President-elect Obama, Melbourne Cup, & Becoming Gypsies?

Hi everyone. Hope you are all well.
One week later, and I am now more able to put into words what it was like watching from Australia as Obama became the US President-elect. I believe Andy and I were like many other Obama supporters in that we were hesitant to talk too much about his chances of winning leading up to the election, feeling so strongly that any other option was going to be such a poor direction for the United States, but remaining unconvinced that he would actually capture the support he needed. I very much respected McCain's concession speech. And then to watch Obama's speech was just stunning - Andy and I were amazed as we watched this historic event unfold, and then it suddenly hit us that we were really missing out on possibly one of the biggest events that will take place in our lives, in our home country, and we were on the other side of the world, watching from afar. At the time, this realization made me quite sad. Throughout the past week, however, I've come to believe that I would never have felt such a strong connection with this event had I been living my 'regular' life in Portland. Like so many other things throughout our time here, I believe it took being away to lead me to appreciate this on a scale that didn't even exist in my heart or consciousness before leaving the US. I hope for wisdom, safety, patience, and peace for Barack Obama & his family, and for all citizens of the world, as we continue to move forward in all of our lives.

Well, I think that is enough of being super-serious for today! Glad to have that off my chest! So, I couldn't really write too much about Obama's victory last Wednesday because, as we all know, Wednesday follows Tuesday, and Tuesday here in Melbourne last week was dedicated to Melbourne Cup, also known as, "The Race That Stops A Nation!" To give you a hint of the scale of how grand this event is: Melbourne Cup Day is a State Holiday here in Victoria. Last year at this time, Andy and I were slightly intimidated by this event - the horses, the fashion, the champagne, the hats... But not this year - this year we rocked it! We were lucky to attend the festivities with our yankee friends Spencer & Hillary, and we made quite a few new friends throughout the day as the sun continued to shine, the horses continued to run, and the champagne and chardonnay continued to flow. I had so much fun that the running joke at our house this week goes something like this: "Christy had so much fun that she danced almost the whole way home!" We didn't win big, but we had a fantastic time ticking another classic Melbourne activity off of our list of 'Things to Do.'

Speaking of which, our list of Melbourne 'Things to Do' seems to be dwindling. It seems that now that our departure date of May 7, 2009, is set, we both continue to grow anxious to get going and feel slightly bored with living out our last couple of months here in Melbourne. Which leads me back to the title of this blog entry and the question of becoming gypsies. A surprisingly larger than anticipated Australian Tax return (let's hope I did it online correctly!), combined with the previously mentioned 'slightly bored' feelings, and new feelings of, "Hey, let's not pay rent our last 2 months here and spend it somewhere else," have all helped in resurrecting our ideas of spending our last couple of months abroad traveling full-time. Our current dreams include Thailand, Bhutan, and driving a huge chunk of the west coast of Australia. So, we'll keep you posted. This decision was agreed upon at about 2:30am last Friday night following our Obama Victory Party - probably not the best time to make dodgy life decisions, but there's already a stack of Lonely Planet books on the mantle, so we'll see where we end up in March & April. As always, the invitation for anyone to join us in our worldwide travel adventures is there.

Enjoy the pictures of Melbourne Cup day - Cheers!



Love, Christy

President-elect Barack Obama

Words cannot describe what it has been like for us today to watch the results of the US Presidential Election unfold from afar. I have never been more proud to be an American citizen. Cheers to our amazing country!

Christy