Easter Weekend - Part 1

Not a lot of new things happened this week. Justin organized and submitted the rest of his documents to apply for actual paramedic registration. I read lots of research papers about decision making. That was essentially the week. Now that Justin's paramedic stuff is further along, we are both feeling a little more relaxed about our overall situation. His ability to work as a paramedic in Australia is about more than just finances. Ultimately it doesn't matter to me if he chooses to work as a paramedic or not. What matters is that its his choice, and not the choice of the regulator in a country that happens to have a lot of opportunity for my career. I don't know what the timeline for paramedic registrations is in Australia, but hopefully it will take less time than his education equivalency decision.

Because of Easter I have the long weekend off. Not only do I get Good Friday and Easter Monday, but Monash also recognizes something called 'Easter Tuesday'. This doesn't appear to be an Australian thing, just something the university does. I would guess its the university piggybacking on the long weekend to give undergrads a bit of a mid semester break. Whatever the reason, I'm not complaining.

Friday felt like the first time since we got here we actually had a day where we did nothing. No tourist attractions, no exploring, no sourcing things for our place or trips to the grocery store. Just a day of hanging out in our own house, getting nothing done. It was fantastic. And, care of Justin's family, we had a box of Easter cookies delivered in the morning. They were gone by supper time.

On Saturday, Justin headed off to a disc golf social day (oh, that's something that happened this week - Justin got a bike), while I went hiking with a fellow PhD student & one of her friends. Its the first time I have hung out with anyone other than Justin in a non-school capacity, and it was very needed. The hike we did was called Werribee gorge. The trailhead was outside of Melbourne to the west (our suburb is in the south east), about an hours drive from my place.

The weather was true to form for Melbourne - at different points along the way it was clear, overcast, misting, and sprinkling. It wasn't too warm though, and we didn't really get rained on. The views along the hike were fantastic. I have been thinking about how to explain the difference between how Nova Scotia looks and how Australia looks. Its not that Australia isn't green. Its just a much lighter shade of green than Canada. There are still lots of trees, but its less forest-y and more like tundra. The hike that we were on had big cliffs and rock cuts, but the rocks were more of a reddish brown colour than the grey shale at home. The soil was also reddish, not quite to PEI levels, but definitely enough to justify my knowledge of the iron ore mining that goes on in the country. If the colours of the Nova Scotian landscape are high contrast green, blue and grey, then the colours of Australia are slightly lower contrast light green, brown and red.

The hike was going really well. It wasn't busy, but there were a decent number of people out. We just started up an incline and noticed some people stopped ahead of us BECAUSE THERE WAS A KANGAROO ON THE TRAIL!!! He was just hanging out on the side of the trail, totally unphased by our presence. I assume the trail is well used, because he didn't really start to move away until we were about 10' from him. I have no idea what the average size of a 'roo is, but he was a bit smaller than a deer. The thing that surprised me most was his front paws. Of course now that I have seen one, it makes sense that kangaroos would have paws instead of hooves, but its never something you think about. Eventually he seemed to get bored with us, and hopped away (which was wild to see), and we continued on our hike. Mercifully, the two girls I was hiking with didn't laugh at me too much for my very excited reaction to seeing a kangaroo in real life.

Now it is Easter Sunday, and we are still only halfway through this monstrously long weekend. Justin & I had been talking for a while about getting out of the city this weekend. Partially because we haven't seen anything outside of Melbourne yet, and partially because if you are away from family on holidays, being somewhere new and novel makes things suck a little less. Unfortunately, we really left our planning to the last minute, and thought everything would be all booked up. But because Monday is only a holiday for some, and Tuesday really isn't a holiday at all, we were able to book something for later in the weekend.

So tomorrow, we get to drive somewhere for the first time since we got here. We are headed to Phillip island - known for its beaches, seal sightings, and (not even kidding about this) penguin parade! Let the weekend of Australian wildlife continue!