First Few Days...

We arrived in Melbourne, Australia on Thursday at 9am after a long 15-hour flight from LAX. It wasn’t too bad of a flight; we got anxious once in a while just due to being confined in one small place for so long but you learn to just relax and stretch every now and then. After going through customs and getting our luggage, we caught a “limo” taxi to our hostel, St. Arnaud Guest House. It’s a cute little place where people of all ages stay. Everyone here is really nice. We’ve met young people like us who have been traveling for many months throughout the country. They have been a good source for learning the tram system and good places to go around town.

~SAYING GOODBYE IN SACRAMENTO~

~Our Hostel~

So, yesterday when we got to our hostel at 10am, we couldn’t get into our room until 1pm, so Zach and I set out to downtown for our 11:30am bank appointment to activate our account that we had opened online before arriving in Australia. After figuring out the tram system and exactly where we needed to go, we found our bank and got to see quite a bit of downtown. Our banker suggested that we open a savings account, which we could use to transfer money into our debit/checking account. When he told us that it earned 5.25% interest, compounded daily, we almost fell out of our chairs. “You mean .05%?” No! He was serious! So, of course we did it! So, after the bank, we headed back to our hostel since we had only purchased a 2-hour tram ticket. We found Grammy & Papa just getting settled into our room. Our room sleeps 4, a double bed and 2 twin beds. Grammy and Papa graciously gave us the double bed, saying they liked to cuddle when they were newlyweds, so they thought it would be better for us. We have a cute balcony out to the main street on ground level. In the back of the guest house is a shared living room, dining room, kitchen and outdoor patio. After resting a bit, Grammy and I walked up to a small market just up the street from us and got some ravioli, gnocchi, green beans and bread for dinner. We all cooked the nice meal and ate in the shared living room. After that, we crashed for the night and got a good 12 hours of sleep after the long trip over.

Today (1/15), Zach and I were up at 7am and went downstairs to the kitchen for a cup of coffee and internet. We had to research the electrical conversions (our laptop was almost dead and we didn’t want to charge it without finding out if we needed a converter) and we also needed to find some car dealerships to visit. The hostel provides breakfast, so the four of us had some toast and coffee and then got ready to set out for the day. We didn’t know yesterday that we could hop on the tram outside our hostel, but we learned that this morning and saved ourselves a 20-minute walk that we had done yesterday to catch the tram. We bought a day fare at the local 7-Eleven and took the tram into town. We stopped to see Federation Square and the riverfront area where the Australian Open is held. We then walked North through the main downtown area, went to the electronics store and found out that we don’t need a converter after all (yeah!) We caught the tram to Victoria Market and found a pay phone to call the car dealer. He told us he would come and pick us up and take us to his shop and he was there in less than 5 minutes. Joe (car dealer) sells mostly to backpackers and travelers who only want to spend between $2,000-4,000 for a car. He had a couple of station wagons to choose from and we found one in our price range that was in great condition….a ’92 Toyota Camry white wagon, it’s awesome! In order for a dealer to sell, they have to send the car to a garage that requires them to repair anything that is not considered “safe” – brakes, tires, alignment, etc. Most of that was good except for the alignment, which he is going to have fixed. Joe is also going to put a new windshield on, add transmission fluid, change the oil, fill up half the gas tank and register the car for a year (registration costs $600 per year here). So, we feel like we got a really good deal. He’s also including a warranty package and free roadside assistance that does everything from change a tire to gas if we run out to anything minor that needs to be done – wherever we are in Australia! For a used car that isn’t worth much, we think we got quite a good deal!! And we still can’t believe we bought the first car we saw! We get to pick it up on Monday afternoon after it goes through the inspection, just in time to leave Melbourne on Tuesday morning.

After buying the car, Joe’s friend Warren took us back to the tram stop and we went into the Queen Victoria Markets and bought a bunch of fresh produce for dinner tonight. We’re going to do a chicken stir fry and tomorrow Papa’s famous chicken rice soup. Sunday and Monday we’ll eat most of the leftovers. Food is pretty expensive here: A carton of OJ is about $5 / a 6 pack of beer is about $16 / 12 dozen eggs is $6 / a loaf of bread is $5….so everything is about double. But at the outdoor market today, everything was pretty cheap, so we stocked up for a couple days. After getting back home today at about 2pm, we’ve just been watching tennis and Zach went off for a run around our neighborhood. We’re in the nicer part of town called South Yarra; really cute homes, lots of parks and expensive restaurants. We’re trying to be really conservative right now…or else we’ll be looking for a job soon!