Day 24 The MCG

We started out the day today by getting on a train to go to the Southcross train station.  Here, one of our professors gave a brief lecture about the structural system holding the roof.  I’ll let the pictures attempt to speak for themselves because I don’t think I could do it justice by trying to explain the complexity of this structure.

Next we got back on the train to go to the Melbourne CricketGrounds.  This iconic stadium was the home of the 1956 Olympics and is known in the cricket world as one of the most famous stadiums.  We had a tour guide of the stadium, named Robert, who had actually worked the ’56 games.  The MCG, as it is commonly referred to, is also the home of the Melbourne Cricket Club.  The club has 100,000 members with 200,000 on the waiting list.  This club has been around since 1838 and members receive benefits such as free admittance to all matches at the stadium in members only seating areas, amongst other amenities.  The MCG can only hold 100,000 people total and Robert made the statement that he thinks that most people become members just to say that they are members and not to actually go to the cricket matches.  He himself has been a member since 1948.  Let’s just say that Robert lives and breathes cricket and the MCG. 

The grounds

Two of the world's greatest cricketers

In the evening we went to a play called, The Summer of the Seventeenth Doll.  It was a very dramatic and slow play that was set during the 1950’s in Victoria.  The men in the play spend 7 months out of the year cutting sugar cane up in Queensland (Northeast Australia) and then come back to Melbourne in Victoria (Southeast Australia) for the summer.  I wasn’t my favorite play, but I am glad that I got to see it.