A Canadian Down Under

So I made it to Australia! I am officially in the Southern Hemisphere. This is a picture of me and my mate, ("friend" in Aussie) overlooking the Yarra river which runs next to downtown Melbourne. Highs of 25C and sunsets at 9pm... umm... so yeah, I'm loving summer weather down here in Australia. I met Jeremy when I went to Europe in 2004.

So far I've been really enjoying my trip to Australia. It's very similar to Canada but more laid back and warmer. People in Melbourne tell me that in winter - it's "freezing." It drops to about 7-8C in Winter... I think I can handle that.

I've just been relaxing these last few days. It was Jeremy's bday that day that I arrived. And on Sunday, my friend Phil got me tickets to the Robbie Williams concert. I'm not a Robbie Williams fan by any stretch of the imagination but it was definitely really cool.

Melbourne is a nice city. Sort of reminds me of Vancouver. It's very livable. Lots of parks, decent mass transit options, lots of neat artsy areas and neighbourhoods. I've been impressed w/ the food so far. It's interesting adjusting to life in Australia. They have weird phrases for everything e.g. she'll be apples, a good chin wag, and they shorten a lot of words e.g. Christmas = Chrissy, Breakfast = Brekkie, Sunglasses = sunnies, Australia = Oz, and it goes on from there... That and all the prices include GST and tips, so you don't need to tip down here.

I went for my first 10K run this morning. Good times. I'm actually really looking forward to working in the near future. I have a few job interviews in Canberra on Friday. But even then, I wont' start work until I get back from New Zealand in mid-January.

I hope all of you are doing well. Take care, John