We're Baaaack

We're back in sweltering Brisbane after a delightful week and a bit in New Zealand. For one thing, it sure is strange to holiday in a cold country only to come back to a hot place... the complete opposite of what we'd usually do! But though the South Island was a little chilly, it was kind of nice to put on some layers, don toques and gloves, and - dare I say it?- stomp around in the snow! Well, the snow thrill wore off in about 20 seconds or so, but it sure did make for lovely photos.

Anyway! We had a fantastic time -- NZ far surpassed our expectations for being a great place to travel. We lucked out with pretty amazing weather (lots of sunshine and blue skies), had great travel companions, and a strong Aussie dollar on our side. The Kiwis we met were really nice, endearingly rugby-mad, but sadly few and far between. The South Island felt more than anything... kind of empty. On almost any road in the parts we travelled to, you could count the cars you passed on your fingers, and when we did meet people running hostels or shops or tour companies, more than half the time they were from another country. It was a little weird... it seems that most New Zealanders must either live on the North Island, or in Australia. Where we went, it also even felt devoid of wildlife, which could have been due to climate, time of day, introduced species wiping out the native fauna, or maybe something else (we kept seeing signs about poison being used in national parks to wipe out various pest species...).

So it was just us and the sheep for most of the trip. We drove our Toyota Camry up and down mountains, hiked a few great trails around Mount Cook, Lake Tasman, Mt Aspiring National Park, and up Franz Josef Glacier - an unbelievable day for more than a few reasons! We got into a few adventures, trying our luck at paragliding in Queenstown, and scoring a free helicopter ride off the glacier when the mountain next to us started collapsing into the valley below. We had some great local food - cheeses, wine, lamb, and ketchup out of a can (for dipping grilled cheese sandwiches, silly!). We got caught up in the Rugby World Cup frenzy, we saw some rare penguins, and took a boat cruise through the fjords of Milford Sound, our boat chaperoned by adorable seals who swam alongside us. And besides all of that, it was so nice to get out into the fresh air and reunite with old friends. We're definitely already dreaming of a return someday to check out the North Island, and perhaps to embark on one of NZ's many Great Walks, where we can get gloriously lost in a national park for a few days at a time!

But that's our trip in a nutshell.... more detail to come! And if you've got the urge to look at a million or so mountain photos, don't forget to check our Flickr page. xx A&D

A Cold Snap

Since we're totally not going to believe this happened in a few months (and those of you enjoying sunny summer temperatures in North America won't either), we've decided to write about it: there is indeed WINTER on the Gold Coast. The dreaded W-word!

Yes, when researching our move here, we found climate charts that said the mercury would never fall below 20 degrees (yes!), we Googled street scenes of palm trees and read things about "300+ sunny days per year". Sold! But unfortunately we're not immune, even on the Gold Coast, to the weirdo weather that's been totally confusing everyone around the world this year.

Winter has come to Queensland — something we didn't really think was possible — and we are currently in the middle of quite a cold snap. Word is, Thursday was the coldest day Brisbane has had in a decade (9 degrees for a high!), and it's supposed to continue for another week. On Friday morning for work, I was to help out with the public launch of this community safety campaign, which was taking place outdoors in Cavill Mall, the big pedestrian area smack in the centre of Surfers. Well, I showed up to find my colleagues wearing scarves and with teeth chattering, and the guests and spectators who actually showed up making jokes about "Melbourne weather" and breathing on their hands to keep from freezing. It seemed to take ages for the sun to finally peek over the buildings around 9am, but it was very welcome when it did arrive. Winter has officially arrived — as of June 1st, actually — and while the evening news anchors are yammering on and on about the great ski conditions in New South Wales right now, we'd prefer to go back to our breezy summer weather right now, thank you very much.

And yes, as Canadians, we are indeed used to this kind of miserable grey and cold weather, that's true. And yes, we should stop whining! But when dealing with the cold, it's all about how prepared you are for it. Our apartment is actually colder inside than outside — fantastic in summer, for sure! — as there isn't a speck of insulation in the walls, which are made of concrete and floor-to-ceiling glass windows. Truthfully, we're spending a lot of evenings hiding out under the puffy quilt we splurged on a few weeks' back (a good purchase!) and waiting for it all to blow over (in August maybe?). And as our power bill is expensive enough already, we're not about to head out and get ourselves an electricity-chugging space heater...

On Friday night, our friend Tim came over — Tim lives in a house that is even colder than ours, with fans built into the attic of the house that work constantly to push the hot air out — and after trying to warm ourselves up with some beers while we sat under blankets, we decided to try something we normally wouldn't dare: hit the Surfers Paradise bar scene on a Friday night... to absorb a little body heat, that is. So we threw on about four layers each and made the three-block dash to Cavill Ave. And there we found out how to keep warm in the Australian winter: sheepishly dancing the night away to Top 40. Who would've thought?

Actually, there is one really great thing about winter in Queensland: nobody has a clue how to dress for it. The surf shops are still selling bikinis... but displaying them on mannequins with faux-fur vests over top. It's Ugg-boot city these days. And yesterday I saw a guy in the shopping mall, wearing a puffy sleeping-bag parka, paired with shorts and flip-flops. It's kind of hilarious.

Another month gone, another year older....

Hello from jolly old England, where we've been hanging out for the last little while. It's a bit colder, quieter, and a whole lot calmer than Asia, but the sun sets really late and people are pretty nice, and it's not a bad spot at all for a little exploration and some long-overdue reunions!

We've just realized we're now on our 3rd continent of the trip, which has turned into a makeshift round-the-world tour (who would've thought?). As soon as we crossed the equator for the last time (actually in Malaysia this dawned on us), we noticed the crescent moon flipped into a frown, rather than the smile we knew so well from Australia. Weird! It was a loooong plane ride from Kuala Lumpur to London-- 14 or 16 hours we think-- but as soon as we emerged in the far, far north, we realized it truly was goodbye to the warm temperatures our bodies had acclimatized to. At London Stansted Airport, it was a "pleasant" (to use the captain's words) 17 degrees, but it felt like -17 to us. We're still adjusting, in our wool socks and 'jumpers'. It's all a lot more pricey than what we've been used to, and we're missing our daily rice intake a bit, but at least we felt at home again when we ended up in Manchester's Chinatown, surrounded by red neon signs and flashing twinkle lights...

But yes-- first stop on the itinerary was Shoreham-by-Sea, a cute little town on the southern coast of England, not too far from Brighton, where our friend Laura has ended up--with her lovely English hubby Adam and their adorable baby Ella. We had a great few days there in "the south", touring Shoreham, Brighton, and London, and got to experience the 99 Flake on Brighton Pier and some Marmite (which we pretended to eat and then fed to the baby). We spotted our first real Banksy graffiti in Brighton, and got to hop in the back on one of those cliche-but-so-cool London black taxicabs when our sunny day in London turned into a downpour (they're very spacious). In Shoreham, everything was very cute-- even the graveyard-- and chock full of little old white-haired ladies and secondhand shops, and fet a bit like the town in Hot Fuzz. We learned that houseboats are the hot real estate in Shoreham, and there were some pretty crazy ones made out of old buses and general junk.... cool if you like living in the mud that is!

We left Laura and the family to head north-- completely on the wrong train, as we still have no idea how to read the tickets here... got a bit of a scolding from the train conductor but we played the dumb tourist part well!-- and found our old friends Andrew and Krissy in Macclesfield, a cute town a bit south of Manchester. Not long ago they scored a fantastically huge house with many floors and views of the green rolling hills outside town. The local pub (about four doors down) is full of characters and the men's toilet gets a great review on www.pubtoilets.com, and the lady behind the bar already knows us by name. Only problem with Macclesfield is whenever we go for a walk, we always end up in another random cemetery...

Between all of that, there was a day climbing the rugged, impossibly green grassy hills around Castleton (below) in the Peaks District National Park, a day roaming the picturesque streets and free museums in Manchester (left), and a weekend of Gaudi, sangria, and beach in Barcelona (visiting another old friend, Juan). Yesterday we spent Dayle's birthday touring Liverpool, soaking up all the Beatlemania and atmosphere of the old buildings that were everywhere. We're getting a good dose of English pop culture (Little Britain, Top Gear, Fonejacker, Big Brother...) but we're still a long way from understanding the accents. It's hard to believe we have one week left here and that's it!

Blogging in the Clouds

Hello from Sapa, a cute little town high up in the mountains of northwest Vietnam! It's not very often we can say we're writing from the clouds-- but this is a very special place where you actually can open your hotel balcony door and they come creeping in.

A few days ago, we took the night train out of Hanoi (unbearably hot at the time) and arrived just before 5 a.m. in new world (a chilly one at that!): Lao Cai, where the train dropped us off, sits high in the mountains at the Chinese border. We deliriously hopped on a minibus (45 minutes) to Sapa, and proceeded to do the very thing we hate doing-- accept a room at the first hotel the minibus drops us off at (and makes big commissions for doing so). Usually the commission hotels are duds, but the Darling Hotel (yeah, nice name!) is actually pretty adorable in a kitsch kind of way, painted in a garish orange-and-green palette with a pine tree theme. The beds are fluffy as marshmallows and the rooms are decorated in hill-tribe textiles and photos. And then there's our tiny little balcony that looks far out into the clouds/valley, depending on the time of day. It was just too sweet too resist.

Sapa itself is still a relatively small place, and we were afraid (when booking our return trains) we wouldn't have enough to do to fill four days. Uber-touristy as it is, it's still a real trip to wander down the main street amongst a mix of modern Vietnamese people, camera-toting Western tourists, and tiny ladies from the neighbouring hill tribe villages wearing full traditional costumes.

And so we spent our first day completely enamoured with these little women, and not minding all that much that we were getting swarmed by them. Of the two main ethnicities seen around town, the Hmong women are the most dogged saleswomen. Though the Dzao ladies also sell their wares in their red pouffy headscarves and jingling ornamental coins, they don't approach tourists as much (we were told by a local kid they don't speak as much English). The Hmong ladies, however, wander in small groups, carrying big baskets on their backs and wearing indigo-dyed tunics and circular hats, their legs wrapped in something like black velvet legwarmers. Every one of them seems to have a heap of crafts to sell, and there's not really any escaping them-- even when sitting in the second floor of a cafe they'll call up to you with their sales pitches. That first day, we were followed all around town by a small group of these women, and no matter how much we ignored them or tried to lose them in a market, they kept reappearing. And strangely enough, somehow you never really feel like telling them to piss off, either-- something that would be a very different case if it was a group of motorbike drivers tailing us, anyway...

Since Sapa is pretty moody weatherwise, our second day was a bit of a write-off. Cold rains had us hiding in cafes, where we soaked up the scenery from behind glass. Today was a lot better and we hopped on a motorbike to do our usual somewhat-aimless tour of the countryside. Rivers flowing over the road evoked memories of flooded Aussie Outback highways, and as we descended further and further into the valleys, we wondered if this is what the Himalayas might feel like. Despite the erosion happening from farming the steep hills, and the occasional piles of garbage at some corners, the scenery is stunning in this part of the country-- fat water buffaloes plowing the green rice paddies, little muddy kids running around, and jagged mountain peaks barely visible through the clouds. And with our postcard-cliche levels back at full again, tomorrow evening we'll head back to Hanoi to enjoy our last two days in Vietnam.... before our Air Asia plane spits us out into the chaos of Bangkok again on Saturday night to embark on our next adventures!

Getting Imperial in Hue

For the last few days we've been enjoying the old imperial capital of Hue. It was noticeably cooler-- rainy too-- when we stepped off the train from Danang (a beautiful three-hour train ride along the coast, high up on the sides of mountains) and we could definitely feel that we were out of the tropics and into the north.
Hue is built along the wide Perfume River, which we would cross every day by foot to get to the old walled Citadel (and the locals would look at us like we were crazy, as no one walks in Vietnam!). The Imperial Citadel is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and though bombed a bit in the American War, is constantly being restored, and wandering around within the high walls is a fantastic way to spend a day (even a rainy one!). The Imperial City housed the long-running Nguyen dynasty, who reigned in the 1800's and early 1900's. It's a real fairy-tale kind of place, with calm green moats and ornate palaces and pagodas within.
We also hopped on bicycles one day and headed outside the city limits to visit emperor Tu Duc's tomb-- more like an giant elaborate park than a tomb! It seems the life of an emperor isn't a bad one at all. (Though the life of a servant isn't so good... apparently all 200 of the servants who buried Tu Duc were beheaded, as to keep the secret of where he was buried from potential grave robbers.)
Among other things, the Nguyen emperors were known for being fussy eaters, so we splurged a little to sample some Hue-style cuisine at the often-recommended Y Thao Garden restaurant. We pretty much had to roll out of the restaurant after eating our 8-course meal served most artistically, with bean cakes shaped like roses and spring rolls served from a glowing jack-o-lantern peacock carved from a pineapple and carrot feathers. Too awesome.

Hello, Tassie!

We weren't sure if it was crazy to take our already-shivering-in-Melbourne selves even closer to the South Pole for a mini-vacation-- but a visit to Australia's 7th and littlest state turned out to be a super idea and a gorgeous place to visit, even in the dead of winter.

Tasmania (or Tassie, as they call it here) is a small island off the southern coast of Victoria, with a population of about 495,000 [June 2008]. A lot of travelers here talk about going to, but as it takes a bit of effort (a lot of locals have never made the trip)--10 hours on the ferry from Melbourne or an hour's plane ride-- many backpackers skip it. Everything we read prior to going said it's a wild and pretty, but tiny island-- so we figured we could see a good part of it in 4 1/2 days-- but it's usually freezing cold and stormy in winter, another interpretation we found to be only partially true...

Another Tassie draw in this season is the cheap flights-- we paid $49 a person from Melbourne to Hobart, $29/pp back-- with only carry-on baggage for the deal. (Helpful tip: Dayle's strategy was to wear her heaviest clothing in layers, and to sneak the travel books and the hair dryer into Adrian's bag!). Jetstar's bargain flight flies at sunrise, so we had to drive up to the airport at 4am, meaning we got lost once or twice and even got on the toll highway by accident, oops! Luckily, our bags did fine for the 10kg allowance-- in fact, we actually had about 5kg each!-- and we got a gorgeous view of the sunrise as the plane reached the northern coast of Tassie.

We arrived in Hobart, and with hours to wait before we could check in to our little hotel and have a nap, it was time for some sleepy exploring. Maybe it was just the cold talking, but Hobart had a little bit of Canada in it, we thought--an air of Vancouver, with the town laid out around the mountains surrounding a bay, and a bit of a Maritimes feel with all the fishing boats and old warehouse buildings around the docks. Many of Hobart's old buildings are really well-preserved, with the former warehouses now converted into restaurants, art galleries, and bars. We didn't see many Popeye types (we're guessing they were on vacation from the cold) but we imagine the docks would be pretty lively in the summertime. On a Friday morning... not so much. We quickly grew bored of the CBD though-- it's pretty small and has that feeling of Oz country town-- so we thought we'd tackle the snow early on in our trip and make a dash up Mount Wellington, just outside of the city.

Now, on a scale of mountains, Mt Wellington's not really all that big. At 1270m, it's an anthill in the list of the world's tallest mountains, but it's still a pretty cool sight to see a snow-capped mountain looming over Hobart. We hopped in our little rental Getz and started the climb. On the way we stopped at the famous Cascade Brewery (Oz's oldest) for photos, not for beer (no matter how long we live in Australia, 11am just still seems too early to drink!). We were sad to find the road to Mt Wellington's summit was closed about halfway from the top-- guess no one has snow tires in Tasmania-- though perhaps also a blessing since they're kind of stingy with the guardrails in Tassie. We hopped out at the end of the road and decided to take a walk through the woods, and got to make snowballs and wee snowmen for the first time in a year and a half-- quite the thrill. Eventually we reached a scenic lookout (Sphinx Rock), and as we snapped photos of the snow above, and Hobart below, the weather went from sunny to rainy to a snow flurry to sunshine and a rainbow, in about 10 minutes. Bizarre! We thought we'd try another route back to the road and ended up lost hiking up a very steep and muddy/snowy pathway which seemed like it would never end... (bringing thoughts of "Into The Wild" and being stranded in Alaska to our minds) until suddenly we emerged on the deserted highway, jeans and Converse sneakers dipped in dark mud and our toes frozen. The park rangers had thoughtfully built a stone hut with a log fire inside by the parking lot, where we hung out for a while after that, thank you very much!

Later on it took a bit of motivation to leave our warm hotel room to get some dinner in the cold, but the waterfront area on Friday night was hopping (with people not wearing coats, a puzzling phenomena we see in wintry Melbourne a lot too). There were art gallery openings and packed restaurants and warm pubs and live music... not bad at all!

We had planned our trip around a Saturday morning in Hobart for the famous Salamanca Market, a huge market held weekly along the strip of old sandstone warehouses by the waterfront known as Salamanca Place. We were hoping to find some bargain brie (Tassie's the place for cheese!) but there was none to be found... though had we not had a great breakfast included at our hotel we could have eaten our way through the market- there was everything from coffee to strange jams to locally-grown tempura mushrooms (couldn't resist those). The quarantine laws are pretty strict, even for the Tassie-to-the-mainland crossing (we'd had a fruit-sniffing dog inspect our bags in the Hobart airport) so we weren't sure if we could bring any cool plants or wooden crafts back... so it was a light shopping trip.

We set off for the Tasman Peninsula and the quaint little town of Richmond, along the "convict trail" after that. [See a map of our Tasmania travels here.] At the south end of the peninsula is the former prison colony of Port Arthur, where the repeat offenders and real baddies (though sometimes for what seemed like the silliest little crimes) went between the years of 1830 and 1877. The site has gone through a major restoration over the past 30 years or so, and is now a spooky complex of crumbling sandstone buildings and cute (but maybe haunted) houses. We took a nighttime ghost tour-- under the full moon!--with group of non-believers mixed with jittery screaming girls and equally jittery guys on a bachelor party... which was quite a good time. The buildings were very creepy at night, especially when our guide had us all pile into a solitary confinement cell and stay dead silent (some of us heard a faint hammering noise, and spotted a flickering light in the empty (?) cell across the corridor, eek!). It was getting to the point where a bandicoot dashing across the road would make us jump, so it was probably for the better the tour was only 1 1/2 hours. The next day we explored the site by daylight and it didn't have the same eerieness, that's for sure-- it was pretty and green, with big leafless trees and green rosellas chirping and flying around... almost more like a park than its former gritty, awful prison. (Not to mention the rainbows that kept coming out every hour, which sort of stole the site's creepiness as well).

We hit the road that afternoon in a mad dash north-- Tassie was turning out to have way more to see than we were going to get to in 5 days-- and pretty much had the road to ourselves, aside from logging trucks and endless paddocks of grazing sheep and frolicking lambs. The towns along the way to our next destination, Freycinet National Park, were tiny and far between... but we discovered a new and exciting activity in honking at sheep. (Something we never get to do with Daisy because her horn only works sometimes!) Still no wombat or Tasmanian Devil sightings, as falsely advertised on Tassie postcards, but the scenery up the east coast was pretty nice anyway. We stopped in a little seaside resort town called Swansea, probably overpriced and crowded in summer but a total ghost town in August. We chose the pinkest, kitschiest-looking motor inn and cranked the heating.

On Monday morning, our second-last day, we took the short drive from Swansea to Freycinet National Park, home of the much-photographed aqua-blue Wineglass Bay. None of the books mentioned it would be an absolutely gruelling hike (ahem, "moderate", as the park signs called it) up the mountains to the lookout. I don't think it was just us being out of shape... we met a lot of people along the way who looked like they were going to call it quits before the top. We originally thought we'd hike down to the bay but the thought of having to come back up again kind of cancelled that ambition. Instead, we met a couple of very-friendly wallabies in the parking lot (one with a joey, the other one with a gas problem... video to come shortly!), which was about the extent of our Tasmanian wildlife-spotting.

And since we figured we wouldn't make it to anything that new and exciting before dark-- cheese factories, caves filled with glow worms, more snowy mountains and picturesque gorges, and a place called Dismal Swamp!--we left a lot of Tassie untouched and ended back in Hobart that night... that's right, back in Customs House, in the same room we had the first night (but even the manager said he thinks room #12 is the best one in there... it's one of the original rooms, all refurbished, on a corner so we had windows facing the waterfront on one side and Parliament House on the other side. Awesome!). We flew back on Dayle's birthday in an even-more ghetto airline (rattly plane which had to land at "terminal 4" in Melbourne's airport... basically a big outdoor shed, where the passengers disembark and have to walk along a 2km chainlink-fenced concrete pathway out to a remote bus stop. So that's what $29 gets you! But perhaps we needed the walk-- we were too stuffed from eating many a dessert in Tassie to go out for an official birthday dinner :) It was good times.

Just few things we really love about Tassie:
* All of the hotels we went to were really thoughtful and planted an electrical heated pad under the sheets on both sides of the bed. What a marvellous idea!
* The air is great and the roads are quiet-- the first thing we noticed when getting back on the road in Melbourne is how much people love to use their horns here (and not for sheep). Ugh!
* Tassie is the land of rainbows, at least from our brief experience! The weather was anything but stormy... it was rainy, but it would only rain for a few minutes before shutting off and turning to sunshine again- over and over. It was for the most part, quite enjoyable, and it made everything really green!

Catching up!

Hey everyone! It's been a busy and chilly couple of months in Melbourne (yup, we're still here!) and we thought, geez, it's about time to update the blog. Sorry for being such blog-slackers... here's the wrap-up on what's been happening (more details to come):

The Big Move: Back in May our nutty Kiwi housemates told us they wanted to break their lease (it was too expensive somehow suddenly) and move out of the house on Canning Street sometime in July (it was something new every week with those guys!). We were sick of freezing in an increasingly-crowded house anyway-- the one chick's freeloading 18-year-old brother and his friend had moved over "temporarily" from New Zealand and had already overtaken the 1st floor of the house for six weeks, and we were getting sick of eating our meals in our bedroom-- so we started a quick n' dirty apartment hunt. Over two weeks we saw some flashy, grungy, huge and tiny living spaces, until we came upon The One. Just like we met Daisy, we knew we were meant to be, we knew we had to have the fabulous one-bedroom apartment on the banks of the Yarra River. The current tenant, an interior designer, had been assigned to work on a fancy Shanghai hotel but didn't want to give up her gorgeous gem of a place from June to December. She'd met a couple other potential subletters before us and so naturally we were ecstatic when she let us know she wanted us to have the flat! And after so much hellish share housing, hostels, camping and rustic cabins on cow paddocks, needless to say we've been thoroughly enjoying the bliss of having our very own space-- kitchen, balcony, gas heater, views of the city and more :)
Happy birthday to Adrian: Last week Mr Rogers got a little older. And though he continues to creep toward the big 3-0 (a wee bit faster than Dayle, I must add!), the part-ay spirit has not left him, and so we celebrated the big event last Saturday night with many beverages and three hours of karaoke in our own room at FM Karaoke on Bourke Street (in the CBD). It took a little bit for voices to get warmed up but soon enough the initial shyness was lost and everyone was enjoying a good selection of karaoke favourites like Queen and Aerosmith set to excellent and very dramatic Asian love-story videos. The staff at FM were fantastic and put up with our jolly group of songbirds (thanks to everyone who was brave enough to get onstage!). When everyone was hoarse we dashed down a few alleys and made it to the Croft Institute just in time* (* Note: Despite protests, Melbourne has just begun a citywide "lockout" policy where you can't enter a bar after 2am, no matter how late it stays open... something to do with curbing streets violence or something...) for some more hours of dancing. Fun times for all! Adrian also joined the trendy Melburnian crowd and got himself a real authentic Crumpler bag, straight from the Crumpler HQ in Collingwood. He hasn't stopped grinning since.

We'll have more updates soon... complete with the grand photo-tour of our awesome apartment, our thoughts on Australian television (something we haven't seen in ages before moving in to our new place!), and updates on our future adventures as they materialize. Now it's time to get back to watching one of many generic cop dramas which occupy weeknight TV... :)

Working for 'the man'

Yup, that's right, the news is out. We're now BOTH bank monkeys, typing up files and looking at data and following protocol (kinda like CTU but a bit less glam). Although she was getting lots of annoying errands done, 3 weeks of 'vacation' was enough for Dayle-- and she's landed herself a temping job at ANZ as well. Although we're in different ANZ bank offices, in different city suburbs (Adrian's in the heart of the downtown business area and Dayle's building is in Richmond, nestled in between a Ferrari dealership and countless wacky interior design showrooms), we're both part of the same bank family now. Dayle got the call last Tuesday and began work the very next day in the "Travel Card" section, processing forms for this cooler version of the travellers' cheque. It's amazing to see how many people have 12,000 Euro to slap down in card form, and also sad to see people's Aussie dollars get decimated by the British pound. But there's plenty of folks heading out on vacation now, that's for sure... and it's making our poor little (constantly growing) team work really hard. But nice people, decent pay -- ah, a job's a job. And way better than fruit picking! Luckily we've just discovered our company email address book, so we can chitchat under email subject lines like "Further information needed re: application". Too cool.

We went on a little shopping spree this past week, finally giving into the chilly Melbourne weather and buying ourselves winter coats. And of course, now it's 18 degrees in the day! Nonetheless, we are very excited to wear our new coats. We're learning some tips on how Melburnians stay warm, living in old houses without insulation- layer, layer, layer! We've actually even turned on the furnace lately (it's freezing at night!), something that led to great debate and a week's worth of household tension between us and our New Zealander housemates; we've since learned that in New Zealand, people simply DON'T heat their houses, and if they do, it's with a fireplace/wood stove. (Reminds us of our rustic cottage in Stanthorpe!) And they consider heat "a luxury", which was equated to owning a dishwasher in the 'heated' discussion. Ha! It was getting so cold in here that we were feeling like we might as well been sleeping in our van outside, and we were beginning to wonder if we'd just acclimatized so much to the tropical weather (not that it's been tropical here for ages) that we can't take the cold anymore. We are so sick of hearing "This is nothing! You're from a cold country!" And then we went out for drinks with an Irish and an English couple and discussed the philosophy of heating-- and as it turns out, they've all been using the furnace for weeks now. Sure, we're from countries which get cold, but you know what? We heat our houses to make it bearable. It's just how it works in the northern hemisphere. We felt much better after that.

Last weekend we also did a little exploring, and checked out the insides of the Hotel Windsor, a grand old 19th-century hotel which is on the edge of the CBD, right across from the state parliament building. Apparently many Aussie prime ministers have stayed there over the years since it was built in 1883, and it reminded us of the grand old CP hotels in Canada. The chandeliered lobby is beautiful and it was cool to read through the historical blurbs & photographs, including how a politician (a premier?) took ownership and sold booze there illegally for years. One day when we're rich and visiting Melbourne again, maybe we'll stay here instead of good old Miami Hotel (our Xmas abode). It's funny how there's so many buildings one might take for granted in their own city, passing them every day without any notice or understanding of their history. It's fun to be a tourist in your own town! Next mission: read up on the history of Melbourne. We'll relay what we find!