Australia 7

It's been five days since my last post. I've had less time to noodle on the internet because with David off we've been doing fun things and also because since leaving the Saint Kilda (Melbourne) flat, internet access has been less regular and convenient. We now access the internet through the nationwide mobile broadband. We have a USB stick that stores our login and payment info.

Thursday, the day after the conference ended, we took the tram downtown. Our first stop was the Melbourne Itasca office. This took much longer than I'd been led to expect - David mentioned something about saying hello and touring the office. In face it involved over an hour of him talking work with various people and me trying to keep three squirrelly kids entertained and relatively quiet in a loft-style office with ever so many cords and lovely glowing CPU power buttons within easy toddler reach. I also had a double shot of very strong espresso immediately before we got there; it's possible I wasn't a model of calm easygoingness. The kids played a game we'd brought along and did fine, though, in truth. I nursed and rocked Astrid to sleep eventually.

Then I dragged the family to a well-reviewed Spanish restaurant called MoVida. It was not the least bit kid-friendly and the kids hated the food (savory cheese custard with grated truffle on top served in a real eggshell didn't float their boats) but I loved it and the wonderful food and glass of wine I enjoyed there put me right in the holiday mood. David had some absolutely amazing steak tartar and a glass of rum, so he wasn't displeased, either. He did take the kids out and leave me to finish my wine and deal with the bill at the end of the meal for fear that the kids were bothering other diners, though I don't think they were at all.

After that we hit a few nearby sites - a couple of bridges and the "Sky Deck" at the top of on of the tallest buildings in the area. It was quite warm and Emory complained again about the heat.

We separated around 4pm so David could take the tram north to pick up the rental van and I took the kids back to the flat. FOUR HOURS later, David made it back to the flat with the van. The traffic coming home killed him, then the crazy street layout near the flat and lack of parking added yet another 45 minutes or so.

The next day we packed up and headed about 1 1/2 hours south to Blairgowrie, on the peninsula southeast of Melbourne. Our friends Dave and Bre-Anne, from Itasca Melbourne, had rented a "cottage" - really an extremely beautiful and luxurious house with a gorgeous view of the water - for them, us and one other Itasca friend to share for the weekend. Dave and Bre-Anne have two daughters a little younger than Mo and Freya, so everyone had good company. We ate good food (Matt, the other friend from Itasca, did all the cooking and it was wonderful) and relaxed and saw some local sites. It was a nice, relaxing holiday weekend.

Sunday (yesterday) we got up, packed up, and headed for Mallacoota. The weather was rainy, the narrow winding roads (and don't forget the left-side driving!) made me nervous and Astrid screamed off and on the last two of the seven hour trip, but we made it and it is well worth the trip. This place is amazing. David and Bre-Anne recommended it. It's an Australian vacation destination, but not an international one, and we're past the end of the school holiday summer season here, so it's wonderfully peaceful. The Adobe Mudbrick Flats (http://www.adobeholidayflats.com.au/index.html), where we're staying, are gorgeous, hand-built works of glorious hippy art/architecture. I'll post pictures on Facebook shortly. Our two balconies look directly out onto the "lake" (which is really an ocean incursion of some sort - bay? straight? inlet?) and the colorful local birds (again will post FB pics) are a constant presence at the bird feeder. Last night we went to sleep able to see *from our bed* both the nearly full moon and its reflection on the water.