End of Week One

On Wednesday, it was beautiful out. The sun was shining and it was warm. We were really glad we'd reserved that day for relaxing time at the beach. And so, on Wednesday afternoon, we packed up some snacks, a blanket, and our books, and were off to Brighton Beach.

When we got to the beach, we laid out the blanket, and then the hard work began: lying in the sun and reading. *Sigh* It's a hard life. We read, we snacked, we soaked up the sun. We must've been at the beach for at least 3 hours before the wind started picking up and it was getting a little bit chilly. Also, as it's school holidays, this was about the time that all the high-schoolers started crowding the beach. So, we headed home and continued our laid-back, relaxing day by doing nothing. It was such a good day.

On Thursday, we went down to Scienceworks, a science and technology museum. There were a lot of little kiddlies running around, mostly kids in day camps. We still had fun wandering around and trying out some of the little activities they had. Then we

Southern Cross

saw a show about black holes at the Planetarium. Neither of us had ever been to a planetarium before, so it was pretty exciting. And after the show about black holes, they showed us some of the stars and constellations that we can see here. I know a few of them at home, but as we're in a different hemisphere, all the stars are different. No big dipper or north star around here. We have the southern cross to help you find the south pole. The only constellation I recognized was Orion, and that one you can barely see here.

Friday was pouring rain out all day, but we picked ourselves out of bed and were off to the last stop for the week: The Melbourne Museum. They currently have an exhibit on The Wonders of Ancient Mesopotamia that Becca and I were both interested in seeing before it finishes next weekend. The exhibit was divided into 3 parts, which were the 3 great centres of ancient Mesopotamian civilization: Sumer, Assyria, and Babylon. It was really interesting, and I'm glad we had the chance to go see it. We spent the rest of the day exploring a few of the permanent exhibits at the museum, but didn't have a chance to see everything. There are a lot of exhibits! But we got year passes, so we can go again any other time, and entry is free. We'll definitely have to go back and see more.

Saturday was cleaning day, again. Becca's mom, Juanita, was due to arrive in Melbourne around 1:30pm, so we spent all morning cleaning the apartment and doing laundry. The Melbourne Airport is really weird. Even though we weren't boarding a plane ourselves, we had to go through security and went all the way into the terminal, right to the gate! It was really weird. They only checked boarding passes at the gate to the plane. It was nice to be right there to meet Juanita when she got off the plane, though.

Although it was only mid-afternoon when we got home, Juanita was already really tired from her trip. However, we didn't want her to be up in the middle of the night, so it was our mission to keep her up and about until a decent bed-time. Becca and Juanita went for a walk, we had dinner, and then we took the tram up to Kmart. By the time we got home, it was 8:30, so we decided it was acceptable for her to go to bed.

We didn't have anything big planned for today, Sunday. Becca and I have been dying to go to Costco, especially because we see it from North Melbourne Train Station all the time. WELL, Juanita has a Costco card, and after some research, we discovered that you can use your Costco card at ANY Costco WORLDWIDE.

So, guess what we did today?? Oh yes, COSTCO.

It may sound sad to you, but visiting Costco is a favourite pastime of mine and Becca's. So we were so happy to be in one today. And we didn't buy too much stuff, which is good because we don't have a car so we had to lug our purchases home on the trams. We had fun.

Tomorrow begins our newest adventure: road trip down the Great Ocean Road!

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I'm sure I'll have lots of stories to share when we get home!