Land Down Under I come from a land down under... la la la.. Goes the Men At Work song. As I've only been here for about 24hrs I can't really tell you whether the lyrics hold true, (I know from past experience that Vegemite doesn't compare to Marmite) but anyhow I will just write a bit about my experiences so far.

We; Zara and myself, landed in the Melbourne airport after a reasonably bearable flight from Malaysia. I have never been through such strict immigration IN MY LIFE. Sniffer dogs, bag searches, questioning. We declared that we were in the possesion of TEA (presents for the various relatives) and they nearly did a full on search of our bags. They didn't. We were lucky. Others had to endure the entire contents of their bags being searched for pieces of wood, seeds, fruits, meats, poultry products (ok fair enough with bird flu around), just because they told immigration they had bought a wooden souvenir from their holiday. When they found these illicit items they just threw them. How frustating.

Well we survived that and in the arrival hall were met by Zara's Uncle Eric. Stepping out of the building was a smack in the face. SO COLD. Clad in thin clothes we nearly froze. The car was toasty =)

Today we planned to wake up at 9 and go to the city for some well deserved (well, not really) retail therapy. That plan went out of the window when we woke up only to find it was 2pm. After some very long and very hot showers we compromised with the nearby mall to check it out (in other words, some good old retailing) and watch a movie. The second Pirates movie was cool. Wait till you see the back of Davie Jones' neck... It looked like an enlarged, squishy spleen. Yummy.

Aussie in a Nutshell:(part1/so far)

• Stripes are in fashion. They are EVERYWHERE. You cannot get away from them
• They drive wayyy too fast. Well, faster than Lanka
• Immigration is a hassle
• Straight legged jeans that are tapered at the bottom are so in. And fucking cool.
• Aussie boys aren't as good looking as everyone says
• The Australian accent is damn funny and I can see it becoming annoying after a month here
• Australian people are way friendlier than the British. Wayyy friendlier
• There are lots of Sri Lankans in Melbourne
• Sri Lankan KFC is better than the KFC here
• The malls are HUGE
• Soy Milk is the shit. I had three glasses yesterday
• The music is so far behind. Hard to controll myself by LL Cool J and J Lo (by far my two favourite artists on the planet) only just came out! What is this I say?!

  ¶ 8:03 pm