Melbourne!

We are settling into our new home in the so far, delightful city of "Melbun". Our apartment is taking shape... we seem to have almost everything we need. Frankly, I don't want anything more because it is too hard to go shopping in the city! Carrying a vacuum cleaner, box fan, 2 lamps and a roller cart full of assorted stuff on the trams during rush hour gets old, fast. We bought a blue canvas roller bag thing that we take to the grocery store so we can wheel our stuff back. They are very common so that makes me feel less silly.

We hope that soon we will receive the boxes of stuff we left from home. These Aussies like to make it difficult to ship your old clothes and used towels and sheets. (Like the resell value on that stuff is high, anyway?!) But thank you mom and dad, for helping with that!!

One day we'll get decoration of some kind for the walls.. or maybe we can say that bare off-white walls are very "in" and hip for our generation. We will gladly accept any submissions for our walls... if you mail us a picture, we'll make sure it gets a prominant hanging spot!

Today was Club Day! Billy and I went down to see about joining the different sports clubs. It's diferent down here... rather than paying for teams and clubs through tuition, it's an a la carte style... pay for what you do. So you have to join the clubs, etc... we've joined the sports centre (gym, pool, classes, etc) and we're considering heavily the Sailing&Windsurfing Club, the Women's Soccer Club, the Tennis Club, the track team and the Women's Cricket Club! I'm thinking this might be my one and only chance to be on a cricket team... maybe I should seize the opportunity.... anyone know how to play?

We took an aerobics class accidentally the other day... we thought it was a class that did NOT include complicated choreography and routines, but... it DID include it. As you can imagine, we were clearly standouts in the crowd... when they were going up, we were going down, and when they were going left, we were going right.... it was quite funny, and by laughing all the time, I worked out my abs.

They offer trips for international students, so we're looking into which trips work for us... so far, TASMANIA is the leader... it's a 4 or 7 day hiking trip and it just looks like a fantatic time. And with local knowledge and about 10-15 other people, I think it would be a great way to explore Taz, or Tazzy, as they say. It's the week before finals, so I just have to make sure I'm up on my studies! Another trip we're going to do is kayaking in the Yarra river in town here... should be lovely. Also, they have one-day surfing trips.

But the kicker to all these fun clubs and trips is that I HAVE CLASS FROM 9am-6pm ON SATURDAYS AND SUNDAYS! Well, it's not that bad, just for the first 4 weeks of the term, and then that class is over (so that will help come finals time, I'll only have 3 classes for which to prepare.)

Big news on the employment front... doctor billy is soon to be professor billy! Yes, yes, he'll be teaching Astronomy to undergrads at La Trobe University. It's one-day a week, which is great so that he can earn a little money while finishing up those extra papers at Stanford.

So here are some useful tidbits....

From the west coast, we are 5 hours behind, the day ahead... and from the east coast, 8 hours behind, the day ahead. Once we hit daylight savings, I'm sure this will change as we "fall back" and you "spring forward".

It's been quite hot here - summer for sure - and we're hoping to enjoy at least another month of it before we return to winter.

Hokay, that's all for now!