Birthday

   It's not my birthday here anymore, but it would be if I were back in the States. While this year was just slightly lower key than last year (celebrating with my family, the Fenians, and 100 of my closest friends) I still felt the love from far away thanks to all the messages, emails, Facebook greetings, videos of singing kids (thanks Ben, Katie, Patrick and Michael!), and virtual parties via Skype (thanks Buis!)
  How did we spent the day? With the rest of Melbourne, so it seemed, at Costco, the only one in Australia, though they're building more. I don't think the developers really understood the draw of Costco, because the parking garage was woefully inadequate to handle the crowds. It did have one of the largest elevators I've ever been in, since you need to take it up to the store. After braving that trip to get a few "necessities" and my bday present (an iPod docking station/radio), we figured we'd go for double-or-nothing and hit up IKEA. Probably the most reasonable place in all of Melbourne that we've seen. We hit the cafe for meatballs and pasta-- a kid's meal for only $3?? Score! Then we stocked up on some more goodies for the house.
   Errands done, we headed out to a wonderful Italian/pizza place for dinner. Oddly enough, pizzas are measured in inches! We thought he was just converting it for us, but he really didn't know how many centimeters that was. I have had someone "translate" for me when buying the girls croissants. After placing my order, the guy at the counter asked if it was to go. I asked him why he didn't say "take away" instead of "to go." He said he worked for a time in Canada and they didn't understand what he meant.
   Which brings me to another story. Seems Aussies, when they hear a North American accent, assume the speaker if from Canada. That's for two reasons. One is apparently more Canadians come to Australia than Americans. Second, Canadians are offended by being called American, whereas Americans aren't offended by being called Canadians. So it goes...
   We're settling in nicely to our new house. The girls are truly thrilled with their rooms, and we even really like the rental furniture. So much so that we're considering buying it and dumping the stuff that's in our container (somewhere near Seattle...but that's another story.....) Andy would actually be fine if only the  motorcycle showed up, and the rest of the container was lost at sea, because he's really enjoying the minimalist lifestyle we're leading. Very little clutter. Everything has it's place. I'm starting to tire of the 7 shirts I brought along though :-)
   I'm feeling more comfortable with driving here. It's much harder than just being on the left side of the road. It's also driving on the right side of the car, and dealing with roundabouts and narrow streets (zig zagging back and forth to avoid parked or right-turning cars) and even dealing with trams. But I'm getting used to it, and ventured out to find the local library branch. Got the girls library cards, and Alanna quickly found a large stack of books to read. Yay! The next stop was to find our new local supermarket.
   I found it and parked, no problema. But the carts, er, trolleys were all chained together. Upon inquiry, turns out you need to insert a dollar coin into the handle. When you return it, and attach it to another cart, the coin gets pushed back and you get your deposit. A bit of a nuisance, but it does ensure there aren't carts, er, trolleys left all over the parking lot, which is a good thing. Once you get a trolley, that's a fun challenge just to steer them, as they're four-wheel drive, and want to go in any/every direction.
   As expected, grocery stores are a bit different. Weights are in kilograms. so when asking for deli meat, I was wondering do I ask for 1/8th of a kilo? No, gotta love metric. I just asked for 300 grams. The stores are smaller, so the selection is smaller too, though I expect it would be smaller even in a large store. One surprise was the coffee section. I'd heard so much about the great coffee, and yet the shelves were filled with many varieties of instant coffee. What the ??? I was looking for ground coffee to make my cold-brew concentrate, and didn't have much luck. 
   Other differences include the meat section. In addition to a lot of lamb products, which was to be expected, there was also a decent selection of fresh meat for dogs! Aussies must really love their pets. The cereal selection was a bit lacking by our standards. They have what they call Cheerios, but not the good ole regular version. And though the logo looks the same, they're co branded with another logo and look/taste different. Nothing wrong with that of course. It's all about trying new foods. We're working on that, slowly, but admittedly sticking with favorites, esp for the girls sake. The biggest issue is a serious lack of ranch dressing. Oh, they have something labeled "ranch" but both bottles we bought, even the Paul Newman brand, tasted more like slightly flavored mayo. How are we ever going to get the girls to eat their veggies without ranch??? On the plus side, because we gotta be fair, they do have Paul Newmans Southwest dressing, hooray. Now I'm not sure what "Southwest" means here in Australia, but I do know it's one of my favorite dressings, that I thought was only available when I purchased McD's Southwest Salad. Quite happy about that find.
   That's all for now, gotta rescue the girls from the Wii, which we were able to set up yesterday. They're back in Just Dance business! Cheers!