04.27.10

One thing I DO love about Australia is their affection for coffee. There are more cafés and bakeries out here then one can even count. Surprisingly though, I have yet to see one Starbucks. Len says there may be one or two in downtown Melbourne, but even they have yet to see one. I guess that would just come off as an insult to all these Italians out here. I mean, it's not like I have seen one in Little Italy in Ohio either.
In Ohio (and Cali), everyone gets coffee because they are in a rush and don't have time for anything else, or because they are in a rush and need a quick pick me up to continue being in a rush. Out here, coffee is meant to be tasted and enjoyed. It is customary to have coffee like a dessert, if not replacing a dessert completely. If there is nothing left to do...then lets go have some coffee! Or, if it was a long full day...well let's go have some coffee! Or, we are going to go out for the evening and...have some coffee! Jessi is a big purveyor of coffee but she is split between the rush and the enjoyment of it. She would appreciate it out here, more then I think she would even realize. (Oh, that's another thing! Out here they spell things like 'realize' as 'realise,' 'tire' as 'tyre' and 'fiber' as 'fibre.' Even right now my spell check is telling me their version is wrong. Strange!?)
Today was pretty kicked back. Everyone had to get back to work and school and John and I were able to take care of all our left over business. We managed to get our bank account straight and at least figure out our solution for the phones. We did walk to the local plaza, got a pizza and coffee and just headed back home. We wanted to keep walking around but it started to rain. We both spent some time on the computer trying to hammer our the fine details of getting a car lined up and of course, posting pictures!
We tried 'Tim Tams' for the first time tonight too, which I guess is to Australia what Oreos are to America (they are this chocolate cookie bar with a chocolate crème center! Soo YUMMY) and we watched the movie 'The Rabbit Proof Fence' (Australian based about the aboriginal tribes back in the 60s and of course a white mans stupid idea that the race needed to be fixed). Excellent movie! I think we are also starting to get use to the time change. It's the latest either of us have stayed up...lets just hope we don't wake up at the crack of dawn this time!