Winds-day and Thirst-day

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9.35pm – Wednesday 21 March
Poor Judith. I have just phoned my mama at 5am her time – tee hee hee. Was just so excited to get internet back that couldn’t contain self. She was admirably coherent and as per her generally talkative nature very well suited to have a chat. And much more cordial than I would have been were some idiotte to phone me in the middle of the night.

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5.04pm – Thursday 22 March
Wow – an inside fair today! And there was much rejoicing in my head. Got no sunburn (although left arm slightly pink from taxi ride). Have scheduled rest time between fair and dinner event this evening. This involves a 1 hour commute both ways, which is slightly silly, and I ought to be packing for 9am flight tomorrow… instead, am blogging. Yes. Always logical is Amrie.

Fair today had over 2,000 students and it was, needless to say, quite tiring, although it is quite energising to be in an active environment rather than a dead one. Obviously.

New plants noticed: hibiscuses (or is that hibisci?) – they are massive trees like crepe myrtle size! Birds of Paradise. And, maybe mentioned earlier in blog that there are thousands of species of eucalyptus – there is one that smells just like citronella, esp. after it rains (it rained on Tuesday, which was very much needed. And it looks like it never rained at all.). It is like walking through lemon air, not just catching a little whiff from one little citronella plant.

Melbourne is in the State of Victoria. Everyone may know this already. However, license plates amuse me in an interested sort of way – some license plates say, ‘Garden State’ (in the US, New Jersey is the Garden State, if memory serves well. This is also a v. good film. And an excellent soundtrack.); some plates say, ‘On the Move’ and this writing is slanty so as to look moving, I suppose; some plates say, ‘The Place to Be’ and this is encouraging as it is good to be in the place where you are, as opposed to being somewhere else. Queensland license plates say, ‘The Sunshine State’ (Florida has this distinction in the US).

Dinner tonight is at the bay, which am looking forward to as have not gotten to see water in Melbourne other than Yarra River so far. However, saw water elsewhere...

Yesterday, though, went on group outing (for fair, of course) to Geelong, which is about an hour south of Melbourne. It is the second largest city in Victoria, but is pretty cosy. There are two campuses of Deakin Uni in Geelong: the one with the winery is Waurn Ponds and the Waterfront campus is ON THE WATER! As one might assume. Sadly, the wine course at Waurn Ponds is being discontinued, which is really a sad thing. The course sounded really interesting involving botany and viticulture. The Waterfront campus is mainly housed in former wool storage houses on the bayfront. As it contains the School of Architecture, the renovation of this space is absol. amazing. Brick walls, diagonal skylight windows along entire length of warehouse space to get southern light only, original wooden floors, and the kicker – sea views on one side. I want to go back to school and be an architect!

Must pack now and be sensible. Third taxi ride of day one hour from now.