Mel-ben, Part 1

I'll have to confess that what I knew about Australia before this trip was... not much.  Can you name the current prime minister?  I couldn't.  90% of my previous knowledge came from a Bill Bryson book called "In A Sunburned Country" (fantastic read, by the way), and the remaining 10% comes from a combination of the movie Rabbit Proof Fence, the Sydney Olympics opening ceremony, and Australia's Next Top Model.  Do you know that they call college, "Uni", and Melbourne is pronounced "Mel-ben"?  Yep, learned that from ANTM.

Even though Singapore is the closest country to Australia (save New Zealand), Melbourne is still an eight hour plane ride away.  I'm not sure what I expected before we started driving through Melbourne (the GPS took us the long way around), but whatever I had in mind didn't have anything to do with the city I did see.  Cute cafes, plenty of boutiques, cars yielding to pedestrians!  It was all so refreshing and... cold.  I knew on a cerebral level that July is their winter, but until I stepped into those brisk breezes I didn't quite get it.

The main reason we went to Melbourne was to meet family.  The Plauts have cousins there they've never met, and Harvey visiting Singapore was a perfect excuse to head over and finally meet them.  Meet our newly extended family (from L to R):  Andrew, Don, Nicole, Anne and David.  And Oscar.  Though Oscar wasn't too cooperative with the camera that first night, he eventually warmed up to us.

Everyone was perfectly lovely, and they were all fantastic hosts during our whirlwind tour of Melbourne.  Even Oscar.

Next time?  Falcons, dingos, tasmanian devils, kangaroos and wine.  In that order.  Good on ya!

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Oh, and the current prime minister is now Julia Gillard - the first female prime minister in Australia who, after after a political coup, "wrested control of the country from the former prime minister, Kevin Rudd." Political intrigue, who would have guessed?