melbourne drivers

vancouver drivers are known for their aggressive driving but melbourne drivers definately top vancouver. drivers here believe that they are the only ones on the road that matter and anyone in their way is wrong. rarely do i walk up to the shops near our house without seing a driver honk (usually repeatedly) at a car in front of him/her that is turning left or right at an intersection (completely legally). they think becuase they want to go straght that the car infront should not slow them down on the way to their destination. they get annoyed that the person infront has stopped to yeild to oncomming traffic or pedestrians or even just slowed to make the turn and they feel they have every right to be annoyed at them and honk repeatedly for the person infront making them have to hit the brakes. cars also have a habit of honking at each other while they're stuck in traffic and nobody is moving but they see a green light ahead and feel the need to just lay on their horn thinking that somehow traffic will magically start moving. it is kinda funny to watch as a pedestrian or as a cyclist riding past traffic lined up through 3 sets of lights but its annoying to listen to and makes you wonder what people actually think when they're honking at people who are in their way but are legally turning or are stuck in as much traffic as they are. i think something happens to people's brains when they get behind the wheel of a car and suddenly they think the world revolves around them.

go the demons!

i got to go to my first footie (australian football) game last nite. it was REALLY good. zac had a couple free tickets from work that he was supposed to give away but couldn't find anyone to take them so we decided to use them so they wouldn't go to waste. we were kinda thinking about going to the game anyway but it was supposed to be pretty wet all weekend so we never got tickets or anything. my team (melbourne demons) were down by about 13 points when we got there near the end of the first quarter (the team they were playing is #1 on the ladder right now, my team is tied for 5th and we're only a few games away from the grand final). they made a comeback though and were doing pretty good thru the 3rd and part of the 4th quarters. the way the clock works, you don't know when the quarters are going to end (it counts up and they add time on to the end instead of stopping the clock). it was definately near the end of the forth and they were down by 10 points so they needed 2 goals (6 points each) to win. fortunately the quarter was extra long and they did it, they got a few free kicks and got a couple points and 2 goals!! in the end melbourne beat the bulldogs 105-109!!

re-ajusting to australia

it took over 32 hrs of travelling (not including the shuttle bus to the vancouver airport and 2hrs hanging around there-- mostly standing in line to get a tax refund and then we had to leave while we were next in line cuz we were already late for our boarding call and still had to go through security to get to our gate) but we made it back to melbourne and its FREEZING cold winter weather. it really was freezing. it was 9 degrees when we arrived at 1pm and it had snowed that morning in south melbourne (only about 15kms from our house and not up any elevation gain). today we got stuck in a rain storm biking back from the shops (if we'd just spent 20 minutes more at the shops we would have been ok but we forgot that melbourne rain tends to only come in 20 min bursts and decided just to bike through it-- it stopped before we even got home). fortunately the jetlag isn't bad though (i think the fact that we were stuck in so many time zones over so many hours just kinda made our bodies forget any time). i managed to stay awake until we put a movie on at 7pm last nite and then slept mostly through the nite and got up 11:30 today and feel pretty fine (although it does seem weird that its completely dark a little after 6pm). its good though cuz i gotta get up at 8am tomorrow and deal with screaming babies all day. we were thinking of going to the footie (australian rules football) tomorrow nite but i don't think i'm that ajusted to the time or sitting in the freezing cold for a few hours yet.