Two Weeks

St. Kilda Beach and one happy child

This is the post-jetlag state which is why I did not manage to keep up the blog as regularly as I had intended. By now we sleep through the night, are very active during the day and ready to go to bed by 9 pm. Which is why there is not much room for creative writing. I do apologize to everyone for not writing back or regularly on e-mail. Things are quite exciting and still exhausting...

In the meantime we managed to get quite a lot organized. We now have energy and gas in our house, both green, mind you. I still wonder what green gas means, but as long as it has the green label, I go for it... 

Olaf pondering green in our kitchen/dining area. See our backyard to the right?

We bought a bed off a local classifieds site where looooots of people advertise their stuff they want to get rid off before moving. The bed was delivered to our house last Friday. It is now officially the first piece of furniture! A good reason to celebrate. We also got a table and two chairs from our friends Ian and Sharia and they also lent us two bikes. Now we only need to find another chair, fridge, sofa, three plates, three forks and everything we need to function until our container arrives. We got notice it has left Bremerhaven and will arrive Melbourne by mid-January, provided it does not get highjacked by pirates off the coast of Somalia. To be honest, I would not even mind. It is really cleansing living the simple life with this little possessions. I have no discussions with myself in the morning what to wear as there is not much choice. Klara only has two small drawers full of toys, dolls and stuffed animals and she does not seem to lack anything. Even back in Prague she hardly ever played with her toys. She rather moved furniture to create houses and play with anything she could find outside her room. So why not leave the boxes sealed after their arrival and put them up for sale? I could advertise them as 'surprise boxes from Europe'. Do you think anyone would be interested? 

In front of our house

One huge headache is gone: we got Klara enrolled in a school. It is a government school called McKinnon Primary and has a very good reputation. I had found out about that before we moved and was eager to get Klara in. Unfortunately we had to learn that our address is just outside their catchment zone and the principal, who gave us a tour of the school made it very clear from the beginning that there was no way Klara could get in under these circumstances. But she did show us around anyhow. About halfway through the tour she said that there was a way to get in but that it was very complicated and difficult. We would have to talk to the principal of the school within our catchment zone to 'release' us from her school. At the end of the tour the McKinnon principal said she would check if there was a spot and asked us to wait for 5 minutes. When she came back she asked us to swear that we had not applied with any other school. So Olaf and I put our hands to our hearts and swore. I have never in my life filled in forms that quickly.

Klara will start school on 6 February at a school where they prepare the children for the International Baccalaureate, teach them Mandarin (!) and where they seem to have a good balance between learning and play-time. Also, it is in walking distance and what the Australians call a sun-smart school. This means that they take extra care that the children are not exposed to the sun during the hottest hours of the day (between 10 am and 3 pm), that they apply sunscreen whenever they go outside and that they must wear broad-rimmed hats when going outside. 

Also, Klara will get to wear one of those cute uniforms together with the school satchel and hat (photos will follow). She will be a proper Australian schoolchild filling in all the stereotypes. Can you believe it?

There is also another German girl attending her school and they made sure that they go to the same class. I hope this will make the transition for Klara a bit easier.

This Tuesday we will have a transition day at school. Klara will attend class for a whole morning followed by a barbecue for the whole family. Wow! Unfortunately, Olaf will not be able to come as he will be on his first business trip to Sidney Monday and Tuesday. His first week at work went very well. Every evening he comes home with a sparkle in his eyes. I think this says it all.

Catching some shade on the beach

As I mentioned sun-smart above, I had expected people to be dressed sun-smart, too. I thought everyone would wear a hat, long sleeves and pants or skirts in order to avoid exposure to the sun. I just read that Australia has the highest rate of skin cancer in the whole world. But people dress and behave just like anywhere else in the world in hot weather. Shoulders, legs and heads are bare and on the beach you find sun bathers smack in the sun in the middle of the day. Not really an example to be followed, is it?

But yes, the beach! We went to St. Kilda which apparently is THE place to be and live in Melbourne. It has the nicest Victorian houses, best cafes and restaurants - and the beach. There are shells galore, the water is clear and warm, even though some claim that it stays cold until about mid-January. And this is not even the nicest beach I have been told. From the apartment in town we can hop on a tram just outside the house and are at the beach within 30 minutes. From our house we will need to bike or drive, also for no longer than 20 or 10 minutes respectively and we will be at the beach.

On the beach

And another heavenly thing here is coffee! I think I have never tasted coffee before. There is a huge variety in styles but my favorite is the flat white. It is like a thick, creamy, nutty type of cafe au lait. I am already addicted and have to have one every day. And the best thing is wherever you buy it it is always good. There is a small cafe just five minutes walk from our house where they sell it in the above mentioned quality. Plus, they also have Italian-style ice cream. It is equally good as the coffee. I think I mentioned it before: we are in gourmet paradise.

Klara and the friendly engine-driver

Olaf's 40th birthday we spent just the way he always dreamt he could do: on a steam-train ride through a rain-forest like setting with the famous Puffing Billy. We had to take a regular train for an hour to get to the steam-train station. It is up in the hills east of Melbourne and it was a pretty cool day. So once we arrived and got off the Metro train I realized we were not dressed for the adventure. It was cold! The train had open-window carriages that could only barely be closed with transparent plastic sheets. We still enjoyed the ride up the hill. Klara took lots of pictures while I tried to keep warm with my scarf. That Olaf was blissfully happy never mind the circumstances goes without saying.

On Puffing Billy, Olaf's dream birthday

Klara had her first bout of homesickness after her best friend Mela and her family called us on Facetime. After the call Klara said she did not want to move to Australia but wanted to stay in Prague. This is really heartbreaking. But after we went swimming in the hotel pool she was her old happy self again. I hope we can keep up the distractions.

Storm clouds gathering

Today it is Sunday. After some rather hot days climbing up to 32 degrees we had a rain storm last night. It is now cloudy and if we could open a window I could probably feel that it has cooled down to 22 degrees. At least this is what the weather report says. We plan to go furniture hunting and maybe visit a museum later on today. 

Klara on the elephant trail

I got an annual membership for the Melbourne museums and one for the zoo. The latter Klara and I visited last Monday. It is very nice with an open-cage like area for the kangaroos and emus. You just walk through a gate and wander through bushland where the animals doze in the shade. There is also an elephant path Indonesian style. Very nice! Contrary to the Prague zoo the Melbourne zoo does not rank among the ten best zoos in the world but what I do like about it is the fact that there is not a lot distraction from the animals. There is one small playground and some food stalls that come in handy. Other than that it is what a zoo is supposed to be -  a possibility to see wild animals close up.

We are enjoying the splendid view from our apartment while we can. This is what greeted me one morning when I woke up at 6 am:

There is still no Christmas spirit to be felt anywhere within our family. Palm trees, the beach, the sun, lots to organize... we probably should start singing some Christmas carols and baking cookies.

Love,

Julia