Internet blues

This is Heather writing my first blog post.  We have not so patiently been waiting for internet service to begin at our apartment.  Sadly, it has been almost a month and no internet yet.  It makes it harder to keep up with the blog and I have no pictures on my computer to add to the blog.  I apologize for the lack of blog posts lately.

Our daily life

Eric goes off to work sometimes really early in the morning to communicate with people who are in a time zone 16 hours behind us.  He has a few options for his morning commute:  tram, train or bike.

Isabel dresses in all navy blue (school uniform) with her hair pulled back (school rule) and strolls 10 minutes along a canal to get to school.  We are entertained by the antics of ducks, geese, gulls and pigeons.  We also sometimes see black swans, egrets, cormorants and spoonbills.  Flying above our heads are also parakeets, cockatoos and crow like birds that are black and white.

I spend my time walking around to markets, grocery stores, yoga classes and the coffee shop to use their internet.  I occasionally make it out to the beach for a walk.  It also takes forever to do laundry.  We have a small machine that both washes and dries which seems great but turns out to be really inefficient.  It literally takes over 4 hours to do a small load of laundry.  I try to dry clothes outside when I can because it seems to be faster than using the machine.

We usually spend Saturdays going to markets where we can buy better and cheaper produce and meat than the grocery store.  We also explore the different neighborhoods of Melbourne.  Melbourne is a great city - clean and safe.

Sunday we try to get out of city for a day trip.  There are great areas to explore about an hour outside of the city - forests, wildlife, beaches, coastline, wineries and mountains.

Busy Time

Sorry for the lack of updates. We've been very busy during the last week settling into our new apartment, assembling IKEA furniture (ugh), and doing a bit of sightseeing. Eric made his first appearance at the Bureau of Meteorology, commuting to work on the train with all the other dour-faced commuters on a cloudy, gray winter day.

Last weekend we did some sightseeing along the Great Ocean Road southwest of Melbourne. Our friends Andrew and Sue let us borrow their car for the weekend that proved invaluable for both IKEA trips and sightseeing!

We saw some local residents along our drive,

And the big news is that today Isabel started school at Elwood Primary! I'll let Isabel write to tell you more about it!

Finally Found a Place

We settled on a place to live after a day of waiting patiently for word on our applications while walking about. We'll be living in a two bedroom apartment (near the beach!) in the close-in southern suburb of Elwood. During our ramblings, we walked through a few colorful alleyways and enjoyed a nice, sunny winter lunch in Federation Square.

Requisite Picture with Native

We had to take the necessary picture with a roo. Some of the locals walking by referred to them as "roadkill."

We also saw some non-natives (e.g. ball o lemurs).

Yarra Trams

We've seen quite a few parts of the area the last 3 days scouting out housing opportunities. Isabel has become quite the expert in negotiating the Melbourne tram system! We put in three applications for apartments in Elwood. We'll likely know on Monday where we will live. Then it's off to Ikea for a day (grrrrr....).

Brrrrr.....

Having a difficult time adjusting to winter!