I landed in Melbourne at 9:30am, to a balmy 10 degrees Celsius. It was a little overcast today, but I liked it. After spending all day yesterday in hot sunny LA either outside or in Dave D’s convertible, I’ve had enough sun to last me a few days. Timmy tells me that tomorrow (Friday) is going to be 23 and Saturday 25 degrees. I’m not too worried about the weather!
Seeing Timmy at the airport was incredibly exciting. After such a long journey here, and after a few emotional days saying goodbye to everyone at home, seeing Timmy was an amazing feeling. We waited for my bags to show up, and they never did. How convenient. We waited for two more flights to arrive from Sydney, but still, no bags. We then went to file a missing bags claim, and several hours later, they called us and now I’m waiting at the apartment for the bags to arrive. They said they’d be here anywhere between 2:30pm and 5:00pm – again, how convenient!
The worst was that I was unsure of whether or not I’d have a suit to wear for a 9am meeting I have tomorrow!! Showing up to the meeting in the morning, half asleep in a suit that doesn’t fit wouldn’t have been the best start to a promising term in Melbourne…
**UPDATE** The bags just showed up. Nice.
So we left the airport and went straight to Timmy’s parents’ house, where we printed off my work visa confirmation in case I needed it at the bank – which I didn’t. He showed me around the house he did most of his growing up in, his parents weren’t home, unfortunately. We’ll see them soon, I’m sure. I did get to meet his two dogs, though.
Then we went to Commonwealth Bank where I opened a checking account and an interest-earning savings account. I’ll be getting a MasterCard with this account, so I’m going to be all set. We then went into the mall to check out Optus for a cell phone plan, but weren’t impressed, so we decided to not buy anything yet, I’m going to do some research.
We went to the food court for lunch, where we had a meat pie (mmmmmmmm good) that comes with a small interesting packet of tomato sauce, that I didn’t know how to open. Timmy watched me with a smile on his face until the tomato sauce exploded all over my arm, he laughed. I did figure out how it opens, at least! After the meat pie Timmy bought a couple sushi rolls for us, wow were they fresh and good!! I think I’m going to find eating in Melbourne pretty easy…
After the mall we went to a sketchy area (Footscray?) to pick up a bed Timmy bought for me on eBay for AUD$50. It’s a small single but looks clean and will do the trick until we move out of here.
Now I’m at the apartment, finishing up this post and going to go online to publish the videos, etc. Then I’m going to run back to the mall to check out more cell phone options and see if I can get an eggcrate thingamajobby for my bed at Target. Yes, they have Target in Australia!!
Tomorrow I’m meeting Ben at Hays in downtown Melbourne at 9am, then I’ll meet up with Timmy where we’ll probably check a couple apartments, and maybe even go see the new Costco in Melbourne. Could it get more exciting than that?? I hope they have hot-dogs at this Costco!
On Saturday Timmy and I will be going to an AFL playoff game at Melbourne Cricket Grounds. Can’t wait! He scored the tickets from a friend of his who is actually playing in the match – pretty cool.
So far, day one in Melbourne has been a success, looking forward to tonight!