As we slowly inch our way into Australian life we continue to make some significant headway in terms of making new friends. Well, let me change that slightly. Linton is making headway. The consummate PR pro has managed to get herself invited to mother's teas, coffees, lunches, track meets and most recently a very nice invitation to spend a day in Ballarat - a picturesque town about an hour outside of Melbourne. I haven't been quite as prolific in terms of drumming up new friends. The university crowd is about twenty years younger on average and typically going madly off in all directions. Maybe if I crashed a keg party I could quickly add a few more friends in my new friend column.
The kids are really the key to building a new social network. Between seeing how much of their lunch they didn't eat or peeling Colin off the handball court, the "pick up" and "drop off" routines in the playground now involve negotiating play dates and birthday parties with all of the subsequent toing and froing between parents that that requires. We have met some incredibly warm and welcoming people and families in the process and we feel fortunate to feel as accepted as we do. This growing sense of being part of a community is culminating on Friday with us playing host to several families at our first ever Hallowe'en party! Yikes! Not even in Hallowe'en crazy Canada would we have attempted such a cockamamie idea. (Please see previous blog for note about validating oneself through what we produce...)
Anyway, one of the families we are getting to know has very kindly thrown the keys to their extra car at us over the past few weekends. This has caught us slightly off guard and seriously asking ourselves if we would do the same back in the land of the true north strong and free. Would we just tap on someone's door and say our '97 Camry is all yours if you want - go crazy. I like to think I would. But...To save you wondering, we have in fact "borrowed" their car twice - once to drive to another zoo - the Werribee Zoo in Werribee and today we hit the local mall for a few more Hallowe'en party necessities. On that note, it is not nearly the event in Oz as it is back home. We doubt we will have trick or treaters and we're not even sure if we can buy a pumpkin. Sober second thought might judge that to be a good thing but try telling that to a six and a nine year old. So, we're having a party!
The car is a sporty five speed Holden and is the perfect car for zipping around the city or in the case of the zoo about 30 minutes outside. We had a great trip to Werribee with only a few tense moments around a toll highway and an exit that wasn't where it should have been. The beauty of the zoo, other than the rhinos, was that it was free with our other membership at the Melbourne Zoo. We are trying for a zoo record in terms of how many one family can visit in a calendar year. It was also great to get out of the city on our own in something that could do 0-60 in more than 30 seconds.
And speaking of zoos, I stood in line the other day for tickets to the Australian Open. We are going with my parents who will be here in January. In actual fact it was a very civilized and orderly process, no camping out in sleeping bags or anything. I managed to get tickets to the mens' quarter finals and womens' semi-finals! We may not be going to the Melbourne Cup and will probably miss the F1 race but the Open was a must. We're hoping the tennis parties are just around the corner!
No comments:
Post a Comment