Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

In 2007, I had the good fortune to live in Melbourne, Australia for 6 months for a work assignment. Ron, Rachel, Will and I packed up and moved half-way around the globe to beautiful Australia. Annie stayed back home because she was starting her first semester at Michigan Tech. She watched the house, watched the dogs and managed the bills etc.

It's been so long since we returned that I have forgotten a lot about the details. I am so glad I started this blog right after we returned from Chile to make sure everything was still fresh in my mind. I don't know how much old travel history I will blog about. We've been to a ton of great places: French Riviera (another work assignment), New York and all over the Northeast, Albuquerque, NM, California (LA, SF and Napa), Florida (many times), Chicago, Toronto, Cozumel (that goes waaay back). I think I'll just focus on the trips to come!

We lived in a high rise apartment building in downtown Melbourne, called the QV (Queen Victoria). Rachel went to school there - she was in 9th grade and so did Will (he was in 3rd at the time) They both had a great experience. We did so much sightseeing, mostly in and around Melbourne by tram and bus, but a couple of times we rented a car and toured around the state. The Great Ocean Road is amazing. Cathy came to visit us over Thanksgiving and John and Annie came over Christmas and New Year's.

We never got to Sydney, New Zealand or Tazzy, which I wanted to, but by the time my work assignment was over, we were really ready to come home.

The food was pretty similar to the states. There was a lot of Asian food, some English and lots of American type food. Not much of a culture shock to us. Rachel often made 'Meat Pies'. Here is her recipe.

Rachel's Meat Pies:
What you need:
1 lb Ground Beef
2 Packages Puff Pastry, thawed
2 T parsley
1/4 C onion diced
Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
Brown hamburger in a pot, adding onion, parsley, salt and pepper.
Roll out puff pastery and cut out 12 'big' circles and 12 'small' circles. Lay the big circles on the bottom of a cupcake pan.
Put meat mixture in each pastry shell. Cover with the 'small' circles. Use a fork to press the edges in and poke 2 fork holes on top of each.
Bake for 25-35 mins or until light brown.