Heat Wave

Rachel:

I had my international orientation today and I had to go to school from our South Yarra apartment, so I thought that the bus from the train station to the school was in zone 2, while I was only willing to pay for a zone one pass.  The walk, that looked like 10 minutes on mapquest, was in reality a half hour walk in the hot sun.  I was already late so it didn’t help that I walked.  Turned out, the bus ride is within the zone one zone. Duh. I’m so cheap. 

We bought a fan and heater from the “Op Shop” for $15 a piece.  We needed it because it was 35C today. 

This was also day one of “Antageddon,” the ant attack on our apartment. I am realizing that having a courtyard apartment has its pitfalls, such as being accessible by all sorts of bugs that reside there.  So far, in 4 days of living here we have killed 5 spiders, 2 cockroaches/beatles (not identified), and probably 40 ants.  We took out the trash and battened down the hatches by taping all around the door with masking tape.  Should hold up over night.  Tomorrow we take serious action. 

 

Aussie word of the day: Op-Shop (oppourtunity shop aka a second hand store)

Over the Edge

Rachel:

Welcome to the land down under! (via this blog).  So far everything has been good. Australia is a little different than I imagined. Not better or worse, just different.  Parts of Melbourne remind me of Toronto, which is bizarre. I thought that I would have had a little more culture shock than I have.  There are tons of things that are really different than Canada (water shortages/restrictions, you have to turn the electrical outlet on, the toilet flushes the other way), but I have times when I feel like I’m in Toronto.

            It’s been amazing catching up with Lauren.  I haven’t seen her in four years but it feels like only months.  It’s going to be hard to say good-bye, but I shouldn’t even think about that because its 9 months away.  Her parents have been so sweet to Kurtis and I.  When we move out, we need to invite them to our house for dinner.

            Lauren took us to Phillip Island yesterday. It was amazing. We went to this wildlife park which was basically different sections that you walk through and the animals come right up to you and you feed them! We fed wallabies (small kangaroos), big kangaroos, wombats, emus and birds.  It was so amazing.  You have these huge kangaroos jumping really fast right at you and then they stop dead just before they are about to knock you down! I am definitely taking my family there when they come to visit.  We went to a beach after and then went to watch the Penguin Parade.  It’s these tiny penguins that come up off the beach every night at dusk and run to their burrows in the sand banks.  They were really cute.  They are about the size of a fat pigeon and they are blue and they waddle just like big penguins! Too cute!

            Well we just moved into our apartment so I’ll give more updates as they come!

 

Aussie word of the day: Yabbo (Aussie hick or trailer trash)