I'd love to say that this update will have a coherent thought or trend throughout but I'm not convinced that it will ;)
On Friday, I did the walking tour of Melbourne (suggested to me by Sean as he does them in Toronto). I ended up with an elderly gentleman who'd lived in Melbourne for 50 years, immigrating from Libya. I think what was most interesting about the tour was his knowledge of "heritage" buildings and how the builders had gotten around the by-laws and built new, modern buildings around or on top of the heritage sites. An example would be a photo I posted last week with an old building preserved inside of a shopping mall or a few recent discoveries where they added another building but kept the facade (you only notice the addition by standing back)...it's all very clever engineering/development. After my tour, I returned home to discover that I had a job interview (for those who have heard me complaining, I no longer am....I HAVE A JOB INTERVIEW ON MONDAY :) I am very excited about the prospect of working again and will keep you all posted as to how the interview goes ;)
Friday evening consisted of a live "footie" game with Ash, Tina and some of their friends between the "Bombers" and the "Demons" (both Melbourne teams). I can't explain the rules completely but I get the general idea of the game - it's a rough sport in which you have to kick the ball between three posts and there are only two people on the bench at a time. Either way, it was an exciting event with the first quarter going to the Bombers, the second and third quarters to the Demons and the last quarter a "whoever wants it more" quarter where eventually, with a minute to spare, the Bombers scored the winning goal and the crowd went wild!! Most interestingly, was the rivalry between the two teams (and the spectators) as well as the emotion displayed by those "true" fans....I had a great time!! It was an energy filled game and I think that fans were as emotionally drained as the players on the way home ;)
I was supposed to rise early on Saturday to do the "Great Ocean Rd" drive along the coast with Fei and a couple of other keen photographers but everyone bailed except Fei so we decided to sleep in until 6am ;) The drive along the coast was phenomenal (photos posted on Flickr) and it was great to have the opportunity to stop at locations for as long as we wanted to. I had a number of firsts along the 400km journey:
1. I got to drive on the wrong side of the road in Fei's car. A bit weird as all of the gadgets (windshield wipers, turning signals, etc... ) are also on the wrong side of the car. I kept turning on the windshield wipers when I wanted to put on my flicker.... ;-)
2. I got to see my first koala in the wild. He's on Flickr...I was most excited :)
3. I ate kangaroo for the first tiime - for those who haven't had it, it's more gamey than beef or ostrich but quite tasty. I'd eat it again.
4. I fell in love with Aussie road signs!! My favourites are below:
a) "Don't sleep and drive"
b) "Slow! Stock crossing"
c) "Tired? Take a powernap"
d) "Max 107km/h" - this is actually followed!! I was speeding past cars going 110km/h and Fei made me slow down every time we went under a bridge as there could be cameras!! Aussies are the slowest, most law abiding citizens when it comes to driving and speed limits. I couldn't believe it, no one went a stitch over the limit - it felt so weird actually trying to go 100km/hour. They don't get caught speeding by police, instead it's by cameras and you never know when you'll be photographed which is why everyone's so careful....
e) "Aussie road - drive on the left hand side" - they literally had a photo/sign after every tourist stop (and some extras for good measure), ensuring that you knew to drive on the left hand side of the road, not just in pictoral but it words as well. It was quite cute ;)
Today, being Canada Day and all, I have prepared for the interview (I can't believe the amount of time that I have spent on preparing for this), processed/loaded my photos and met a group of friends for a games night. Things are settling into place in a happy way...now I only have to wait until August for the weather to turn and things to be sunnier ;)
I hope that all is well back home, that everyone had a great long weekend and I'll speak with you soon!!
Sarah
BTW, it seems that we're missing out on a great automobile back home, the Ute, from what I can gather,it's similar to a pick up truck yet with a car on the front instead of a truck...I haven't seen one yet, just learned about it ;)
