The New-er Digs

Third time is hopefully a charm for life in Australia, only time will tell. We have now completed our move into the new apartment and thus far it seems like it'll work - a bit of a squeeze but there are only a few boxes still searching for a home. We're now into a one-bedroom plus study unit at The Hallmark at Domain Interchange on St. Kilda Road. The area is a mix of nice and seedy - the Botanical Gardens are directly across the street, but a few of Melbourne's brothels are behind the building so we try to only focus on the green side of the street. The location does put us closer to South Melbourne Market, the CBD and both of our jobs, so it is quite good in that respect.

For the other life-updates, we've got quite the laundry list as we try to stay busy busy busy around here! Josh has now started a photography class through CAE in the city - he's having a blast learning more about f-stops, film speed and the new toy called 'white balance'! Many thanks to everyone for the help on Kristi's business development work and the feedback on 'Happy Hammies.' It was really good to get more ideas and input - who knows where it will end up! We're also very excited for Heidi to now be joining us in Melbourne for the next few weeks. She has already started adjusting from the warm of Arizona, mainly with the help of many of our sweatshirts and jackets! And last but not least we can actually tick one class off the list - we're both now proud PADI-certified Open Water scuba divers. Successfully completing our open water dives this weekend (in 10-degree water) was a challenge, but we're now free to explore 70% of the earth to a depth of 18 meters. We may look into doing an 'Advanced Open Water' course to allow us to dive to 30 meters, but it'll wait for a few months while we get more used to this first step. No pictures from this round of scuba, but be prepared to get very used to the creatures that live under the piers of Melbourne!