Adjustment

First and foremost – there WILL be pictures of Melbourne posted on here soon – yours truly currently doesn’t have a way of getting her pictures from the camera to the computer (ah, the good old days when this wasn’t even a concern!).

The run down on how that little bit happened:

*Contemplating packing the USB cord while looking at it lying on the  floor of Charlotte condo* “Nah, that’ll just take up space. Besides, I can just pop my memory card directly into my laptop!  Gosh I’m so techsavvy.”

*37 hours later while trying to fit my xD memory card into my sD memory card slot* “Crap”.

So I am in the process of procuring a memory card reader that will undoubtedly take up a bit more space than my dinky cord. Ah well. Long story short: pictures to come soon!

Now to catch you up on our life here on the other side of the planet. We have been thoroughly enjoying the city of Melbourne and all that comes with learning your way around a new big city. We’ve tested out the public transportation, jaywalked across busy “backwards” intersections, located public toilets and have, so far, managed to avoid becoming lost. We’ve seen a lot of great historical sites like the Flinders Street Station, Melbourne Central, Federation Square and an awesome footbridge complete with pub floating in the water known as “Ponyfish Island” (okay, that may not be a historical site).

We also have conducted our own version of the Big Mac Index (a fun way to compare pricing across the world) – for the record, a Big Mac here costs around 6.40 AUD – and our conclusion goes something like this: “Who the hell does Melbourne think it is?!”.

Seriously, this is an incredibly awesome city, extremely walkable, it has a great river with tons of parks and a great daily market – we really like it here – but the city is dead even with Paris! We’ve been on constant sticker shock since trying to catch a matinee movie and found the price was $36.00…PER PERSON!!! What?! A pint of beer – that’ll cost you $9, a 20-oz soda – $4, sunglasses from target (Yes they have a target here – joy!) – $25. No joke.

So what does this tell us? You know, besides the obvious “You shop too much, drink too much and shouldn’t be seeing a movie anyway” (c’mon, no judging!). Well it tells us that we’re not in Kansas anymore. This is a thriving city on the upswing of great economic times and it will not do to continue comparing our ‘new’ to our good old Charlotte, NC. It also shows us the importance of gaining perspective…and the need to know your priorities. I.e. how much is a movie worth to you? How much is your so-called dying thirst worth in dollars? For some *ahem* the new X-men movie is worth $11.00 on a Tuesday evening (the deals of the week happen on Tuesdays apparently). And for others, no amount of thirst has yet been worth $4…unless you’re on Ponyfish Island.

Adjusting to life in Oz may take a bite out of our mental wallets, but based on everything we’ve realized Melbourne has to offer (no, we’re not just talking about the movies) we know it’ll be worth it in the end!