G'day mate…
Well, I’ve been here in Melbourne for just about exactly a month…Its amazing how quickly time flies at times, and yet other times, each second ticks by and the light at the end of the tunnel seems so far away.
So, what have I done in the last 4 weeks? …as I look back, truly quite a bit…
Jan 13 – My first weekend after a work week, I checked out the Docklands area while peeps were playing american flag football.
Jan 19th/21st – Went and checked out the Australian Open…saw Amelee Morrismo play in doubles, watched a few games, chilled with friends
Jan 25th – We got Friday off due to Australia day so took the long weekend and went to Tasmania. We took the ‘Spirit of Tasmania’ cruise ship there and then Virgin Atlantic coming back
Feb 4 – Went surfing about 1.5 hours west of Melbourne. Took lessons and attempted to stand on the board…hehe…3 seconds counts right?
Feb 11 – First weekend of no events planned. It was nice to just be in town, chill. I moved into my apartment finally…its small but its located in a great location. Corner of Little Burke and Elizabeth, pretty much the heart of the city.
So now that I’ve jotted my last few weeks of my life in a few paragraphs…some thoughts?…
I guess of all my assignments, this one has been the easiest to get acclimated. I’m here in a country that is not truly unlike the US…in fact Melbourne reminds me of san francisco with all its trams/metro/etc. The docklands remind me of south beach, looking out to the bay. And right now my apartment looks out to Flanders Station which reminds me of the Ferry building in SF. With all these correlations of similiarities, it still gets me now and then that I’m not in my own country. The G’day mate, cheers, people picking up my accent and my choice of words as American…the list goes on. As I was giving money to my taxi driver and said ‘Have a good one’…he said, “Ahh…i know where you’re from now. Wasn’t sure until you said that.” Apparently ‘have a good one’ is VERY American. Part of the easy transition has also been just the amount of people I know here from previous projects. People whom I’ve worked in Slovakia, Europe, China, around the US, seem to have all converged here for this project. The world truly is small!
Well, its sunday night around 11pm…time to try to get some sleep and prepare for another grueling week. As always, i’m already looking forward to Friday…ready for that friday afternoon pint!
cheers!