The past few weeks have been refreshing and fun (which is a lovely change of pace). There’ve been plenty of things to do and enjoy in the city. A few weekends back, we stopped in at the Port Phillip Mussel and Jazz Festival where we enjoyed locally sourced mussels, lobster rolls, an adult beverage or two and listened to some jazz.
Melbourne is a buzzing place; there’s always the next festival to attend or event to enjoy. March is geared towards Formula 1 racing (the Australian Grand Prix). The city has plenty of pop up activities, driving simulations and merch shops to get you excited for the race weekend. To get in race day spirit, we finally decided to try Lune. It’s a pastry shop that’s a cult favourite here in Melb, and they released a limited edition F1 croissant. As unique and wonderful as some of the pastries were, we paid a whopping $42 for 3 pastries which is sick. Definitely a one time treat.
Lune
On St. Patty’s day we went to a friends baby shower. The expecting couple also happen to own a pickleball arena, so we got to enjoy a baby-shower-pickleball mash up event. I haven’t played pickleball before (other than when I was subbing for a PE class) but it was actually a lot more fun than I thought it would be! Easier than tennis in my opinion, but nothing really like badminton so that kind of threw me as the paddle is very different than a racket. If you get an opportunity, I would suggest that you give it a go!
I also managed to lock myself out on our balcony the other weekend which was less than ideal. Long story short, after a quick panic, I managed to squeeze myself back inside through the window and only damaged my pride.
When race weekend finally rolled around we were ready! It’s pretty cool being so close to the action, we could actually hear the cars all the way from home! Now F1 is definitely a sport meant to be enjoyed on TV since you miss 98% of the action in person. But being at the track is a lot of fun. Everyone is hyped up, hearing the cars and seeing them fly by in person is very cool. Throughout the weekend you can watch F1 practice, qualifying and race day. There’s also the Porsche Carrera Cup, F3 and F2 going on as well. After the races conclude for the day there’s live music and a party to wrap it all up. Absolutely worth it, plus we crushed like 25000 steps on Saturday, so it’s essentially a wellness weekend!
Once F1 wraps up, it becomes footy season here in Australia (AFL). The city divides itself into factions of favourite teams and the friendly rivalries begin. People at work are so puzzled that I simply do not care about the AFL, I don’t have a team nor will I watch or follow along. (For fun, I’d encourage you to read the rules for AFL and see what you think!)
I finished off my first term at school with House Athletics (track and field day), parent teacher, some fun chemistry experiments and hot cross buns to celebrate the last day of term.
The Easter weekend was beautiful. We were blessed with good weather, my baking ventures were successful and we had some lovely social meet ups. For being all the way in Australia, we sure felt a sense of home and peace this Easter.
Tomorrow (Wednesday) we catch our flight over to WA. It’s 4 hours to fly from Melbourne to Busselton, we’ll pick up our rental car and then drive up to Perth to kick off the road trip. Can’t wait to explore more of Australia!
We fly to Busselton, drive up to Perth then diagonally down to Esperance and follow the coastline back up and around to Busselton and fly home.
We fly back on the 14th, I’ll have two days of regularly scheduled classes and then I’m off on school camp from the 17-19th. That first week back of term 2 will be hectic!
Lastly, we stumbled on some incredible flight deals to come home for Christmas. We’ve been checking here and there for sales and to get a sense of cost. Everything has been outrageously priced, as it usually is around the holidays, but we found that if we lay over in Honolulu we could cut the cost down by almost half! It was an impulse book, but when you see a good deal you need to grab it ASAP.
School finishes for the year on December 13th and we fly out December 15th direct to Honolulu. We’ll spend a few days exploring Oahu then fly into Winnipeg on December 19th. We’ll do the same flight pattern back and spend NYE in Honolulu and fly back to Melbourne on New Years Day (being that was the cheapest option of course).
Naturally, the Christmas holidays are always busy with a billion things going on, but we’d love to see you if you’re around (plus it saves you 25 hours not having to fly down to Aus)! I know it feels like December is forever away, but if you’re keen to meet up while we’re in town, let us know.
With love,
Alex & Michael
