Greetings from the capital of stencil graffiti!

Hello everybody!!!! Long time since you heard from us right? Well, here it is....

We arrived in Melbourne two weeks and one day ago. It was a nice touchdown, little turbulance, and when we got off the plane, we went and got our bags with a minimun of stress and disorder. So there we were, bags in hand, including my box o' books, and we hailed a cab--then off we were: entering the capital of stencil graffiti!


We got to our hostel, not only didn't tip the cabbie on our 40 dollar ride, but got the wrong change back (a 20 instead of a 10) so we were 10 bucks ahead. A very good omen for our move. We checked in, then immediately went about foolhardily looking for an apartment (since it was saturday, and saturdays and wednesdays are apartment hunting days). It took us two weeks to learn from our mistakes, but finally after lots of movies, we found a spot. Not only was it the (second) best place we saw, but it was also the (second) cheapest and in the best location!!!! (second best location.) So we moved in without light or hot water, and everything was cool.... Then another day without light or hot water, and I was forced to get angry with our hookup company--but it turned out we were meant to flip the breakers so that was fine. It then turned out we had.....


CUCARACHAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!



WHICH is not so good. Anyway, we're trying to deal with that situation. We also don't have a fridge.


Right now we're focusing on trying to get jobs so we can afford this extremely expensive city. A carton of milk here costs $30 dollars, and a sandwich is $65. (American). Our respective classes have not started yet, Jill will be going to class tomorrow evening, and I'll just sort of start tomorrow and hang out in my office (fuck yeah) as much as I like. Sweet... The area of town we're in is FITZROY, which I recommend you all check out, as it will whet your appetite to come visit us. It's pretty darn cool place, lots to do, but we're taking it pretty slow right now mainly for money reasons. We also haven't made any friends... Don't come visit till we get some friends!

A big thing here is cafes, which require you to order coffee, which in turn is a source of anxiety if you are used to brewed coffee. Here, they drink the espresso and espresso derivitives. So, there is no "regular coffee", but rather things like flat whites, long blacks, etc. Nor refills. But chilling at cafes is pretty sweet all the same, and there's lots of green tea for the bitches... and jill. That's enough for now, we pretty much have been doing touristy things like go to museums, the beach, various historically significant places, and worrying about school, apartments, money and bugs. By the way, it's a very pretty city renowed for its ironwork, victorian buildings and stencil graffiti. It's also the birthplace of a great artist named Sidney Nolan who's place of work we will hopefully see today. In fact, there are many great Australian artists and of course authors who the more erudite among you might enjoy checking out. All you other people.... welll.........

Ciao!

Tom AND Jill