As you already know, we spent five days in Sydney after NZ, trying to regroup, get T a green card, and spend some time with our friends Dennis and Ali, whom we met in Vietnam on our honeymoon. Spending time with these two is fun. A testament to their funness is the fact that they are grown-ups, and we met our friends Cara and Ian through them, because Cara is Dennis’ daughter. It’s rare that you meet people traveling who are in a totally different age group, but whom you like so much that you continue a friendship with them, as well as with their children. We met these two on our most expensive outing in SE Asia last time, and it was the best money we ever spent.

Not only are they fun, but they are also excellent hosts. Dennis picked us up in Sydney AT RUSH HOUR when we came in from Christchurch, and drove us all the way back to Manly. Ali hung out with us all day and made us banana bread. It’s unusual to feel completely at home in someone else’s house, but we really did. Not only did we eat their food and watch their movies, but we also cooked dinner for them–a Mexican feast that surely put at least five pounds onto my thighs.

Because they were working a lot of the time, we were on our own. We went to the zoo, had the interview, came back for the visa, and did some shopping. We also had a gorgeous brunch with them on Saturday, where we walked along the water in Manly, past homes of unreasonable proportions. And, we ate crepes. I heart crepes.

The last night we were in town, Dennis and Ali went to the symphony, so we had a dinner in town by ourselves. By the time we ate, we were starving, so we decided to go to a nearby Chinese restaurant. This was a big mistake. We thought we had chosen well when we came into the restaurant and it was full of Chinese people. This was not the case. We ordered what we thought was simple Chinese food, impossible to screw up: spring rolls and sweet and sour pork. This was a terrible idea. Had we been in another, less sophisticated country, I would swear that we had dog for dinner. I’m still not sure what it was, but it tasted like a wet golden retriever smells. We ended up leaving almost all of our food on the plate (save for one chewed up hunk that T deliberately left) and ran for the hills. Back at the house, we had PB+J and tried to forget. $47 later, and I can say it was the worst food I have ever had, and let’s not forget, people–I found fingernails in my milkshake in Cambodia! When you’re longing for fingernails in your food, something is surely wrong.

I’m taking that meal as a sign that it was time to leave Australia. Out of all the beautiful food in Sydney, we ate wet dog. It is definitely time to go.

I am pleased to report that T is now the proud owner of an immigrant visa to enter America…his lifelong dream! Nothing makes a Brit happier than being able to spend the rest of his days in America!

The whole purpose of coming back to Sydney was for his green card interview, which has caused us much consternation over the past six months. It was not a simple process, nor was it cheap. We had to file a million forms at the Melbourne consulate, then send some more to Sydney, and then come to the interview.

Consternation aside, I had a good feeling about this. The people at the Sydney consulate were always surprisingly helpful and polite, unlike their counterparts at other consulates who shall remain nameless. What I didn’t expect is for them to be even more organized and kind than I predicted. We spent about an hour and a half waiting to speak to people, and about 10 minutes in the actual interviews. Our interviewers were charming and not intimidating in the least. I’m not sure how we got so lucky, but I’m glad we did.

The couple before us was half Aussie, half American, and when their visa was granted, the wife did a spontaneous dance right in the office. T later discovered that their flights to LA were on Monday; their interview was on Wednesday. There was a lovely woman in the line behind us from Spain, who told me she’s been waiting for three years to have her interview, and that “her whole life” is in America. She has two sons already living in Miami and they are American. She was missing a couple of forms, so I’m not sure that her visa was granted, but I’m praying it was, because she wanted it so badly.

Seeing her made me really think about how lucky I am to be American. I don’t always appreciate it, and Lord knows our government makes me want to stick a fork in my eye, but seeing people like that lady clarifies it all. We have friends who have been waiting to come to America for years: people like the Spanish woman, who want nothing more than to live there. When I think about that, it makes me appreciate my citizenship and T’s ability to get that visa (which is shockingly easy, as an educated white European). It just makes me so sad for the people who want it so badly and will never have that opportunity. Cross your fingers for that Spanish woman.

One of the things I have wanted to do since I first came to Australia in 2000 is go to the Taronga Zoo in Sydney. This week, I finally did it. I’d wanted to see it anyway, but when I heard that they had a baby gorilla, that was all I needed to know. I’m not generally a huge fan of zoos, but this one was okay. The views of the city were fantastic, but I wonder whether the giraffes really appreciate it. In the end, I got to check it off my list and I even got to see the baby–though it was pretty far away. The zoo itself was pretty good, but I think I still prefer the Melbourne zoo.

You probably read the title of this post and thought I was talking about leaving Melbourne. Ha. I was talking about my sanity in the days before we left Melbourne, obviously.

In our last week in the city, it seemed as though the gods were conspiring to make our last week in Melbourne so hideous that we would never regret leaving. And I think it may have worked.

It started with our guest bed of doom. A bunch of people wanted to see it, but never showed up. Then came Damien, who said he wanted to see it, never showed up, but then called to tell me he was trying to find a way to get it to his house. T and I organized with the beautiful man buying our washer to find a way to get the bed to Damien. Then Damien called and said he wanted to come see the bed again, and never showed. Then we heard nothing from him for 24 hours, when I got an email saying he didn’t want the bed now. So we put the ads back up and immediately got an English girl named Liz, who not only wanted the bed, but wanted it NOW. She was going to come get it that night, but her friend’s ute wasn’t big enough. So we organized with the washer guy again to bring the bed to her house, when she suddenly disappeared as well–this time with no warning. So T spent all of Wednesday organizing with the lovely Swedish girl to have her come pick it up. By the time she came to fetch it, I was ready to burn the frigging thing.

Then there was the man who was meant to come steam clean our carpets 3 hours before our inspection. First, he was going to come at 1, then 12.30, and he finally showed up at 1.30 and tried to tell me that he couldn’t do the job. The man probably weighed 200 pounds and had a rat tail to die for, but I swear I would have wrestled him to the ground myself to get him to clean those damned carpets. I didn’t have to go that far, because I gave him the stinkeye and frightened him into it in the end.

At the same time all this was going on, I was dealing with the Australian Post Office, which is a BEACON OF EFFICIENCY. My mother sent me a package which arrived on Nov. 16. I got a notice telling me it had arrived on Nov. 21. I went to the local post office, where the package was meant to have come on Nov. 21, to be greeted by vacant-eyed Barbara, who I’m not even sure realized she was working in a post office. She half-heartedly looked around for the box, then told me it probably went to the other local office. It was 5pm, after all, and she wanted to go home. Since T and I were leaving Melbourne forever the next day, I implored her to look harder. Even the stinkeye did not work on Barbara (perhaps because she was legally braindead). She called at 6pm to tell me she had found it! It was delivered last week, and I picked it up then! I told her that was a DIFFERENT PACKAGE and she replied, “Oh, that’s why the tracking number is different…”

The next morning, I called the AusPost phone number, to be informed that the package had indeed been delivered to the other office. T and I went to ship our 10 boxes, and I told Barbara the box was there. She stared at me blankly when I asked if she could call and confirm, and then asked “What do I do?” Um, try DIALING THE PHONE AND SPEAKING INTO IT. The guy I usually deal with was helping us with our boxes and made an actual effort to find the box, but still had no luck. I ended up going home and speaking to Jose at AusPost, who put me on hold while he talked to both post offices. Then he told me no one knew where the box was. At this point, our inspection was in about 90 minutes and we had to be out of the apartment forever. Suddenly, my helpful friend calls. IT WAS THERE THE WHOLE DAMNED TIME, which is what I had suspected all along. He thinks they should have an eye test…I think they should just put Barbara out to pasture.

So, the world (or Melbourne) is full of creeps and morons…and that’s what I learned last week. The end.

I work from home, meaning that most days I get very little human contact. As T will tell you, some days I don’t leave the apartment–and even worse, on some days, I don’t leave my pyjamas.

This has meant that I have become one of those excessively (and perhaps even terrifyingly) friendly people. I get overly excited at any form of communication and talk way too much (even more than normal, which I know is difficult to imagine). I have made “friends” at the post office and the gym, and at my myriad holistic doctors.  And of course, I have made a handful of friends on my own, but only a handful.

Suddenly, now that we’re leaving and selling all our stuff, I have met about 800 people with whom I would like to be best friends. There was K, the new girl at T’s office from South Africa, who sat next to me at the trivia night. And F, also from T’s office, who bought our fridge and HAD A CUTE DOG. There was L, the stunning Kiwi girl who bought our bed. There was beautiful N from Sri Lanka, who bought a bunch of our picture frames and our phone. There was the charming and gentle man from Ireland whose name I forgot, who came with some English fool who bought a bureau and some other stuff. There was S, the unbelievably helpful Indian man who bought our washer. And last night, there was D, the sassy Swedish nanny who bought our guest bed and hugged me when she left.

I’m a little sad that it took us leaving to unearth all these cool people and now I will see them again. On the flip side, they helped make our departure more entertaining and smooth, and without them, I would definitely have lost my damn mind.

Of course, T always looks at the bright side. Last night he told me, “At least now I can say I had a Swedish nanny in my bed!” And that, of course, is what’s important.

T and I have no A/C, so when it gets hot, we’re forced to sleep with the doors open. In the spring, the gum tree outside our porch blossoms and 74 million parrots suddenly appear.

These parrots are some of the most beautiful birds I’ve ever seen, and I’m not even a bird person. And let me tell you why: these little bastards wake up at about 5 am and squawk away all friggin’ day long. I’m attaching a video, so you can hear their endless parrot banter, which is causing me to contemplate pouring kerosene over my own head and lighting a match, just to end the pain.

I think I need a BB gun.

This country cracks me up for a variety of reasons, but one of the things I find most amusing is the news. The other day, the cheerleader who got trampled in America was headline news here. What?!

They also cover a lot of other entertaining stories, like this one. I should warn you, it’s rated PG-13. Another way Australia is different from the U.S. is their censorship (or lack thereof). Turn on the TV at noon on any given day, and you’re likely to see all kinds of nudity and hear some highly colorful language that appears only on American cable. Turn on the news, and you’re likely to see Jennifer Hawkins’ naked bum.

My favorite part about the market is the end of the day when the meat and fish vendors start getting desperate and offer 48 tons of food for 5¢. Here’s what the market sounds like:

One of the things I am going to miss most about Melbourne is going to the market. T and I go every weekend, without fail, to buy our food for the week (since we have become master chefs since living here). It’s an experience that’s hard to describe, but the food is seriously gorgeous. Check out some of the stalls, and our bounty. Pay special attention to the 68-inch sausages (Aussies love their snags!). This is what the market looks like:

Today, T and I were buying me a new camera case in town. I was talking about my old one, and I said it had

“too many zips! I just want whip it out and get it done!”

T nodded sympathetically as the man in front of us spun around and stared at me, mouth agape. Somehow, I think he misunderstood.