Week 11: Great News!

Karl is finally allowed to join the working class in Australia!!! After much badgering of the Immigration Department on his part, Karl and I got new VISAs giving us permission to work. (I don't plan on working but to even volunteer, you have to have permission.) We went downtown this morning and got our new VISAs. We were only there for 10 minutes max, so the whole experience was quite anti-climactic. While we were downtown, we also returned the tent pole replacement kit that we had bought to fix Darrel's tent that we broke a month ago in Tasmania. We had bought the wrong size. Who knew tent poles came in different diameters?

In other exciting news this week, I received the second half of my scholarship money. The extra $14,000 sitting in the bank won't hurt us and neither will their 4.5% interest rate. Karl starts working tomorrow at the Ivanhoe Shopping Centre. We think it's a supermarket, but he'll find out in just a few hours. He's also going to be lining his team's practice field and conducting practice, so I might get some work done on the four papers that are due in the next four weeks! Also, Karl is thinking about playing quarterback on his team because of the shortage of players (yea right). He promised that he won't play both ways (we'll see). Now, he just has to figure out how to coach the defense while playing offense. In all seriousness, I think this could be a great last opportunity for him to play football, and the team might actually win some games this way. Besides, the guy playing quarterback now hates it with a passion. Why not let an old fogy relive his glory days?

We've had a lot of fun the past week. We've rediscovered the lost art of playing cards. Carol and Claire come over to our room most nights, and we switch between playing UNO and Spades to pass the time. This week was especially exciting because Carol's friends from Toronto were visiting, so we had more people to play with. What was even more fun was the fact that Carol spent the night in our room for the last week while her friends slept in her room. It was a slumber party every night! (You are allowed to have visitors stay for no more than 4 days for free and the housing company provides a mattress and linens.) We had a lot of fun sharing her visitors. We took them to the Melbourne Zoo; well, actually one of Karl's players, Daniel, took us to the zoo, but it was our idea to include them. It should have cost us $20 each, but we got in for free! Most of the animals I had seen before, but there were some really neat new ones. We got to watch the elephants being washed, and it totally reminded me of this short on Sesame Street where the song "Splish splash, I was taking a bath" is playing while elephants were being washing. We also saw blue bottomed monkeys like Rafiki and little meerkats like Timon from The Lion King. My absolute favorite was the penguins. They are tiny, maybe 1.5 feet all. They are so cute!!!! There's a wonderful place relatively close to us where you can watch hundreds of these little cuties come onto the beach. They're coming on land to go to sleep for the night. Karl and I have purposely held off going, so we could go with friends or family from home. Hint, hint! (Don't worry, if you don't come, we'll still go see the little ones.)

That's about all I have for tonight. This weekend is the dorm's potluck, so Karl and I are making Ashley's broccoli casserole and my chess bars. We're just trying to prove that Americans know how to eat healthy. (For anyone who doesn't know, the casserole is almost nothing but fat and the chess bars are nothing but sugar:) The only other plans are a trip to a Rotarian farmer's market and another one to hunt down a bagel place in this flipping city. I haven't had a bagel in months, and I'm so excited. It's funny how you learn what you really like when you don't have them anymore. For my last thought, I think it is about time for me to congratulate Ben and Staci Idle. Staci is due in October, and Karl and I are so excited for them!!! (& a bit relieved it is not us just yet:) Hope you all are doing fantastic! Fantastic is supposedly an Australian word but anyone who's been around my dad or his mother would have a substantial argument.

Britt