March has come and gone...

...and you're all waiting for spring to arrive while I'm experiencing
my first autumn in Melbourne :-) Autumn has two significant
associations for me: going back to school (and shopping for back to
school clothes) and the smell of autumn and the falling leaves... As
such, I'm suffering immensely as I haven't been doing any autumn
shopping as my suitcases are already going to be stuffed to the gills
and well, autumn has a totally different smell here!! It's nice but
not as strong as the smell of maple and birch leaves once they've
fallen.... It's odd how we clear the smell of autumn is to me in
Toronto despite not having smelt it for at least 18 mths..... :)

As always, I've managed to keep myself busy for the month of March :-)
I managed another weekend (this one a three-day weekend) up in the
Grampians rock climbing. I was climbing level 15s and 16s for most of
the weekend and was pretty exhausted on Day 3 - my body is not used to
hanging out on the side of rockfaces ;) I arrived home and had a
short visit with David, a British friend that I met a year and a bit
ago in Vietnam. We toured around Melbourne for two days and had a
good catch up. It was great to see him and as I've mentioned to some,
it was like seeing an old friend though truly, we haven't been
physically in the same place for more than five days over the last
year and a half...

Easter weekend was a lovely four day long weekend involving movies,
lunches and drinks with friends, an AFL game with Peter and his
brothers (yes, it's Aussie Football season again) and a comedy show at
the Melbourne International Comedy Festival (think Montreal's Just for
Laughs). I also managed to squeeze in a few phone calls back home
since I had both the Friday and Monday off!! All in, it was a lovely
long weekend and I felt like I needed a day or two to recover from
it... Interestingly, the Aussie's don't really do much to celebrate
Easter; it's simply a long weekend where most seem to go away with
family and/or friends... No big family dinners like at home!!

I have decided to look for another place of employment as I'm not
happy/challenged at the pasta company. Unfortunately, the job
description I was given and what I am actually doing differ
substantially ;( Either way, I have an interview tomorrow morning
with NAB (National Australia Bank) in their procurement department so
we'll see how we go....

In addition, I've been out with the usual suspects, doing dinners and
drinks, taking a few photos, meeting some new peeps and having a grand
time!!

Miss you all and don't worry, there's less than 6 weeks until spring ;)
Sarah

P.S. For those curious, the psychic had an unexpected emergency (Yes,
the joke's been done that any psychic worth their salt would never
have an "unexpected emergency" ;) and so we've rebooked with someone
else for this coming weekend....should be interesting ;)