Australia

On the 15th, we went to Port Melbourne, just for the sake of visiting another part of town. We had to go to the post office to get my TFN application, but we decided to visit a new and exciting post office instead of a local one.

My TFN, by the way, is sort of like a Social Security number. You aren't born with one here, though, and it's not really even required that you have it, but if you don't, they'll tax you times a lot, so you want it. It's a Tax File Number. Yes.

So we went to the post office, but it turns out they don't have TFN forms there, they keep them at newsagents. Luckily, there was one right next door so we went there to get it. Newsagents are like magazine, newspaper, stationary stores. And apparently they also carry tax forms!

After that we had some lunch. Port Melbourne has a million lovely little cafes and restaurants, so it was tricky to pick one.

Here is a picture of the main road in Port Melbourne. I liked the contrast of the old 1890s buildings with the new skyline in the background.

And here's my mom and I there!

After that we went to Coles, which is the major supermarket here. Here is a picture of me with the largest Easter egg I've ever seen!! It was exciting.

On the way home, we were behind one of the trams that goes to Melbourne Uni, so I tried to take a picture, but it was challenging.

After that, Pippi and I went down to the Elwood beach, but I don't have any pictures of that. Oh well. It was quite nice. First swim in the ocean in 10 years or so. When I told my cousins that, they just about fainted. But we don't have an ocean in TN! The last time I swam in the ocean would have been here, in Australia. And it wasn't the last time we were over, since that was in winter. So it would have been when we came for Christmas and my 9th birthday.

And that just about does it for the 15th of February.

Valentine's Day. Yes. Nothing all too romantic going on for me today.

Instead, Pippi's boyfriend Peter took us out to brunch at a nice place in Elwood, which is the suburb Pippi is in. It was quite nice. Then Pippi and Peter ran away, because Peter's trying to buy this townhouse in Frankston, and they were going to be late, so they let my mom and I.

We lingered in the cafe for a bit longer, and I took some pictures.

I took a picture of this tree, because what is more Australian than a gum tree?

Then I took a more general picture of the roundabouts.

Roundabouts are everywhere here, and they'll all backwards as you go around them to the left. Still haven't really gotten used to the other side of the road. It does take a while to get over the feeling that you're going to crash the car everytime you turn right.

I also took a picture of this sign indicating that we must watch out for pedestrians! Because the light part is sideways. I thought that was neat.

After brunch, my mom and I walked back to Pippi's house and then decided to track down the beach. We knew it was a five minute walk, we just weren't sure in which direction. So we took a guess.

Here's me amongst a bunch of palm trees that we passed on the way.

We made it! But as you can see, we aren't at the beach part. But look, the ocean! Well, really the bay if you want to be technical.

It's rocky.

Here's downtown a little bit further down the bay. It was a hazy day, but luckily you can still make it out.

No collecting sea shells!

My feet. In the water! Still at the rocky part.

We found the beach!

Then we started to make our way back. My mom and I thought this tower looked sort of like a nutcracker, though it's not.

A playground.

Notable because of the built in shade that's over the playground equipment. Shade and not getting too much sun is a big issue here, due to the whole lack of ozone thing. Water conservation is also a HUGE issue as we're in a rather massive drought at the moment. But that is a topic for another entry.

Here is a rather interesting part of construction on Pippi's street.

To end the day, Pippi gave her dog Jock a bath. It was fun.

All right, well, we've made it to Tuesday the 13th! For future reference, I don't think I'll be making an entry for every single day, but my first few days here have been particularly eventful and photoful, so I have.

So on the 13th, we went shopping! A very important thing to do. Our main endeavor was bathers for me. Bathers being a bathing suit. I have one, but I got it about 5 years ago, so everyone insisted I must buy a new one so I could frequent the beach. So off we went.

We parked in a parking garage. While there, I took a picture of a Give Way sign. Because we don't have those, we have yield signs. So yeah.

We then went up escalators to the shopping area, and I tried to take a picture of where it said "Entry to Shops," because that phrase seems rather Australian to me. But my mom and Pippi got in the way. They were not all too pleased at the particular angle at which I captured them, so please ignore that.

Once there, we got some lunch, and then went to the grocery store and then Target to get my bathers, two pairs of shoes, and towels. Because a girl does need towels. And the 12 pairs of shoes I brought with me were clearly not enough.

However, all of this shopping pales in comparison to one very important thing. I had a dream fulfilled! I have heard, from Erin probably, that in Chicago they have Targets that are two stories high and they have two escalators that go up, one for people and one for carts. I just thought that was the coolest thing ever, so it has been a dream of mine to experience such a thing.

At the shopping center we were at, they didn't have quite that, but they had something very similar. And you didn't even need to hold on to the cart (or trolley as it's called here). it would just go up or down and no matter how much stuff was it in, it didn't roll away! I was so impressed, that I took pictures.

And...um...I probably did other stuff on the 13th but I didn't take pictures so I don't remember - is that bad? Ooh, I think I might have gotten my bank account on the 13th! Yes. But I didn't take pictures of that.

So I went down for breakfast, but there wasn't really much to be had, so Eloise decided it was a good chance to show me how to walk to Balaclava so we could pick up some breakfast there. St. Kilda has apparently become very touristy, so people who live in St. Kilda leave and go to other suburbs to do their shopping, and the closest one to us is Balaclava. It's about a ten minute walk, and it's where I can do my shopping or catch the public transport or whatever. Along the way, we passed some interesting graffiti:

When we got there, we went to one of Eloise's favorite cafes, which was quite nice. I had muesli, which is like a grainy cerealish thing. It was good.

We then went to the supermarket and picked up some stuff and made our way home.

A little bit later, my mom and Pippi came over, and the four of us went down to the uni so I could enroll. Having Eloise there was great because the uni is huge and I would have had no idea where I was going otherwise, hehe. We kept running into all of these issues, though, like my address was wrong and then they didn't like my student ID number so I couldn't set up my email, and all sorts of stuff like that, but we did finally get it sorted. I didn't take a whole lot of pictures of the uni, actually, but here are a few:

That last photo is from a special library in the student union building. It has videos and magazines, the entire Star Trek collection, and fun books like that.

As we were leaving, Eloise was getting out of her parallel parked spot and backed right into the car behind us. And the owner of the car was luckily right there about to get into his car. And Eloise sped away! So in my first 24 hours in the country I had already been to the pub and been in a car accident. A hit and run at that!

Afterwards we went back to Pippi's house and then my mom and I took a walk to Fish and Chippery. But I did not get fish and chips, I got a burger and chips. Not all too shocking, I know. I must say the chips here are quite good. I think I actually like them better than most American fries. They always seem to have lovely seasonings.

And that was pretty much my day. The end.

So I know that I've gotten terribly behind with this, though, in my defense, I didn't have internet for the first few days anyway. But here we go.

So the flight was long and bumpy. Not all too much to report on there. Oh, except for when we got on the Qantas plane in LA, I was so excited because we had those personal in flight entertainment screens on the back of the seat in front of you. You could watch TV shows or movies or play games! It was pretty awesome and it made our 14.5 hour flight slightly more bearable.

Then, while waiting in the Sydney airport to catch our flight to Melbourne, my mom and I made this awesome video:

So yeah. We arrived in Melbourne at 11:30am on Sunday the 11th. In the domestic terminal, as it was a flight from Sydney to Melbourne. And when we walked out to baggage claim and such, there was no one there to greet us! It was kind of sad. We eventually found Pippi and Phillip waiting for us in the international terminal. I guess they were confused.

We eventually got back to the Porter house, which is where I'm going to be living. I was then, of course, semi-overwhelmed by family and questions and stuff like that. I was shown my room, which is cozy. It's honestly smaller than I would have liked (probably about the size of your room, Jonathan), but it will work. There's a great view of downtown Melbourne from one of my windows, so that's cool. Let's have some pictures!

Roz's house is really neat overall. It's from the 19-teens, Edwardian period. And it's just so sprawling. Room after room after room and all these nooks and crannies. It's been described as sort of a storybook house, and I think I'd agree with that. Sometime I'll have to go through and photograph the house and just make an entry about that, because it would be quite interesting.

The Porter house is well known in our family for being quite eccentric. When I arrived, there wasn't a door on the upstairs toliet or shower. So when I got here the first day and wanted to have a shower, Eloise just told everyone to stay downstairs.

After my shower, Eloise came in and said she had a friend coming over, and would I like to go out, and I said sure, so we went. It was Eloise and Phillip (cousins), myself, and Tom (friend of Eloise.) I didn't actually ask where we were going, and they ended up taking me to a pub. It was a really nice pub though, hee, with a great view of the ocean. Phillip insisted on "starting my time here out right" and got me a beer, as I am of the legal drinking age here. I'm not really sure if I liked it...but oh well.

But it was still really gorgeous up there, so here are some pictures:

After that, Eloise, Phillip, and myself went to Pippi's house where even more of my family was gathering to greet me. Again, lots and lots of questions, hehe, but it was good to see everyone. Here is a picture of my mom and her three big sisters in Pippi's house:

After dinner, I went home to the Porter house, where Uncle David was in the front room talking with an Albanian opera singer. She apparently comes over quite a bit, usually pretty close to 11pm. She was in love with my accent (which I thought was weird, since there's so much American stuff here) and was trying to get me to say all this stuff, though I was just wanting to go to sleep, as I was jetlagged and exhausted. However, when I got to my room, I found that my cousin Michael and the Albanian opera singer's boyfriend were busy trying to put the doors on the shower and toliet, which are both right by my room. So there was lots of nice construction going on. And then the doors didn't fit the frames, so they brought out the electric saw! I've gotten to the point, though, that things like that don't phase me. I'm pretty used to coming home and there being yet another stranger in the living room or kitchen. It's just how things are here!

But anyway, yes, that was my first day!

More to come, of course.