Finally, after a fourteen hour flight from LA we made it to Australia. The flight was not too bad it was much better than I thought it would be. The airplane was awesome, there were TV screens for each person on the seats, that was very helpful to pass the time. The airlines made sure that we weren't hungry, they were constantly giving out snacks and meals. When we were landing the people next to us that had a window seat said that they could see the fires burning. We are able to see a haze in the sky from the fires but it doesn't smell like smoke here. The newspapers, magazines, TV,etc. are all reporting about the fires. It is so sad to see all of the devastation that the fires have caused here. Michelle wanted to take us to a real neat little city but the whole city burned down in the fires. The countryside here in Australia looks just like a thought it would. There are tons of eucalyptus tress everywhere. Because Australia has been in a drought for five years there are very a lot of restrictions with water so most of the foliage here looks dead. I can just imagine how gorgeous the foliage would be if there was no drought and everything would be green and lush. The Aussies are very GREEN. They have to put signs in their yards if they are watering to say that they are using stored rain water so no one will turn them into the authorities for using water. There is a noise ordinance after 10:00 pm and because of that Michelle is not allowed to use her air conditioner because it makes too much noise and her neighbor complained to the authorities. I was very worried that it would be too hot to even stand it with the air off at night, but even though it is very hot during the day the nights get cool. We open up the windows and have fans going and it is just perfect.
The kids here are all in school. they just started a new school year the first of February. It seems so weird to have the kids going to school during the summer. All of the kids wear uniforms to school. Each school has a different uniform for their school, from Kindergarten up through high school. I have been surprised to see how many grandparents are helping take care of the children here. It is also surprising for me to see that the fathers are so involved with their children. All of the stores except the restaurants close around 5:00pm except for Thursdays when the stores are open until 9:00 pm. The parents are home from work at a reasonable time and then the families are off doing activities together. Since my only experience with other countries is Latin America, where the father and the mothers do not do things together with the children, it seems very different to me to see so many families together.
The first day we were here we went into the city of Melbourne. It is a really beautiful city with a mixture of old and new architecture. It reminds us of Chicago
