Spiders and Campers and Queensland, Oh My!

At one of my early orientation sessions, the presenter decribed the experience of moving to Melbourne as an international student as having four stages: 1) The honeymoon - everything is new, different, and better. 2) Grieving - nothing is new, everything is different, and worse 3) Acceptance - you accept the good with the bad 4) Integration - you begin to change the way you live to fit in to the surroundings. Well, if that is accurate, then I am officially declaring the honeymoon over!

I don't know if it's all in our heads as we eagerly anticipate our 2 week vacation, but the last couple of days have felt like we all needed a good vacation. The walls of our home have gotten a little tighter, the boys have seemed a little bored, mom and dad have become a little grumpy and things have just been a little...bizarre.

I think it all might have started with the visitor we had on our screen door the other night (as pictured) - biggest spider I have ever seen that wasn't sitting on a dock in cottage country. Some sort of omen of the arachnid type? Since then the boys have finished a very good term at school, (ten whole weeks!) and they have also finished their futsal, tennis, and gymnastics programs. I have completed half a semester of my courses and continue to work and read my way toward completing two rather lengthy essays. Though it currently feels like I am running in sand. And Linton, has officially and very sucessfully completed the bit of consulting work she was doing. Things have therefore come to a very natural and welcome end...

So now what? Well, that's what seems to have been going on in our heads the last few days. While everything continues to be great, the little things have started to rear their ugly heads in a way we had not noticed before. For example: I think I am officially tired of taking the tram. After giving it a charitable two months we have officially decided that the television in this country is truly abysmal. The weather continues to stymy any sort of planning with rain, sun, cloud, rain, wind all possible within 20 minutes of each other. I don't need another latte, ever. The fashion in Australia continues to boggle the mind, with young guys seemingly quite keen on reincarnating the Bay City Rollers look, and...well, you get the picture. You know you need a holiday when someone's jumper bugs you! Now I know that all of this is petty and dumb, but I also think, according to my orientation session, it is a natural part of the process one goes through when trying to "unlearn" one culture and adopt a new one. You get to a point where you just get a little tired of trying to make sense of it all.

In the mean time we continue to have fun: Thursday night we were at a Wall E movie fundraiser for the kids school; Linton met another expat the other day for coffee to share and compare their experiences with the Melbourne way of life; we've had a few more playdates, we met a very nice neighbour who volunteered her daughter as a babysitter (whoohooo!), AND biggest and best of all we are packing tonight for a 2 week holiday in Queensland - over 1800kms and 24 hours of driving in a Winnebago with many, many great beaches along the way!

As much I am a little bit curious, okay nervous, as to how we will all manage in a 3m x 6m camper for 12 days, I think we all need this. We need to get out and explore this great country and to start to realize the pay off for all of our recent hard work. Having completed almost a quarter of our great Oz odyssey we are now going to take the adventure to the next level, moving (quite thankfully) out from behind the screen door and the little things that are bugging us and into the world where the real, big, and exciting adventures (and spiders) await!

Against a Google Earth World View

In an article I am currently reading for my course on Organisational Learning, the comparison is made between looking at a map in order to appreciate a certain place versus actually finding your way, footstep after faltering footstep, over the same piece of real estate. The author’s contention is that reading a map is no substitute for an actual journey over the same ground. A map inevitably smooths over “the myriad decisions made with regard to changing conditions: diversions, parades...personal fatigue, conflicting opinions...inaccuracies on the map, and the like.” He goes on to argue that it is in the doing, the act of making knowledge real by our direct experience with it, that humans are best able to learn. It is similar to the “show don’t tell” philosophy of writing and I couldn’t agree more. However, the problem is, as with any real journey, that it takes time.

Admittedly this is not a revelation I may have come to, at least with the same depth of understanding and conviction, unless I also had the time do so. By shuffling off to the land down under, Linton and I have not only built an experience of immediate returns – such as suntans and surf lessons. We have also plunked the family down into a place far enough away from our “real” lives that we (quite unwittingly) have also made a glorious investment in the precious commodity of time. We continually find ourselves (often over a bottle of cheap Aussie plonk) thrust into highly revealing dialogues about the fresh possibilities that life has begun to offer us – conversational places we may never have discovered hunkered down at work and without the freedom of a few more ticks of time.

However, in these troubled times and with the markets spiralling into the abyss, there can be a periodic spark of self-conscious guilt that flashes to the surface, suggesting we should perhaps stop spending money and time and get back to the serious business of making money, investing sensibly, hedging our funds, buying low – selling high, and whatever else it is the self-proclaimed “experts” would have us do. However, recent events make the hypocrisy of that industry stink so much that it might be very hard to take the more "economical" approach to life seriously ever again. But I'm wasting time with that - so I'll move on.

It's amazing that even with the mere suggestion of work– and Linton has been living it with her overseas consulting work – the old evils of stress, time, money, and management – creep back into the frame, clouding what was previously so clear and cloudless. Where once there was time to wander Melbourne, now we must juggle the journeying against the reality of conference calls and report writing. It’s no wonder then that we all live such digitally dictated lives. We’re convinced, in large part due to an apparent lack of time, that it’s the only way we can remotely experience such a technically advanced world and still live the lifestyle to which we have become accustomed. Indeed, Google Earth tells us that the world is there to be mapped - but what good is that knowledge without the humanizing context of physical experience to show us how hard or great it is to actually clamber over it?

I am now rolling my eyes at the righteous and self-serving sanctimony wrapped up in my own reflections. As if we don’t all know this at some point even in the busiest times of life and of course, one need not uproot one’s entire family in order to appreciate this fact. It’s just that, for me, these things have only been allowed to surface and smack the sweeter – because today, right now, in Melbourne, I have time. The time to wander - to pitch the map, turn off the computer, walk out the door, and consider what today is capable of teaching me. It’s like the smoker who is finally able to quit for good because his heart has convinced his mind that it’s the right thing to do – it’s only when we live our convictions and pry ourselves out of our routines – that we are truly capable of real learning, real discovery, out on the open road of life. I can only hope the good people at Google will never try to sell me that.

Spring has Sprung!

The best day yet in terms of weather greeted us on Saturday - warm enough for James to air his pasty white legs in shorts and hit the jogging oval once again. We were up to all of the usual stuff - tennis, gymnastics, jogging, playdates, and birthday parties with some footy playoff games thrown in for good measure. At tennis, Colin has advanced to the next level - needing as his instructor said, "A little more of a challenge". In gymnastics, Alex earned a certificate for his good work on rings and things. In jogging, James earned a few more blisters and some sore knees. Linton took the morning "off" having done her good deed for the year on Thursday volunteering at a district track meet - which the kids weren't even at!!!

Alex had a great playdate with his friend James who seems to be able to talk the language of Pokemon better than his parents could ever hope to. While Al was jumping on James' trampoline and bragging about his level 46 Palkia, Colin, Linton, and the other James walked up Royal Parade to Sydney Road to check out some shops and a section of the city we hadn't seen. There are literally miles and miles of shops and restaurants stretching in every direction in this city- with a hotel/bar and betting booth on almost every corner. I would be in deep, deep doo doo if I were a betting man here in Oz! Apparently, as the name suggests, one could get on Sydney Road and keep driving north until you hit Sydney 12 hours later. Reminds me of Yonge Street...at least in terms of its lengthy claim to fame.

We picked Allie up, and had a quick visit and latte with James's parents, and then waved goodbye to Colin who drove off into the night with a friend to go to another birthday party at the Melbourne Aquatic Centre. I could be wrong about this but it seems like Aussie's are a little more low key about kids birthdays - which is not a bad thing at all! Low key events, modest loot bags, and a lot of physical activity.

Sunday was a day of sightseeing, but after last week's marathon bus extravaganza we thought we might give the kids and our wallets a break as we trammed down to the Royal Botanical Gardens to walk among the spring flowers. Lovely day and we had a nice tea by the Ornamental lake with black swans and the eels! Then we were off to a really cool childrens' garden that Toronto could do very well to copy. Big, clean, full of indigenous plants and a natural play area - where kids can safely explore and have fun in a wide variety of environments. No teeter totters, slides, or climbers. Just grasses, trees, boardwalks, trails, and water. The Brick works or the new waterfront development would be ideal for something like this.

After several good sprints around the trails of the kids garden and a spirited visit to the Garden gift shop (of course!), we headed out of the park walking past many impressive war memorials and statues, the National Gallery, and an outdoor local artisans market. We strolled along Southbank and the Yarra river, past places we have now seen a few times but are nonetheless pretty or spectacular or pretty spectacular. An almost guilt-free gnosh at Mickey D's got us ready for another stop at the Aquarium to re-acquaint oursleves with the leafy sea dragons, 7-gill sharks, and all the other cool stuff we hadn't seen the first time. A bonus of today's visit was watching divers feed the sharks and rays in the tank! We trammed home on a new route, all the way up Elizabeth to Princes Park and then the short walk home.

The flowers have started to bloom in Melbourne and with a high of 25 Celsius on Saturday it is not hard to imagine our beach holiday looming in the distance. We are already packing, laying out the thongs (flip-flops, honest!) and shorts and trying to imagine driving a 20 foot, manual 6-speed winnebago down the wrong side of the road beach hopping from trailer park to trailer park for two whole weeks. In many ways it feels like a stretch for us but then I close my eyes and say as I have said many times throughout this entire experience - 'Why wouldn't we?!"

And so, with the sights and sounds of Melbourne comfortably viewed, photgraphed, logged, blogged, and brochured, (and twice on Sundays!) we will soon begin to "go walkabout", pushing past the parks and the beer parlours, making our way out to a part of the country that will prove to us, once and for all, that we're not in Kansas anymore.

Seeing beauty On the Road for the first time

The white whale is dead. Or is he? Well, he is for me at least in that I finally finished Moby Dick the other day. Thoroughly enjoyed it despite the fact one needs to read the first 530 pages before you actually meet the whale and then a mere 25 more before the book is over and all but one is dead. Ain’t that always the way? They suck you in, tease and taunt you endlessly, and then reveal all as the credits begin to roll. Not that I was disappointed with it. In fact, it was another subtle reminder that the really good stuff can only come with a little sacrifice.

I’m now re-visiting another classic I batted around at university but never really got my paws into – Jack Kerouac’s iconic road trippin’ classic – On the Road. I figured I needed something a little more modern and a little less “heavy” and in that regard this is answering the call. And yet, in many ways, what was so good about Melville, is not so good about Kerouac. While Ahab, Starbuck, and Ishmael had experience, adventure, and courage (along with Melville’s remarkable diction and wondrous description) with which to compel and teach the reader – Sal and Dean have travel, booze, and a less than admirable lifestyle from which we are supposedly meant to see the light and learn. I’m not compelled or convinced of anything yet except that perhaps there was something close to real freedom in the early post war era in America. There are moments where the stream of consciousness writing begins to take off and I feel like he is about to be profound or inspired, only to finish abruptly and fall flat with another reference to booze or “getting some girls”. I am actually thinking that I am, God forbid, too old for the book or perhaps (only slightly worse) of the wrong generation. And this has got me thinking.

It’s hugely clichéd but invariably true how age is the one constant ingredient found in wisdom. There is no substitute. We simply see life better with each passing day. A slightly random example of this occurred the other night when Linton and I were giggling our way through National Lampoon’s Vacation for the 48th time and she commented that she was noticing the great scenery in the movie for the first time. We laughed. In the past we would be focused on Clark Griswold and his ridiculous family and yet now it was the scenery that was really drawing our attention. Sad? Perhaps. Wiser? Maybe not. But most definitely a new and different perspective derived from our age and stage.

I want to use an idea from my classroom to make the connection. In my grade 12 English class I teach the concepts of Figure and Ground to my students as a way of discussing narrative structure and to get them to think about how effective plots and characters are built and wound through stories. Painters use this theory all the time. The figure is that thing (character or storyline) in the foreground, immediate and important, that draws our attention. The ground is made up of everything else in the story - or those things in the distance we are not immediately concerned with. The two are constantly changing as a new element emerges from the ground to become the figure and vice versa. In this way stories tell their tales naturally, seamlessly connecting lives in an effective ebb and flow of detail.

Applied to my life today in Melbourne, Kerouac’s On the Road has become my figure and Melville’s Moby Dick slips into the distance becoming the ground. Both inform each other and are connected. My experience with one has an undeniable effect on my connection to the next. The way I reconcile or consider these differences can teach me more about the two works but also about myself – hence, an accumulation of wisdom. Quite comically, and yet in a similar sense, the humour of the movie briefly became the ground as the scenery became the figure. Obviously a more minor example and yet still another recent and noted shift in perspective that built an ounce wisdom.

The additional complication that comes with the theory of figure and ground is that each viewer sees something different based upon their own background, age, or experience. In the case of the novels or the movie, it was age which allowed us see to beyond things as they once were and to accept them for what they now appeared to be. Magically, it seems, you awake one day and you are suddenly old enough and thus able to see the beauty of a scene in a movie for the first time even though it had been there all along.

In this same way, Melbourne has become our figure and Toronto our ground. We are now clearly, but in our own individual ways, focused on the character of Melbourne - always with the experience and storyline of Toronto in our back pocket influencing what we see and what wisdom we may gain. It is an experience that seems to be coming at all of us at a good time - armed with enough age and wisdom to enjoy, see, and appreciate all of the wisdom that it offers us now and on into our futures. And best of all, as is the case with truly transformational moments of wisdom or change, we knew none of this before it actually occurred to us – just now, just then, and hopefully twice tomorrow!

A "Good Sport" and a "Fabulous Aussie"

Monday morning was a proud moment for mom and dad as Colin and Alex both received merit certificates from their teachers for doing something extraordinary in class. Their school has a full-school assembly every other Monday where there are class presentations, announcements, and a certificate ceremony where a few students are recognized publicly for anything from "Doing a good job with multiplying decimals" to "Getting better at keeping the paint on the paper."

For Colin, his citation reads, "For turning from a Canadian into a fabulous Aussie". We're not too sure what that means exactly in terms of school, but Colin has immersed himself in the sports and the teams and he might just know the Australian national anthem by heart now - the tune at least. Ann, his teacher, seems to really enjoy his efforts in her class and he was his usual quiet, but very proud self when accepting his certificate.

Alex's citation reads, "For being a good sport". As Erin, his teacher, explained to me, Alex continues to improve in his ability to control his emotions with respect to losing, taking turns, and all those other things that our fiery little Allie has had trouble with in the past. Erin is great - kind, patient, and very supportive and we think Alex has an excellent teacher for his age and stage. Ahhh, but as is the case with kids - just when you think they've rounded a corner...no sooner had we hung the merit certificate in a place of distinction than Alex received a time out for launching his pencil across the classroom after becoming frustrated with having to hold it a certain way...Thankfully, they don't revoke certificates.

Anyway, Term 3 is almost over - just two short weeks left for the boys and we continue to thank our lucky stars we found the school that we did. It seems to be filled with families like ours and while mom and dad continue to try to "crack" the parental circle - our kids have made new and fast friends. A sure sign of their growing comfort was when Alex wanted to email his best friend Andrew in Toronto (the only friend Al ever talked about at Maurice Cody). He started the email, "Dear Andrew, You are still my best friend, but I have made some new friends in Australia, they are..." - and then he proceeded to list about 5-6 other kids in his class. Though we sure miss Andrew, it's nice to see Alex expanding his horizons a bit.

And on a more professional note, we have noted there is a very relaxed homework policy in Australia. The boys have homework, but it is nothing like the kind and amount at home. Colin has not had one test in any subject yet this term. Not that a test is the best or only way to assess learning, but it is certainly a different approach to the countless worksheets and drills of last year. I am of two minds on this - while we were not wanting to be spending hours around the homework table while abroad, I hope the year of relaxed expectations will not affect them too much upon our return home.

And finally, today was the day we took our castle to school. Our castle, you ask? Yes, well, for the past 4 weeks Colin has had to build a simple machine that would work in a castle to solve a simple problem. And for as long as I can remember, I always tried to promise myself that I would not be the dad who spent hours of my own personal time, energy, and ideas on my sons' projects. Well - strike one on me! The castle is certainly a collective effort, a sort of hybrid of our thoughts and designs. However, I cared too much about it. I was working on it when Colin had lost interest and "fixing" things that he had done himself (But they just weren't straight!!). I slinked into school today carrying the castle - hoping no one would point an accusing finger at our spires and elevator and say - "Nice work, Dad!"

The homework debate rages on and so will my guilt. Who really does the homework, and yet who is willing to see their child fail? I have always maintained that a child will learn a little more with an experienced hand beside them, than they ever will alone. That's my own, firmly held rationalization for helping to create our castle - but I also believe that as a teacher. It also seems to be an appropriate description of the education the boys are receiving at the hands of some very caring and capable teachers.

A Lizard, a lost lunch, and the 12 Apostles

A very Australian weekend saw the Carter/Darling family engaged in all manner of social, ecological, and tourist-like adventures.

On Saturday morning Colin drove off early to a birthday party of rock-climbing with his friends Campbell and Caelin. Mom, dad, and Alex hung lazily back for more coffee and cartoons until Alex and Linton went off to gymanstics. James then managed to drag himself around our local park's running oval to the tune of over 10kms! I don't think I have done that since my high school days and never willingly! Quite proud of myself actually - though 48 hours later I am still walking funny.

Colin returned safely from scaling cliffs in time for a very exciting lunch. It was a beautiful day and we decided to eat lunch on our back patio. No sooner had we started in to the bagels and such when Colin claimed he had spotted something "shiny" or "slimy" under the water heater - which is outside in Australia. Of course, dad had a look, saw nothing, and claimed officially there was no such thing. Yet, not 5 minutes later - out slinked a skink!! A blue-tongued skink for that matter and much to the surprise of Linton. He seemed quite undeterred by our presence and proceeded to do a lap or two of the garden, seemingly in search of some prime tanning rays. Though at one point he seemed determined to make himself at home - in our home. Apparently harmless and in fact, endangered in Victoria, this skink was about 18 inches long and certainly the largest lizard I have ever had knock on my back door.

Saturday was another fun dinner at the home of Simon and Alex Davies. We brought the beer and chips (Moosehead - in fact!) which is very much our speed. They cooked another wonderful meal - real comfort food including lamb sausage - which we only too happily devoured along with some lovely wine and great conversation. The boys were great playing "Kick the ball over the fence" and "Throw sand in you hair" with Sophie and Jess and Linton really enjoyed feeding baby Thomas his bottle. Linton and the boys managed to drag James away far too early but we found a new, much faster route home on the City Loop train which avoided 30 minutes of tramming. Yeah! We are very grateful for the food and friendship Alex and Simon continue to send our way. Now, if only we could cook, we could have them over to our place!

We had to get home early in order to get some rest and to get ready for our second big bus tour of the trip! Bright and early Sunday, we were booked to head out to the Dandenongs - a nearby mountain range just east of Melbourne and then...well I won't go on, because when we got to the tour office we were told our trip was cancelled and would we like to tour the Great Ocean Road instead? Well, after a bit of shock and few deep breaths we decided to do the Great Ocean Road and see some of the places we are planning to visit in January with Peter and Jane. It was a great trip except for a little bit of motion sickness...

We were on a double decker bus which was quite cool - a first for all - and it allowed us a great view of the incredible scenery speeding by our window. Some of that scenery included Geelong, Torquay (where Rip Curl was founded) and the surfers at Bell's Beach, Lorne, beautiful Appollo Bay, the 12 Apostles, Port Campbell, Lord Aurd Gorge, London Bridge, and of course the incredible Great Ocean Road itself. The only problem with our vantage point, the itinerary, and the road itself was that it was tough on one's inner year. Especially if one is six years old!

I think all parents have a bit of a Spidey-sense when it comes to their own child's well-being though with Alex and nausea it's not particularly rocket science. Having had a few motion related issues in the past (one very memorable one comes to mind in the back of a one hour old Ford Focus)- Linton and I know that when all goes quiet and pale - then get ready with mop and pail! Such was the case half way along the Great Ocean Road and at the back top part of our double decker bus. After about 300 turns and dips and rolls - the poor guy is too short to ever see the relief of a distant horizon - Alex's stomach decided to take into its own hands what his mind was having trouble dealing with. Fortunately, he managed to wait until we had stopped for a picture break - though I don't think anyone was eager to get that display on film!

Linton was heroic in her ability to sense his timing and unfortunately after lunch (I know - what were we thinking!?) Alex woke on the bus again to see and feel the pitch and yaw of our winding way and was again forced to purge the contents of his stomach. However, with cat-like reflexes and a conveniently placed barf bag, mom was able to catch all without anyone sitting around us being any the wiser. Five minutes later he was smiling and churbling away - surely happy he had his mom by his side. Ahhh, who says there is no art to parenting? We were finally home by 8:00 pm - falling into bed by 9:00 - with barely the energy for a paragraph of Harry Potter or a comforting, stomach-friendly bowl of chicken noodle soup.

We saw some amazing things and this truly is a great ocean road. We look forward to coming back here in the summer to explore Apollo Bay, Lorne, Torquay, and all of the other amazingly beautiful places we passed through. We were reminded at times of the Sea to Sky highway from Vancouver to Whistler, or the drive to Tofino, or that great drive toward Cavendish in PEI...Again, the mind's eye continues to see and compare, to quantify and create, a perception and a place for all we are taking in...With this busy weekend, it may take a while to find a place for it all.

A Chapel Street Reflection

On Thursday Linton and I were back to our wandering ways. After waving goodbye to the kids, we rather circuitously made our way down to one of the finer areas of town known as Chapel Street. Lint had already explored this area with our friend Alex, but I was eager to see the glitz and the glam of Melbourne's version of Yorkville. Of course on a backpacker's budget this was not a particularly strong call on my part. However, the other option we were weighing for today's festivities was bicycling around the entire circumference of the city so I was willing to spend my way out of that one. Surprisingly, I have only recently come to appreciate that if you can't afford something at home or a piece of trendy clothing looks ridiculous on you - chances are that travelling half way around the world isn't going to make it any more affordable or fetching! And yet, I think sometimes you need to see how the other half live in order to truly see what you're not missing. Besides, you never know what you might find if you look hard enough...

Many people continue to ask us, "Why Melbourne?" Meaning - why spend all this money, time, and energy at the cost of missing friends, family, and a year of mortgage payments, to travel to a place like Melbourne, Australia. To which we usually respond with a series of comments like - similar language, culture, great travel opportunities, good schools, etc. What I also think might be buried somewhere in our explanations is that more than anything else, this is an adventure of discovery for all of us. Partly to see if we can actually do it, partly to give us a chance to re-charge and renew for the next phase in career and life, and partly to see what else this tiny blue orb has to teach us about living and life. And though we seem to be leaping off some precarious perch out into a mysterious and foreign world...Melbourne and its people are very much like home.

And the more we explore Melbourne and poke our heads into the shops and the markets, buying Tim Tams instead of Timbits, the better we are able to understand and appreciate what makes life in Canada or Melbourne or anywhere - good, worse, or just different. In many ways, if we were off living in Namibia, or Zanzibar, or Belgrade then the comparisons about life and living would have been very much as we compare apples and oranges. But here in "familiar" Melbourne, where just yesterday on Chapel street we were eating really good and cheap Dim Sum, listening to Kid Rock's latest and trying on Converse running shoes, we are getting a very good, very clear reflection of who we are - minus the extra baggage of career and stress weighing us down. I feel that the "noise of normalcy" might make similar observations, when walking from Cumberland to Yorkville to Hazleton, impossible. Or at least, not as clear.

I continue to pursue (read) the White Whale (Moby Dick). Admittedly, there was a time there where I thought he (Melville) had got the better of me, and my earlier predictions of reading 20-30 novels would have to be adjusted to just 3. However, I think I turned the corner recently, safe in the knowledge that I now know more about whales and 19th century whaling than I know about space travel, the internet, and the Montreal Canadiens combined! I continue to find inspiring connections between Melville's descriptions of a life of the seas and our lives abroad. Thus, if I can end with a final - hopefully clear - connection to Ishamel and his ponderings, then I would offer this quote as a final rationalization or answer to the question - "Why Melbourne?" and what occured to me as I strolled down Yorkv...I mean Chapel street the other day:

"For d'ye see, rainbows do not visit the clear air; they only irradiate vapor...for all have doubts; many deny; but doubts or denials, few along with them have intuitions. Doubts of all things earthly, and intuitions of some things heavenly; this combination makes neither believer nor infidel, but makes a man who regards them both with equal eye."

Domestic life update

Linton here again...An update mainly for the grandparents (who are all by the way very technically savvy and are loyal readers of this blog).

We have had a lot of questions about how the boys are doing... James and I are extremely proud of Colin and Alex and the way they have fit into their school and life over here. Colin has made a ton of friends and has already been invited to two birthday parties - this weekend and next weekend. Alex is also quite popular in his class and is keeping up to his classmates academically - at the reading level of some of the 8 years olds. (See picture above of Alex and his class on the school grounds - he is the one in the blue sweater hugging/punching his classmate Luca). True to form, Colin is trying every new sport imaginable and Alex has already been in trouble looking up naughty words in the dictionary in class. Homework consists of some reading each night for both of them and some additional assignments for Colin.

I volunteer every Wednesday morning in Alex's classroom during science lesson. The science unit right now is focused on weather so yesterday to demonstrate air pressure, I was in charge of getting the kids to blow up and pop balloons outside. Hilarious! The kids love all the experiments and I am really enjoying getting to know all of Alex's classmates. Very cute group. Last Friday, I went on a little field trip to the library with Colin's class to celebrate Australia's book week. It is great seeing our kids with their class and having the time to volunteer with the school.

On the work front - I am just finishing up a project with UNICEF Canada and will be meeting again with Royal Children's Hospital and Children's Miracle Network Canada here at the beginning of October. We will see what happens with that...

The really decadent and fun part for me is planning our upcoming travels. This Sunday (it is Father's Day here), we have booked another full day coach tour. This time we are driving through the Dandenongs, riding on a historic steam train, touring through the Yarra Valley, stopping at a winery for lunch, and then going to a wildlife sanctuary before heading back to Melbourne. Something in the tour for everyone! Our first big trip is to Cairns September 21st for two weeks in a camper driving down to Brisbane. We are all very much looking forward to that! Then in November, we are driving to Sydney, staying a few days there, flying to Ayer's Rock for my birthday then onto Alice Springs and taking The Ghan overnight train to Adelaide where we will stay a few nights and then fly home to Melbourne.

It is quite wonderful to live focused on each day at a time and have a simple daily routine. Our days right now are very geared around the kids and their activites/needs. The day starts with all of us walking to school together in the morning and ends with all of us eating dinner around our big table in the house, doing homework and watching a silly Australian tv show together at night.

My apologies if this all sounds boring or if this post is not terribly exciting. It is exciting to us because it is such a departure from our crazy busy life in Toronto.

So this one is for the grandparents who have been so supportive of this journey and who we love and miss very much!

Playing Possum

On a bit of a slow news day in Oz, I thought I might take a moment to recount our adventures with our resident possum. He was holed up in the roof of our house for the first month of our occupancy - that is, he "was" until very recently...

On the first night we arrived in Melbourne, our landlord casually mentioned the fact that we might hear some scratching or hissing on the roof over the course of the night. It was, as she explained, a possum or possums, who lived in the area and they were known to use our roof as a bit of a freeway. Fine, we thought. Cool, in fact. Not only were we in Australia, doing the Australia thing, but we were officially living beneath some real Australian wildlife. Unfortunately, we didn't realize just how intimately close that wildlife was going to be.

Now I consider myself to be a bit of a nature boy and like a good encounter with the flora and the fauna as much as the next guy. Our numerous trips to the incredible Melbourne Zoo are testament to the fact that the entire family likes to get out and rub shoulders with the four-legged set. However, over the course of the first 3-4 weeks of life in our new digs it became somewhat painfully and loudly obvious that the resident "upstairs", not running on but actually living in our ceiling, might have to go. Picture a quaint family dinner interrupted suddenly by what sounded like 3-4 bowling balls bouncing noisily overhead. Or lying in bed in the middle of the night and listening to screams and hisses of angry (or perhaps mating) possums mere feet from your pillow. Perhaps the kicker was one night when we all heard the telltale hissing of our furry friend near the hatchway into the ceiling and then recoiled in horror as the drip, drip, drip of possum pee landed on a the faux-leather recliner. Well, that was the deal breaker between Mr. Possum and us - one of us had to go - and unfortunately we liked the location too much for it to be us!

The small complication in the subsequent possum exorcism that we were intent in embarking upon was that you are not allowed to kill possums (not that the thought had EVER crossed our minds) nor are you allowed to move them more than 100m from the place that you might like to remove them from. So while you may get them out of your ceiling for a week or a month, you never really get the satisfaction of knowing they are long gone. It would be like removing a raccoon from living under your deck but suggesting that he might find a more suitable place to live under your neighbour's all the while assuming that they would NEVER return to live back under yours. I applaud Australia for this highly conservationist approach to managing their wildlife. It means there are not a lot of suspicious possum disappearances at the hands of a lot of amateur pest controllers in the middle of the night. I'm not sure it does anything to control the population - but then again, in this island country there is a real concern for introducing anything new or reducing the numbers of anything that already exists- pest or not.

Anyway, into our lives walked Peter the Possum guy (I kid you not) who, with the help of some apple, a one way door, and a little mesh, managed to coax our little friend to get out and hopefully stay out. For a brief and fleeting moment, there was a small tinge of guilt as we cast our flatmate out into the cold, but that soon abated when we learned that he may have as many as 7-8 girlfriends in the area and that he could always shack up with one of them.

So now our ceiling is quiet, there is less possum poo on our back patio, the kids sleep a little more soundly (okay - mom and dad do, too) and we have survived our first close encounter with Aussie wildlife. In next week's instalment, I will write about Running with the 'Roos and How Not to Dis a Dingo.

Teppanyaki, trains, and the history of the universe.

Unbelievably, I have already finished the lecture portion of one of my classes. The lectures were condensed into three weekends - Friday nights and all day Saturdays - and in between those days we were expected to be doing a library's worth of reading. Now there is a small matter of the 8000 word essay...Nevermind, I'll just get it started once I've finished blogging and reading about McCain's running mate, and Mike Weir leading the Detusche Bank, and...ahh the newfound, or rather, re-discovered joys of academic procrastination!

On Saturday, after one rather unsatisfying HR class, we four trammed our way down to Chinatown in the heart of the CBD for a fantastic Teppanyaki dinner. Remarkably, we thought, this was only the second time we had gone out for dinner since arriving in Melbourne. We also wondered what the boys were taking in as we passed the drunks, the adults only stores, and the tattoo parlours on the way to the restaurant. Toto this certainly isn't Kansas anymore for these two!

Anyway, dinner was perfect and as is always the case interactive: we were required to catch the flying fried egg, we watched as a fellow diner was pelted with same, and then we were all bombarded with bowls and rice. Everyone did very well in catching their dinner. The kids had a blast and mom and dad had sake and 2 Sapporo respectively! Yum!

We got home just in time to see allstar and local favourite Buddy Franklin kick his 100th goal for the Hawthorn Hawks. It had not been done in the AFL for 10 years so we felt fortunate to watch a little Aussie history in the making. Incredibly, 5000 fans ran onto the field and mobbed the guy but no one was hurt and they were back playing in 8 minutes.

On Sunday, after a little sleep in, we headed down to Flinders Station and embarked on our first official train ride in Melbourne. The trains/subways run out to the surrounding burbs and on this particular morning we were taking the Werribee train to the Spotswood station in order to see Science Works, Melbourne's version of Toronto's own Science Centre. Despite the fact it seems to be located in an industrial docklands (think the worst part of Eastern Avenue) the venue itself was quite good. In fact, it was very good for kids and fun to watch the boys run around poking, prodding, and playing with all of the gadgets. Mom and dad even managed to try one or two.

The highlight was a 40 minute Planetarium experience narrated by none other than Han Solo himself - Harrison Ford. Fantastic computer animation and storytelling captivated us all. You could practically hear the synapses firing in Alex's head as we were taught about how the world was formed 4 billion years ago. This show lead to all kinds of great discussion on the way home and continues to be the kind of seed we hope this adventure plants firmly in our boys' heads.

Labour Day is in March in Australia so there is no holiday today - kids are at school and I'm at the library. Interestingly, Father's Day is also different - next week in fact - and I am eagerly awaiting my second sleep in and breakfast-in-bed of the year!