First Impressions

The air felt surprisingly warm to me, yet there was James dressed in his wool pea coat! I guess if you really aren't used to NY cold anything below 70 will feel freezing to you. But boy did it feel amazing to be outside amongst fresh air. So my first impressions you may wonder?? This country reminds me a lot of Switzerland. The air smells very similar, the topography is very hilly with open fields and farms, but the vegetation reminds me of the Caribbean. Sitting on the left side of the car as a passenger was a bit strange, and im sure ill get used to being able to turn right on red. I did manage to see a few kangaroos on the way home from the airport, but they were sorta far away in a field so i can't really count that.

The trip home from the airport was about 1 hour. However, the first order of business was to stop and look at one of the three sites that James and Brad have been considering for their sports bar. This was in a little town called Greensborough. I find the store fronts to be very industrial looking and very old fashioned. I had been starving since i got off the plane so James stopped at a little bakery to buy me a croissant. Then we headed to Healeysville where James needed to pick up his computer which had been at a shop being serviced. Some of you may recall the fires that Australia had back in Feb/March....Healeysville was very close to where some of those fires had been. Then we continued towards home. At the entrance to James's property, Jill, his mom, had put up handmade signs that said "Welcome Bez" by this point it had just started raining and i managed to get the signs in the car so that we could bring them up to the house.
Once the gate opened, we drove in and to our immediate left is the stable and riding arena or menage as they call it here in Australia. Jill was about to start a lesson, but ran over and gave me a big hug. We continued up the tree lined driveway and on either side of the driveway are large paddocks with horses grazing. The house sits atop a hill overlooking all the pasture and in the near distance there are also some Vineyards. Chandon winery (Moet and Chandon) is right across the street from James's house. And there are other very famous wineries in this region called the Yarra Valley. After unloading the car, James made me a super yummy grilled cheese sandwhich and then i took a shower and changed my clothes. That airplane smell is just awful! I was a little tired but not exhausted, and since it was a rainy day we opted to watch a movie and relax. At 6 in the evening we left for Dinner with Brad and his family in a suburb of Melbourne called Hawthorn. Dinner was at a Moraccan restaurant named Canvas and the food was absolutely incredible. I had swordfish in a spicy sauce with baked prunes ontop. The combination of spice and sweet was so yummy! I managed to stay awake through the entire dinner and we left at about 11pm (9 in the morning NY time). On our way home, we stopped to look at two more sites that James is considering for his bar. One was in Hawthorn and the other in a place called Ringwood. My favorite is the Hawthorn site.
I happily fell asleep on the ride home and managed to sleep until 6:30 am the next morning. Thankfully im not experiencing the same horrible jet lag that i usually experience when we go to europe! The photo above is the view from James's bedroom. The dirty hole to the left of the picture should be a lake, but since Australia has been in an 8 year drought, it's pretty much empty. Thankfully they have gotten some much needed rain the past two weeks and it has been raining off and on all day today.