End of the Holidays

The end of our holidays wasn't too exciting, so I'll quickly go over it here.

On our last day of the road trip, we spent the early morning on the coast again. We made a few stops at places like London Bridge, Loch Ard Gorge, and The 12 Apostles again.

London Bridge fell down in 2005

Loch Ard Gorge

5 of the 12 Apostles - there's 8 left standing

The rest of the day was unexciting - driving. We took the highway to the start of the Great Ocean Road and then found a souvenir shop for some last minute shopping. We relaxed a bit at home before making another trip to Costco. We had a few things that we wanted to get, and having a car to get said things home was very convenient. Becca and I also signed up for a Costco membership!

Thursday was a long day. We brought the car back and then did some wandering around the QVM. We picked up a couple things for lunch and then headed home to pack a mini-picnic. Once we had everything gathered, we went down to Brighton Beach. It was a beautiful day! We hit at least 28 degrees. And although the wind was blowing, it was fairly warm.

The rest of the week with Juanita consisted mostly of enjoying each others' company. We went to the mall, hung around home, did some crafting. Like I said, nothing exciting. On Saturday morning, we went to Pancake Parlour for breakfast. I got this wonderful picture there, from the menu. Pretty sure my favourite part about this is that it's imported from "the North American-Canadian region." I actually laughed upon seeing this and my first thought was: "Oh, they're not sure. It's just that general area over there." HAHAHAHA! I had to snap a picture to share. Also, it's expensive! That's $5 for a serving!

Juanita left before the crack-of-dawn on Sunday morning. We mostly cleaned the house and relaxed, since it was our last day before going "back to work." I put it in quotes because it's now Wednesday and we haven't worked yet. Not that I'm surprised. I"m expecting maybe one day of work this week. It's the first week of Term so I'm sure most teachers want to be at school to set up the rest of the year. Hopefully it picks up by next week!

The only exciting thing that's happened this week, is that I finally found the chain bookstore in Austrlia! It's called Dymocks and it's right downtown. The only reason we hadn't found it yet is that it's on a street that we've never walked down before. I'm pretty sure we've walked down every street except that one. So of course it's the one with the bookstore! It also has the craft store that we usually go to at the mall (which is much farther away). So we made a small trip down there on Monday. And as if the fact that it's a bookstore doesn't make it cool enough, but they're also selling a TARDIS teapot.

Now things are kind of weird. It feels like we're still on holidays, except we have to be up early everyday and ready for work. So, are we or aren't we on holidays?!? I think we're wrestling a bit with how to spend our time... we'll just have to see!

End of Week One

On Wednesday, it was beautiful out. The sun was shining and it was warm. We were really glad we'd reserved that day for relaxing time at the beach. And so, on Wednesday afternoon, we packed up some snacks, a blanket, and our books, and were off to Brighton Beach.

When we got to the beach, we laid out the blanket, and then the hard work began: lying in the sun and reading. *Sigh* It's a hard life. We read, we snacked, we soaked up the sun. We must've been at the beach for at least 3 hours before the wind started picking up and it was getting a little bit chilly. Also, as it's school holidays, this was about the time that all the high-schoolers started crowding the beach. So, we headed home and continued our laid-back, relaxing day by doing nothing. It was such a good day.

On Thursday, we went down to Scienceworks, a science and technology museum. There were a lot of little kiddlies running around, mostly kids in day camps. We still had fun wandering around and trying out some of the little activities they had. Then we

Southern Cross

saw a show about black holes at the Planetarium. Neither of us had ever been to a planetarium before, so it was pretty exciting. And after the show about black holes, they showed us some of the stars and constellations that we can see here. I know a few of them at home, but as we're in a different hemisphere, all the stars are different. No big dipper or north star around here. We have the southern cross to help you find the south pole. The only constellation I recognized was Orion, and that one you can barely see here.

Friday was pouring rain out all day, but we picked ourselves out of bed and were off to the last stop for the week: The Melbourne Museum. They currently have an exhibit on The Wonders of Ancient Mesopotamia that Becca and I were both interested in seeing before it finishes next weekend. The exhibit was divided into 3 parts, which were the 3 great centres of ancient Mesopotamian civilization: Sumer, Assyria, and Babylon. It was really interesting, and I'm glad we had the chance to go see it. We spent the rest of the day exploring a few of the permanent exhibits at the museum, but didn't have a chance to see everything. There are a lot of exhibits! But we got year passes, so we can go again any other time, and entry is free. We'll definitely have to go back and see more.

Saturday was cleaning day, again. Becca's mom, Juanita, was due to arrive in Melbourne around 1:30pm, so we spent all morning cleaning the apartment and doing laundry. The Melbourne Airport is really weird. Even though we weren't boarding a plane ourselves, we had to go through security and went all the way into the terminal, right to the gate! It was really weird. They only checked boarding passes at the gate to the plane. It was nice to be right there to meet Juanita when she got off the plane, though.

Although it was only mid-afternoon when we got home, Juanita was already really tired from her trip. However, we didn't want her to be up in the middle of the night, so it was our mission to keep her up and about until a decent bed-time. Becca and Juanita went for a walk, we had dinner, and then we took the tram up to Kmart. By the time we got home, it was 8:30, so we decided it was acceptable for her to go to bed.

We didn't have anything big planned for today, Sunday. Becca and I have been dying to go to Costco, especially because we see it from North Melbourne Train Station all the time. WELL, Juanita has a Costco card, and after some research, we discovered that you can use your Costco card at ANY Costco WORLDWIDE.

So, guess what we did today?? Oh yes, COSTCO.

It may sound sad to you, but visiting Costco is a favourite pastime of mine and Becca's. So we were so happy to be in one today. And we didn't buy too much stuff, which is good because we don't have a car so we had to lug our purchases home on the trams. We had fun.

Tomorrow begins our newest adventure: road trip down the Great Ocean Road!

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I'm sure I'll have lots of stories to share when we get home!