Monday, March 10, 2008

Australia Bound

That's right. Mandy, the girls and I will all be moving to Melbourne Australia within the month. We have known about this for just over a month now. It didn't really sink in for me until yesterday. I've been in Melbourne on business. Scoping out congregations, places to live, and thinking about being over here perminantly on March 31 gave me a good reality check.

Is it far away or what? Right now Melbourne is 17 hours ahead of Houston time. After we both go through daylight savings that will change to a 15 hours difference. A flight here from LA is about 15 hours. You land in LA before you even took off in Melbourne.



Melbourne is beautiful. It is right on the Yarra river.




At night it is spectacular. For the last week I have been at the Langham Hotel on the left. The Esso building where I work is right behind it in the popular Southbank area. It must be ExxonMobil's nicest building with a built in atrium, in the most popular district in the city, and within 100 yards of the largest train station in town.

The Beaches are phenomenal. We will be going into winter but might be able go swimming before it gets too cold. The girls just got matching rash guards and bottoms. That's right, we'll have a set of pro-surfers before we come back.

Consider this an open invitation for family and friends to come and visit. There are so many nice places to visit. Ski resorts are within 3 hours during the winter and surfing is only 30 minutes away. It is a lot dryer here than Houston and as a result they actually have 4 seasons here. Luckily we won't get snow in Melbourne.

7 comments:

FrugalProfessor said...

Dude, that's crazy. That's certainly going to be a big change from Houston, huh? Is this something that you volunteered to do, or was it more of an assignment?

Cameron said...

Bruce! Congratulations! Now we have a place to stay when we vacation in Aussieland!

The Morgans said...

Wow! That will be quite the adventure. How long will you be there?

Anonymous said...
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Katie said...

It is BEAUTIFUL THERE! I'm so excited for you guys. What an adventure! We are both moving around the same time. We move in on the 27th of March.
wow.. the craziness. Except you guys get the brownie because you are moving across the world. We would love to come visit. If only plane tickets we're so expensive... we'll have to start saving our pennies.

Dmllsutgr said...

Congrats Bruce and Mandy. I know that you will enjoy your new home. I wish you all of the best. Keep in touch. James "Chilly" Russo

Anonymous said...

hey ive live in Houston for 5 year and its going to be a huge difference you kids will have real education!

australia is a place where superstition is so dramatically removed you will be able to save you own money and keep your own thoughts !

you are brave people i can love you and hope you well on your trip to non American reality.


love D