Getting Familiar

After waking up (very early) Sunday morning I felt like a new person. I have learned more than once that when travelling so very far away, it really does take some time to recover...and feel normal once again (whatever normal is). It was a beautiful sunny morning so I decided to venture out for a walk and see how far I was from the bank I was here to work with. There is a nice river walk along the banks of the Yarro river that take me much of the way to where I need to be. One of the photos above is a fancy walking bridge across the river and my hotel is in the background. There are businesses and apartments all along the river through town. After about a 20 minute walk, I arrived at ANZ Bank (they don't say Zeeee here though, it is ZED). Technically I am working at A N Zed. Weird but true.

There are actually a number of tiny quirks in the language I am finding. The people here don't call anyone on the phone....they "ring" them. I overheard a person talking to another saying "I rang my mate and told her I'd be late". Just sort of struck me funny.

I stopped at the Melbourne visitor center which was near the bank and talked with some nice people there about where to go and what to do. They advised me to jump on a tram and go to the beach where there was always interesting things to see and do. I included a picture of what the TRAM looks like. They are sort of a hop-on / hop-off transportation system and reminded me of the trams in Portland.....important to have ticket on hand in case an "inspector" hops on they say!

I walked around the beach front and just enjoyed the sunny day walking around and seeing people and how they lived. After I became tired of walking aimlessly, I jumped on another tram and headed back to more familiar turf downtown (about 3 miles from the beach), and eventually back to my hotel.

It seems everything in this city is all about RUGBY. It is on just about every TV station there is. I have been watching because of little choice and I think I am learning a bit of how the game is played. One thing for sure....it is a very rough sport! It reminds me of the "ultimate fighters" and UFC fighting.....with the only difference being someone just gave a bunch of them a very round football and threw a whole bunch of them out on a field and said have at it....half of you try and take the ball this way, the other half try and take it that way....now go beat the crap out of each other as you try.

My day ended about 8PM as I could stay awake no longer. I crashed once again but this Monday morning.....I am feeling even more normal now.