One Week Down

Hello everybody. I find it hard to believe that we've been here for nearly a full week already. It has been a weird, productive, overall fun week. We've been taking pictures to post along with these writings, but our shipped packages just arrived about an hour ago, and the cord connecting our camera to the computer was packed away. So we'll try to get some pictures posted over the weekend. Otherwise, here's what we've been up to all week:
-Lots of walking around. We've visited a variety of restaurants, grocery stores, bakeries, liquor shops (they only sell alcoholic beverages of any kind at specific beer, wine, and spirits shops), Monash University campus, the Immigration office, a large mall (which even had a Target!), our bank, the cell phone place, and even a KMART.
*My most amazing discovery related to restaurants here so far is that some of them are BYOB! I tried to order a glass of wine with dinner at this little Italian place on Sunday night, and the waitress very kindly informed me that they were a BYO restaurant. Lucky for me, there was a liquor shop right next door and my loving husband, seeing the desperation in my eyes for a glass of red wine, jumped into action and went and bought us a bottle. And sure enough, the next people to walk into the restaurant were each carrying their very own bottles of wine and beer. Shocking!
-I've been taking the bus a lot, and am proud to say that I have pretty much mastered Route 703 that runs directly in front of our apartment. I've also spent a tremendous amount of time in the Monash Uni. library computer lab (kinda illegally- I have to use Andy's staff log-in to use the computers. Hopefully I won't get busted).
-Andy started work on Monday at the lovely (aka: nearly sleep-in late!) hour of 9:30am. His office is just 2 buildings down the street from our temporary apartment, so he currently only has about a 5 minute walk commute.
-I've been searching out possible furnished apartment rentals for us and saw my first one yesterday. Not exactly what we're looking for, but not a bad start for a brand new city. We're hoping to see a few more this weekend. We're definitely feeling somewhat unsettled and wrinkled still living directly out of our luggage, and are looking forward to getting our own place with a land-line for making and receiving phone calls, and some home internet access. As always, my hope for a pool wherever we reside lives on :)
-We've been catching up on some good evening couch time and watching a variety of Australian TV.

I guess that is about it for now. We are well, happy, and headed to go purchase some bikes, followed by our first Friday night trip to the local pub (hopefully- if we can find it :) Oh, which reminds me- we shouldn't have any trouble at all finding it b/c Andy is the proud, relunctant owner of his very first cell phone! And his came loaded with a bunch of Navigational maps. Our cell phone numbers are: Andy 0430510801 Christy 0430510802

Happy Labor Day weekend there in the states! Cheers! xoxoxoxo

Christy

It's perfectly normal here.....

We arrived in Melbourne at 8am this morning safe and sound. Since we've left Portland we've lost a day of our lives crossing the international date line, had a total stranger welcome us to Australia and proceed to give us her phone # offer to drive us around to run errands, got checked into our oddly shaped student housing apartment and fried our alarm clock because we don't have the right adapters, ate at a place called the Pinewood Chicken Bar (which was great by the way), bought weird stuff at the grocery store, and watched Aussie Rules Football on campus. Besides that is been a perfectly normal day.

All joking aside, we are here safe and sound, and surprisingly enough the flight went pretty quick all things considered. Tomorrow it's off to get phones and take the train into downtown for some real action.

Cheers,
Sweany

Oh My Gooodness!

Andy seems to be much more reflective and calm than I feel as we sit here at PDX. I feel ok, but I feel pretty freaked out as well. I am a little bit scared. As we came through security, Andy and I looked at each other and I said, "I don't know what we're doing." Good thing it is too late to turn back now. Thank you to everyone that has made this move possible, easier, hopeful, bright, etc....... I love you all.
Christy

Melbourne, here we come!

Hi boys and girls,
Well, Christy and I are currently sitting at PDX and getting ready to head to LAX and on to the wonderful city of Melbourne. A while back Christy asked me if I thought there was something wrong with us since we could move and leave all the people we love and cherish. At the time I laughed it off but I'm beginning to think she was on to something. As we've gone through this entire process I have truly come to realize how lucky we are to be surrounded by such fun and loving people. It has also made me realize how much of the little things we all take for granted - a roof over your head, a warm bed, lots of friends and family and how these things are what's important, not the junk that we spent days moving, packing, selling, etc. :)

Next time your crabby because worked sucked or its cold and rainy or some guy cut you off in traffic, just do me a favor. Take a step back and think about how good life really is. I'm a little sad about leaving but mostly I'm grateful that our life is so good its so hard for us to leave.

Cheers - we love and miss you all already

--Sweany

Words of wisdown from Keith Richards

Hey kids,
I am assuming Christy's identity to share some wisdom from Keith Richards that Ifelt was similar to my feelings about this move to Oz and life in general. Enjoy :)

Question: Any life lesssons you'd like to pass on to the younger generation?

Answer: First off, don't do anything if there's not joy in it, a sense of exhilaration. A day is a day, and each one is going bye-bye, and you've only got so many more in front of you. Friendship is probably one of the most important things in life. Apart from your immediate family, it's about friends - the ability to make friends, the ability to forgive friends. And their ability to forgive you. It's just the ability to enjoy other people's company, really. Then you've got it all, man. The rest of it's gravy.

Cheers to that Keith.

--Sweany