After my day "at the office" catching up on blogging and looking up information on South America, I met up with my friend Steve for dinner. I met Steve in 1999 during my trip to Europe after graduating from U of M. He and his girlfriend have just returned from their own year long round the world trip, so he gave me a glimpse into what it will be like to return to work when I get back after not working for 7 months. Uh oh.

For the weekend, Kellie and I had plans to visit Phil, who is another person that was on our trek in Africa. He also lives near Melbourne, so we stopped in for "afternoon tea." It was good to catch up with him, and meet his wife. We looked at each others pictures and reminisced about our time in Africa and the people on the trip. Our visit was short and sweet, as Kellie and I also had plans to see the "Penguin Parade" on Phillip Island.

Fairy penguins are the smallest penguins in the world, and every night at sunset, they waddle from the ocean up onto the beach and about 50 meters or so to their burrows. They were cute little things, usually huddled in groups between 5-10, sometimes on their own. They come in and stay in their burrows for a few nights, and then make their way back out into the sea to do more fishing. Taking pictures of the penguins is not allowed, even though I snuck a shot or two. I got yelled at by an official looking guy with green on, so for the rest of the night I tried to avoid the green men when taking pictures. The penguin parade is very touristy, and there is a boardwalk built among the penguin burrows, so you can walk just along side where the penguins are, and they don't seem to mind at all. The funniest part of the night was when a few of the penguins decided to cross from one side of the boardwalk to the other, and a woman in green jumped out and moved everyone back to give the penguins room. It's understandable that she'd try to keep people from stepping on, or trying to pick up the penguins, but she acted as if they were crocodiles, not penguins, crossing the boardwalk. She had a very "on guard" stance, and as they moved across, she was frantically yelling at people to "GET BACK! GET RIGHT BACK!" We thought it was so funny. Too bad I didn't get a picture of her in action. If I had tried, she probably would have pulled out a gun and shot me! However, I did get pictures of the penguins on placemats in the gift shop, as well as the penguins in sweaters on the shelves! Cute!

It was great to stay with Kellie and her family, they were very relaxed and welcoming. It was sad to leave but I'm sure I'll see her again, maybe in West Africa in 2006! (Look at me planning trips before this one is even done.)

After the weekend, I got on my (hopefully) last night train, this one from Melbourne to Sydney for my last two nights in Australia.