You've got to love homeowners that tell you to "Help yourself there's spirits in the cabinet". Sitting here in our new place drinking a Rum & Coke and reflecting on the start of our time here.
We arrived in Melbourne after 20 hours of flying plus a 5 hour layover in Shanghai. That might be the worst travel plan I have ever made and I, unfortunately, inflicted that poor planning on my family. I say poor planning because the actual flying time from Honolulu to Melbourne is approx. 9.5 hours. However, without really looking at the flights I had booked I had inadvertently signed us up for the circuitous route of Honolulu to Shanghai/Shanghai to Melbourne. Why such a route exists without warnings of "This is a terrible idea - don't book this crazy long flight" I have no idea. Regardless, the flights had been booked and we couldn't change them.
We left the North Shore of Hawaii 4 hours before our scheduled flight and felt that was a lot of time since we had practiced the drive to Honolulu. However, we had never practiced in morning traffic, and we had especially not practiced it with several accidents on the morning commute. This stressed me out and I was already stressed about the travel prospects of the day. We finally got to the Thrifty's rental car place without having hit a gas station on the way but figured it was better to get them to fill it up since we were already running later than expected. We hopped on the shuttle to the airport and it was just us and one American guy who I think was military. He heard what airline we were flying and proceeded to bombarde us with a multitude of horror stories of East China Airlines. It was not what we needed to hear when we a) were stressed about running later than we planned and b) were stressed about the long flight with 2 kids under 5.
We got to the airport having tried for several days to book Emily her own seat on these two flights and failing (when we previously went to the airport no one was there for ticket sales, the travel agent number they gave me didn't work and even my mom tried from Canada and couldn't). We asked about getting her a seat and the flight to Shanghai was not full so that wasn't a problem. They were, in fact, very nice which was contrary to what the shuttle guy had said. They also seemed to have the international problem of not being able to book an infant ticket. We had this problem with Cian several times as well but since we didn't have that problem on the way to Honolulu we thought it had been fixed in the time between international infant voyages. This was not the case. It was about an hour of system issues before we got the infant ticket and they put us through the fast track at security.
Our flight to Shanghai was largely uneventful. The flight was not full so we had lots of space. Cian didn't sleep at all and Emily slept for about an hour (out of 10) and the rest of the time she was very busy. All in all, things went well.
The Shanghai airport is pretty terrible. I've been to a lot of airports in my time. Schipol in Amsterdam is lovely and probably one of the best in the world. This was no Schipol. Come on China, I know that you have a one-child policy but perhaps that one child would want to play in the airport. Even though there was no entertainment for the kids they seemed to be great entertainment for the people of China. The kids, particularly Emily, were very popular with lots of smiles, waves and photographs. I thought my dad and I were popular in China until I brought Tinkerbell with us. Salespeople came out of their stores and people asked me if they could take pictures. She was quite the celebrity.
They changed our gate and we had to do our 5th escalator with the stroller (seriously they don't need elevators in Shanghai airport? what is that about?) This flight was completely packed so no extra seat for Emily despite my offering to pay for one. They took us on a bus to the airplane where Cian waved and welcomed everyone on. This bus was magical because it made Emily fall asleep after a ridiculous amount of time awake. She was so exhausted she was still asleep when I took her out of the stroller and stayed asleep for 5 glorious hours. Cian slept that same amount of time so for 5 hours Keith and I were in heaven. Then she woke up but was exhausted and this time was not enjoyable. I finally rocked her in the back of the plane and got her to sleep. On the way to the back of the plane I saw a few empty seats so I was annoyed that someone had to sit in the row with our family. Mostly I was annoyed for them but also when they vomited continuously on descent I was annoyed for us. Anyway, we survived and made it to Melbourne.
Everytime I go through Passport control/Customs in a new country I expect this crazy interrogation and practice my answers. I think that might be a little of my OCD shining through but it is what it is. There was no such interrogation in Melbourne - they were lovely. Once outside (where we could see our breath at 15 degrees!) the taxi queue was the most organized taxi system I have ever seen in a city. It was impressive. Our taxi driver; however, was not. He did not seem to have any concept of Melbourne or how to use a GPS I basically had to program the GPS and give him instructions to get us to our townhouse.
Now we're here at Cornish Lane. Keith learned that this area of Melbourne used to be a cattle stockyard. You can tell in some of the posts in the parks and the high school looks like where they used to house cattle. Also our house backs on to the "Stock Route" bike path. For those of you that don't know the house is owned by an OBGYN registrar and her partner and she left us a lovely note with all sorts of info and maps and metro cards, etc. Her mom also stopped by in the morning to make sure we were ok and took Keith to the grocery store. She also left us a bunch of food so I was able to feed my famished kiddos right away. Based on her stuff and her library (you can tell a lot about someone by their library) I think we would be fast friends and they have been lovely. The house is also really nice. There is lots of nice furniture and finishings in the house - my parents will love it. :)
Cian was so exhausted that night since he had only had 5 hours of sleep for well over 24 hours and he climbed into bed and fell asleep mid-sentence and snored so loudly it was reminiscent of his Uncle Paul. Emily slept in the pull-out on the trundle bed like a big girl. Al's mom said she thinks she has a pack and play so that will come in handy on nights when Em isn't so exhausted and we have to put her down in a cage so she stays put. We were so exhausted I think we were all asleep by 8pm.
Our first morning Em was up by 0430 and Cian by 0530 but as jet lag goes that was pretty decent. I had booked my visa medical for 0815 downtown and figured walking would be the easiest way to get there so I navigated the one hour walk to get there and saw a lot of the city as the walk took me right downtown. At the medical I had my first ever Chest X-ray and I had to get reading material and sign a consent for an HIV test which is something we haven't done in Winnipeg for years (because a opt-in policy as opposed to an opt-out policy increases the stigma surrounding HIV). The medical part was fine except my initial BP was 145/85! When I saw the doctor he rechecked it after chatting for a bit and it was back down so that was good. He was an older doctor and wanted to chat for a while about medicine in Canada and Australia and his new amplified stethoscope. He was very sweet. Hopefully my medical processing doesn't take too long so that I can start working.
This afternoon we walked to the grocery store Keith had gone to and through Newmarket area into the Royal Park to Royal Children's Hospital where I'll be working. Just to get a sense of the neighborhood and how far walking distances are. We saw cockatiels in Royal Park which was particularly exciting since Cian and I had been reading about them.
Now the kids are in bed and Keith and I are enjoying the living room especially since we found out that we have central heat and aren't FREEZING (it was zero degrees when we woke up and we have spent the entire day around 11 degrees inside which has been chilly). Yay heat!
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