3/16/12 – Melbourne, Australia
As Tommy said goodbye to his family and made his way back
to Melbourne, I headed out to go pick up his new apartment keys! The timing was perfect! As I got off the tram to head into our
new place, Tommy got dropped off by his taxi from the airport allowing us to
head in to the apartment for the first time together! I had never seen the place before and was pleasantly
surprised to see that it was even nicer than our apartment in Manly! Time to break the new apartment
in!
3/22/12 – Melbourne, Australia
TOMMY GOT A JOB WOOOOOOOO!
He is working in the city for a marketing/advertising
company and tonight we will celebrate with some BUBBLES!
3/23 – 25/12
After school on Friday I had drinks with the other teachers
following a full day of swimming.
Yes, I had to swim in front of the entire Junior School including
students, staff AND parents! At
Carey each child is assigned to a different house, similar to Harry Potter, and
throughout the year the houses compete for points in different competitions
such as swimming, running, behaving in class, etc. Today was the swimming house competition for the Junior
School. You are probably wondering
why the heck I had to swim… Well
in the middle of this fun day of competition, there is a race between the Year
6 students vs. the Year 6 parents vs. the Junior School Staff. Obviously none of the staff really want
to be in this race because it is a bit uncomfortable to be in a bathingsuit in
front of all of your students, staff and parents, so I was forced to be a member
on the staff team. Thank gosh I am
a strong swimmer so I did not totally embarrass myself, but I am pretty sure I
was so worried about looking stupid that I crushed the Year 6 student swimming
next to me when the point was to let the students win…ooops! I think I may be a bit too competitive…
Tommy and I had a fun filled weekend! I took him on a date to celebrate his
job to a building called the Curtain House. The Curtain House has two restaurants, a few boutiques and a
rooftop cinema and bar. I thought
it would be fun to work our way up the building starting on the first level for
drinks in the great pub, moving our way up to the second level for dinner, and
ending the night on the rooftop bar with a gorgeous view of the electrically
charged city.
Saturday we went around town to the South Melbourne Market
and cooked a great dinner of pumpkin, goat cheese, pine nuts, olive oil and
brown sugar/cinnamon gnocci. It
was divine and I must say it is so nice to have a full functioning kitchen
again to get our cooking skills back in action!
Sunday was a jammie day! Scrap booking and puzzle making, a day of crafts and
relaxation.
3/2612 –
A few days ago I read a beautiful story about my cousin
Cameron, written by a girl who was a student of his. Although it was painful to read, it was such a beautiful
story that I decided to share with Tommy tonight. The story concluded with the girl thinking of Cameron every
time she sees a sunset… So as the
sun set over Melbourne, we sat on our balcony drinking a glass of wine as I
shared stories about my cousin. It
was fitting that tonight was such an amazing sunset, and at the end the clouds
rolled in leaving just a few slivers of golden orange rays shining through, and
I knew Cameron was looking down on me with Papa.
I think the best was Tommy’s reaction when he said, “I
wish I had met Cameron, he seemed like such a great guy, and I think we would
have gotten along…Plus I would have evened out the basketball teams a
bit!” I loved this because I
relate basketball to Cameron, and Tommy already had this same picture of him in
his head just from my stories.
Today was also the kick off of the 20th anniversary
of the Food and Wine Festival held in Melbourne every year. I was keen to enjoy some of the events
on this great opening weekend, starting with breakfast. I dragged Tommy into the city with me
before his family arrived to go to Greenhouse by Joost. This is a restaurant built for the 20
days of the Food and Wine festival made completely out of recyclable goods with
a greenhouse on the rooftop where all the food made comes from. It was such a unique and great concept;
I had to try it out! We had a
delicious breakfast in which I had to grind my own oats to put in my yogurt,
and enjoyed drinking out of old pots with wooden silverware. We met Tommy’s family soon after, and
it was adorable to watch Peter jump on his big brother and embrace him for 5 minutes
straight. It was like watching an
excited puppy jumping up and down, tail wagging with excitement. In the spirit of the Food and Wine
Festival, Mr. Stoddard, Tommy and I entered into a fantasyland of 80 tents with
beer, wine and fresh produce to taste.
There were 60 tents of the different wineries from around the Victoria
region, and I had no problem filling up my glass at as many tents as I could to
taste tall the delicious wines! I
can’t lie, I was a bit snoody pie, and was grateful to take a long walk
afterwards while the Stoddards took a long nap!
I was lucky to get a day off school today to extend
my three-day weekend into a four-day weekend so I could fly up to Hamilton
Island to meet the Stoddards. The
Stoddards spent the week sailing around the Whitsunday Islands and diving some
of the inner reef, but came back just in time for me to fly up to meet
them. The flight coming in over
the reefs was absolutely gorgeous, but the landing gave me a bit of anxiety! It looked like we were going to land in
the ocean, but at the last moment the landing strip popped up below! It was great to relax by the pool in
the sun and get a break from teaching!
Tommy, Peter and I woke up at 5:45am for the sunrise and
drove up to a great lookout point called One Tree Hill. As I said in my very first blog post, my
daddy taught me to always watch the sunrise and sunset everywhere I go, and
this was a beautiful one highlighting the sky with strips of pink wispy clouds. Of course a good old tennis competition
is always expected while with the Stoddards, and no surprise that I was the
champ against the boys. We kept
active, following up tennis with some kayaking where we spotted two beautiful
turtles gliding over the reef below!
On the way back from dropping off some paperwork at the dive shop in
town, we saw someone holding a koala at the small wildlife park, and had to
stop to give Peter a close up of the cute and cuddly creature! Boy did we luck out! Not only did we get a look, but we got
to each hold the koala as well as a new born kangaroo (known as a Joey)! The 4pm tour was about to start,
kicking off with the croc feeding, and to our great luck, we were led in with
the tour for free and spent the next hour and a half watching, touching and
holding all of the different native Australian species! Nothing could beat holding the furry
grey ball or seeing the joey stretch out his tiny little legs, but the croc
feeding was pretty awesome as well.
The wildlife guy really liked us and it truly felt like we were on a
private tour yet we were the only three not paying! What a treat. 
We spent our last full day out on a boat to go
snorkel and dive the outer reef.
Unfortunately the water was too rough and we had to stick to the inner
reef. The inner reef does not have
the best visibility and it was pretty hard to see, but I still had an amazing
time seeing the Great Barrier Reef for my first time. I did two dives and saw some of the most unique coral
formations with exquisitely vibrant colors. The huge Napoleon Wrasse that swam by gave me quite a fright
as I turned to my right and saw this massive fish less than an arm length away
that was 6 feet long and thick! I
think it is important to find the positive in any situation so although
everyone was a bit bummed out that the visibility was so low, I turned it into
a unique adventure as I swam under water excited to see what surprise lay ahead
as I could not see it coming! It
was pretty cool to look up and realize that I was swimming through a coral cave
or had a huge overhang above. 
Now
I also must point out that we were still in stinger season so we all had to
wear head to toe stinger suits.
Stingers are what we would call jellyfish, and Australia is home to the
box jellyfish, which just so happens to be the deadliest organism in the
world…LOVELY! Although we were
coming to the end of stinger season, I had that suit tucked tightly around my
fingers and my head making me look like somewhat of a mix between a human penis
and a seal. Not the most
flattering outfit, but good for a laugh!
