Melbourne

Had the pleasure of taking Juli into Melbourne city a couple of weeks ago, and thankfully Melbourne's weather decided to be kind (considering that it's the middle of winter!).

The day started with coffee on Southbank and enjoying the peacefulness until a seagull rocked up and stole the bacon from the plate of a poor man enjoying breakfast out a few tables down - the nerve of seagulls! We also took some touristy pics of Southbank, for all those of you who can't enjoy it's beauty.

We then decided we better go up the Rialto tower before the weather turned bad (it can happen at any moment!) where we saw some beautiful views of Melbourne.

The rest of the day was spent eating (Chinatown) and shopping (DFO Swanston St, worth visiting if you haven't yet done so, and you live in Australia!) - sorry no photos!

Marysville Under Snow

Well, the adventures of Tom, Glenda and Juli continue...

Last week we had Christian Union's mid-year conference Summit, it is held in Marysville, a 90km drive from Melbourne. Keep driving another 50kms and you reach Lake Mountain, one of Victoria's smaller ski areas, with only cross country skiing and snow play activities. Why do I tell you all this? Because, it is only supposed to snow in snow areas (like Lake Mountain), not in Marysville! However in Melbourne, we are experiencing a very cold winter and so, to the great delight of all the Aussie students, it snowed while we were in Marysville!

Here's some snapps of the happy occation!The Stevenson Falls, floodlight at night.

Me, Zac and Juli (one of the least impressed by snow, but thankfully was made up for by the beauty of the waterfall!)

There is something so beautiful about things covered in snow. To wake up on the Wednesday morning finding out that it had snowed, was something I had never expected in a non snowfield area of Australia and somehow, everything looked so much brighter (hmmm, probably because it was - snow, white, reflects sun, makes sense really)!

For Eliane

Ok, so I have kind of fallen into a blogger land abyss of late. There's been much going on in our lives, which I'll blog more of as it becomes less raw with time. For the moment, we are enjoying being distracted from the freneticness (ok, so I don't think that it really is a word, but it'll do!) of the last month with our new housemate, Juli.

Juli is from Germany and is staying with us for a total of 6 weeks, although one has already passed at lightning speed. Tom and I have really enjoyed this pleasant distraction which has allowed us to go out for more dinners, coffee and shopping than usual! For example, the tops that you can see us wearing in this photo were bought when we popped into Tom's work last Friday, they were on special and the two of us just couldn't resist!

It has been really great to see Juli's knowledge and ability of the English language grow each day. Every day we can see that she understands a little more and has more confidence to use English. It also helps me with my sketchy knowledge of German, the other day when we were out shopping I tried to speak German while Juli spoke English, I still have a lot to learn!

We are looking forward over the coming weeks to show Juli her first surf beach in the flesh, and also some of Australia's crazy's animals. Every day we try to surprise her with something new, generally food, as Tom and I seem to eat of lot of it!! We've also needed to give Juli a few more warm clothes, we think that Australia gets too good a wrap overseas and there's a perception that it never really gets cold here - let me assure you, as we are heading for a minimum of four degrees tonight - it is COLD!! Australian houses were not built to cope with this weather.

Well, that's all from me for today, hopefully I will be able to post more information soon of the great adventures of Glenda, Tom and Juli. xox