there in about 5 minutes. For those of you that do not know, the Rod Laver Arena is the venue of the Australian Open. The tour took us through the Walk of Champions, which features every single male and female winner of the Australian Open. We then headed to the male locker room. Our guide informed us that all the players get to choose their own locker, but it’s based off rankings. He then showed us which ones Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal always chose. (I was slightly tempted to temporarily move into Rafael Nadal’s locker until next January…) From there, we went onto the court where the final game is always played, but they were preparing it for a concert so you could not see the actual court and it was rather underwhelming. Because of that however, our guide took us to the practice courts which is what we are used to seeing on television when watching the Australian Open. Needless to say, lots of pictures were taken here.

Since it was the last night for a person in my program who was heading home early for her brother’s graduation, we decided to make a group dinner like we had in Lennox Head and in Sydney. The group decided on Mexican night and the boys were in charge once again so they did the grocery shopping and cooking in the hostel kitchen. The meal turned out great and it was nice to have a relaxing and cheap meal. After dinner, we headed to a pub by the University of Melbourne campus to watch the first game of a three-game series between Queensland and New South Wales, known as the State of Origin Series. We were hoping to be in a college student environment so we could experience that and compare it to our college bars. However, the University of Melbourne is currently in their finals week, so students are either home or studying is what we were told. Once the game ended, we made a quick stop at Equinox because the guys wanted to take part in their beer deal, while the girls just bought gelato and then we all headed back to the hostel and called it a night.