12 a.m.

Well, it’s been a while huh?

I have been waiting for 12 a.m. to roll around for a while now. Australia has some funky rules about internet usage and it's better to upload and download things between 12 a.m. and 12 p.m. In the morning I usually don't feel like blogging. So here I am waiting for midnight.

We’re much more happy with our surroundings now, if you were wondering.

The last few days have been a little lazy. We hung around the house, filed our taxes, went grocery shopping, re-filed our taxes, laid in the sun, played ping pong, and did a lot of nothing. It was nice.

Then we got bored.

We heard about this amazing shopping center nearby, It’s called Chadstone. Apparently this place is the largest shopping mall in the southern hemisphere. Pretty cool, right? We ventured there yesterday. This trip warranted our first use of the bus system. It’s just as cool as, if not cooler than, the tram.
Chadstone was definitely huge [and I’ve seen quite a few malls in my day.] The crazy part is that it wasn’t just a whole bunch of stores, it was a whole bunch of high end stores. Like really high end. [More Chanel, Hugo Boss, Tiffany’s, and tons of other places out of my price range.] I felt too poor to even walk in to most of these stores. In actuality, we only went in to a handful of stores but still managed to spend the entire day there. I'll say it one more time, it’s HUGE.

Because Chris was less than thrilled about our day at Chadstone, today he got to pick where we went. He chose Brighton Beach. It’s well known for it’s colorful bath houses [says our Frommer’s guide]. They were pretty cool.

To get to the beach we rode the tram downtown [we were both excited about this because it’s been probably a week since we were in the city], and then caught a train, another first. The good news: trains are by far the easiest form of transportation in this city. They’re also kind of fun.

Brighton was fun.
It’s a sweet beach, but there isn’t much beyond that. The road along the beach is lined with pricey homes and nothing else.

After our trek along the beach we returned to wander the city. Our first stop was Starbucks. [Don’t be disappointed, we just wanted to see if it was any different. It’s not. Now we know.] At Starbucks Chris decided it would be a good time to visit the Queen Victoria Market [he’s been talking about this place forever, so yes it was a good time].

On the way to the market we stopped at MagNation. They have at least a thousand different magazines. It was a short visit, but still worth it.

Usually the market runs Thursday through Sunday, but during the summer there is a night market on Wednesday, which it just so happens to be. There was tons of food and lots of little retail tents. [but no fruits or veggies like we were planning on. =(]

I bought some sweet headbands at a Thai inspired retailer. Chris sampled some true Aussie food. Kangaroo, Emu, and Crocodile. [I had a shredded beef taco from a Mexican place.] After the market we hiked back to the tram depot. A few blocks from the market we found an amazing book store. This place had tons of books for $3 and $5. Seriously, amazing. I was in heaven. Chris said, “you already have a book, you can come back when that one is finished”. Boo. [but I did just buy a book two days ago.]

On the way to the tram something glorious happened.

On the corner where we meet our tram [and have walked along more than once] we saw the one thing that we were convinced Australia did not have. We came across an entire cooler of…

Dr. Pepper

Our lives became complete at that moment. Chris bought four bottles right then.



Wonder how much we paid for those four 16.9 fl. oz. bottles?

$15.80 Ridiculous? Uh-huh. Worth it? Absolutely. A beautiful taste of home to end a pretty fantastic day.

I suppose tomorrow we’ll begin the job hunt. Or maybe we’ll just go back to the beach. [I mean really, we did our taxes. That should mean something, right?]