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Whoever has been to London remembers Southbank with its noises and sounds. When living in London I often took the walked along one of the two embankments (Southbank and Victoria Embankment respectively.) On these walks one can see the Tate museum of modern arts or hear and see the Big Ben. Needless to say, I was thrilled to learn that Melbourne has a Southbank as well. I took the camera and spent 20 minutes to walk from Southbank Avenue to the Kings Way. Some impressions below.
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This is my first week at the client. It has been a short week due to the Melbourne Cup. Every day I would get up at 5am and take the bus at 6:30am to the city.
The trip at this time is always nice and short. So I arrived typically at about 7am in the CBD (Central Business District). A short walk got me either to the client or employer office. Interestingly life in Melbourne does not start before 8am. Do not expect anybody to be at either place before 8m. The good news, this gave me some time to prepare and get things done before the crowd arrived.The week has been busy with meetings and trying to learn as much as possible in as little time as possible. The client is not all that different from other large clients in the US. This client is clearly comparable to others that have recently gone through massive transformation.
On Thursday I got to look at some apartments (furnished places as a temporary solution until our household arrives.) Thanks to a good friend of mine we got a lead to look at the Southbank apartments. I immediately liked the location and after a little bit of information exchange between Christy and me we were set. I committed to a place.
On Saturday then it was time to say goodbye to the hotel room that has been my home away from home. I was not too sad, knowing the nice place that was going to await me.
The driver brought me in record time to the new place and I happened to get a different apartment from the one I had seen. The new one has a separate bedroom for Sydney (great!) and a fantastic view onto the botanic gardens.
In the picture, the gardens start at the treeline in the back. On the right hand side you get a glimpse of the opera house which is right across my new place. I am excited for this and can't wait to see the lights by night. Below is a map of the location.
In the meantime Christy has gone through a lot of emotions and even more hard work. She has single handedly managed to coordinate the packing and loading of the household. She also had to deal with a solution for Tyler (that in itself is a major task given the circumstances.) We are most grateful to have had many members of our ward who have helped in different capacities, Thank you all! In any case, her departure time is coming closer as well. She and Sydney will soon unite with me in Melbourne.
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Remembrance day and other observations...today on 11/11 Australia also commemorates remembrance day in recognition of the end of World War I (the great war.) Unlike the US, Australia has been less involved in other wars. Still the original Armistice day was renamed to include all fallen soldiers. To me it is however interesting to reflect about the different emphasis Remembrance Day carries compared to Veterans' Day.
The interesting custom is that during this week more and more people were walking around with red flowers on their suites. On my question I learned that volunteers were selling the red poppies as a way to raise funds for veterans. I had a hard time finding where to buy mine but ultimately succeeded.
Unlike in the UK this day is not a public holiday so I ended up working and missed the parade.
Life in the Streets...is something very normal in Melbourne. As I walked back to the apartment around 19:30 the air was nicely warm and the street full of people going for dinner or just having a drink in one of the many coffee stores. This reminded me so much of Switzerland. In both Basel and Zurich people love to hang out in the streets. In Phoenix street activities are not really part of the culture.
Smoking...is very real here and so is drinking. After ten years in the US I am no longer used to a large number of people smoking outdoors. Even less am I used to a lot of kids smoking. In the streets of Melbourne it is prevalent.
Rowing is in...and so I see lots of people rowing up and down the Yarra river when I leave in the morning as well as when I come back. This seems to be some sort of a popular sport.
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First week in Melbourne for Christy and Sydney. They have had a full week of adventures and should be close to overcoming the jetlag. That means that we can start getting back into a routine as far as going to bed and getting up.
During the week we found a nice park for Sydney to play. She loves it and can spend hours in the park running around and going up and down the slides. Each time trying to leave takes a major act. On another day the two took a train to go up to the zoological gardens. Sydney quickly made a friend and the two, both three years old, took off to run around and watch the animals. Especially the swimming brown bear caught Sydney's attention.
Unfortunately Sydney has got sick, which manifested itself on Friday. She vomitted and had a hard time sleeping. Looks like she will need to go to the doctor on Monday. This is going to be another adventure; our first time at the doctor's in a foreign country. Luckily we have made sure to get good insurance. Stay tuned for some more updates here.
On another note, I feel like back in my university time. We have a small kitchen with few utensils. This makes cooking always a challenge. Still, we have a several nice meals. With Sydney being sick I made a potato cream cheese soup. It was good, just that Sydney decided not to have any. (Main ingredients potato [dooo], celery, onions, bacon, cream cheese, sour cream and broth) We also had Baramundi; I have not this delicious fish for a long time. It was so good.
While do enjoy the time in Melbourne we also miss our friends in Gilbert. There are so many of them and as we are here, we miss the frequent interaction with them. In this message a few of the pictures taken in the last few weeks in Gilbert.
On a different note, the situation with Shadow could also be rectified. Thanks to much help from Brenda, Angie and Melissa. Originally we had a plan to have Shadow be with an older lady who seemed to be interested in having the dog. Unfortunately for Shadow, the lady surrendered the dog to the Humane Society who immediately called Christy. This happened on the day of departure as Christy was about to board a plane to Australia. We will always be indebted for our friends and Melissa who rescued the dog from the shelter and sent her to Melissa. Melissa has since kept Shadow and judging from the pictures we got she seems to be doing well.
Looking forward to hearing more from you. Also, if you should be on skype, look us up. We are both there and can easily be found.
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After having been a few weeks in Melbourne, some sense of what is there from the US crept up. This combined with the need to go and get some new nappies (or diapers for the non - aussies) made us look for the first and one-only Costco in Melbourne. The membership discounter had started to expand to Australia. We hopped on the tram, something that never fails to entertain Sydney. A short 20 minutes later we arrived in the Docklands and walked for another 5 minutes to the place. Once inside it was amazing to see how "American" the whole shopping center was. The layout is almost exactly the same, as are many of the Kirkland products. The only real difference are the prices. While still discounted, as everything in Melbourne, it is a lot more expensive.
We also visited a house for rent in Bonbeach. The house was really nice, albeit a little away from Melbourne. Then again, the place could be easily reached from the trainstation and was located right at the beach. Needless to say that after viewing the house we spent quite some time at the beach. Sydney loved the soft white sand. It was sunny and windy; people were active walking by and also doing some para-surfing. Sydney in the meantime was extremely excited about the water and sand; she kept walking back and forth while Christy and I talked about the house we just had seen.
Needless to say that we ended up traveling back home with an exhausted little girl.