Thinking Allowed: Farewell Australia, Aloha USA

We had a last fling with Australia before embarking on adventures in other lands. Our five days in Melbourne lived up to Melbourne expectations - while admittedly the twenty degree weather was hard for us all to handle after fijis hot humid climate we were nonetheless able to enjoy ourselves. We caught up with lots of old friends from Melbourne and abroad (Sophia defected to another family for three days and took a lot of coaxing to come back) and gorged on amazing hipster food like arepas, Nutella crepes and heavenly flat whites. We stayed in a part of town we'd never visited before, which meant a whole new set of explorations including White Night, a.k.a. elbowing our way through a throng of 300,000 Aussies with Zadie and Aurora at midnight while light shows flashed on buildings overhead and Israelis played on those dimpled drum things. As usual, we had a great time in Melbourne and our visit was a delightful parting from Australia.

After ten and a half hours on Jetstar - when we would have preferred to be asleep but instead had to catch up on movies and reading to keep ourselves sane while we tended to semiconscious children - we arrived bleary-eyed in Oahu at 7am on a gorgeous blue-sky day. We haven't been in the US for two years and there was a bit of culture shock when we first heard that twangy American accent which was so abrasive to our mellow Australian ear. Aurora said, "they sound so weird, but I sound normal to myself!" Our breakfast burrito was made with about seven eggs and the Safeway depressed us with its endless aisles of sweet packaged goods. Jakob narrowly avoids a crash every time he turns into the left lane of the road. And people are overtly friendly in this weird American way...Australians are friendlier than American people but don't just talk to you all the time. Americans just love talking to everyone! And are vocally friendly, whereas Australians are maybe more respectful?

But Hawai'i is otherwise gloriously easy to get used to. There are wrasses to snorkel with, lighthouses to hike to, blowholes to get doused by, and our house even faces onto an extinct volcanic crater with 1,100 old railroad ties you can climb to the top! So if we just avoid Walmart and Starbucks, and readjust to the cheeriness level, this promises to be a lovely month in Hawai'i.