Our Town, Port Melbourne

we have been living in our apartment for a couple of weeks now, and we are really enjoying the area (apartment tour to follow soon)...

port melbourne is right on the bay, and we live about a block off of the beach.  in addition to the beach, we also have a great street full of cafes, restaurants, shops, and grocery stores.  the way that the street is situated, we also have a clear line into the city looking north, and a clear line to the beach looking south.

looking north towards the city

and south towards the bay

and one more picture that we really like...

A Car and Some Beer...

we purchased a car for jeff this weekend.  we really didn't know if we would need one, so we have put it off, figuring out how to share one car even though I work about 35km from our house.  jeff recently got a J.O.B (!!!), so it was time to take the plunge and purchase another set of wheels.  he researched the best way to go about this, and as it turns out, they don't lease vehicles to individuals in australia - only businesses.  so we purchased a used 2008 peugeot 308 (i can't believe we're the owners of a french car, either ... pepe le peugeot, keep your comments to yourself :))  it's a cute little car, and due to some banking/international transfer drama that we'll spare you of, we purchased said frenchie car on our credit card.  in australia, they charge you 2.5% credit card fee, but jeff was informed by the dealer that they could waive the fee...if we brought them 3 slabs of beer.

yes, i am serious.

saved us 2.5% on the purchase of a car...

so, off we went to the dealership, with 2 slabs of peroni and 1 slab of crown.  life sure is interesting sometimes.

pepe le peugeot

pepe le peugeot and jeff

We have been remiss...

in updating the blog...I have been traveling for the last two weeks and Jeff claims he doesn't know how to update it...not sure we should believe him.

Stay tuned. We have some topics we'd like to discuss and some adventures to tell you about.

The Great Ocean Road

joyel left to go to Brizzy early saturday morning, so we took the opportunity to continue on to The Great Ocean Road.  it was about two hours from Melbourne, and it is beautiful.  I drove while Jeff took pictures out of the car window, and it consisted of hairpin turns next to huge drop-offs into the ocean.  as i am still getting used to driving on the opposite side of the road, i was white knuckled most of the trip.  and i was driving.

A lighthouse that we're pretty sure you're not supposed
to be this close to in a car.

Surfin' in 4 degrees celsius

THE Great Ocean Road

on our way to The Great Ocean Road, we passed a “kangaroo crossing” sign that was in the midst of a marsh...i wondered out loud about the likelihood that a kangaroo would live in a marsh...then, we see this...we saw our first kangaroo 6 days into our stay!!

Trust us, there are two 'roos in there.

Footy

last night we went to the St. Kilda/Collingwood Australian Rules Football (footy) match with Joyel.  even though we really didn’t have any idea of what was going on (Jeff claims he knew), we had a really good time.  we took the tram to the arena and settled in for the match.  WOW.  these guys play on a field about double the size of an NFL field, and it seems to be a mix of American football (there’s a ball shaped kind of like a football), hockey (they check each other on a regular basis), basketball (they bounce the ball), and cage fighting (they punch each other any chance they get).  and they do all of this without any pads or helmets on...

Joyel's in Melbourne!

The opening...bounce?

18 players for each team on the field.  otherwise, no
idea what's going on...Jeff says it was a goal.

Jeff and Joy’s Week in Melbourne

while i worked most of the week, Jeff and Joy tooled all over Melbourne as tourists.  they walked for miles and miles, exploring the downtown area, botanical gardens, Mornington Penisula, visited Arthur’s Seat (no one knows what this is...), and shook hands with Cadel Evans at his victory parade!  there were more people in fed square for Cadel than for Oprah!!!  quite an exciting week to be sure.  thanks for visiting us, Joyel!  we love you!  (and can’t wait for you to move to Melbourne!)

Brighton Beach

Arthur's Seat (number 3...not sure what happened to the first two...)

Preparing for the Cadel Evans victory celebration!

Joy and Jeff got there early... and got right next to the fence!

Tour de France winner, Cadel Evans.  He shook their hands.
Neither have taken a shower since.

Living in Melbourne

our temporary apartment is in South Melbourne, and has these awesome views of the city...it is so nice to see all of the lights at night.

we went apartment hunting earlier this week, and hopefully we have found our apartment.  

we are relieved about this for several reasons:

1. we know where we’re going to live for the next year or so (perhaps more)
2. we won’t have to listen to our crazy realtor talk for 5 hours straight (without taking a breath) ever again
3. we don’t have to get into a moving vehicle with that crazy woman ever again
4. we don’t have to go into people’s homes and see all of their crap shoved into a VERY small space 

we knew going into the application that there were other applicants, but due to our expat status, we knew that the odds were in our favor that we’d get it.  we’re waiting on the lease approval from the company, but feel good that we will be moving into this beaut next week.  2 bed, 2 bath, so come and visit!  

the building also has this view (not from our apartment, but that’s good enough for us!)