You Call That An Earthquake?

Last night we had an "earthquake" here in Melbourne. Many people were talking about it at work this morning- I told them they shouldn't get excited unless it's at least a 5.0 on the Richter Scale.

Happy Birthday Ruth!

Tonight I met up with Ruth and her friends for dinner to celebrate her birthday. We ate at the restaurant Cookie on Swanston Street. The place is pretty popular, and they have an extended bar area as well as Thai restaurant. The food was delicious- I had the Pad Thai which was fantastic. Everyone's dishes looked great. The funniest thing was that they delivered the bill in a small children's book. I'll definitely have to go back to try more dishes.

It's Bloody Hot!

It's only the start of spring, and yet today we reached a top of 36.6 degrees Celsius (that's about 98 degrees Fahrenheit). Thank God I work in an air-conditioned office.

Tesselaar Tulip Festival

This afternoon we headed up to Silvan (in the Dandenong Ranges) for the Tesselaar Tulip Festival. Ruth's family runs the place, so we got free admission. It was a beautiful day, and there were lots of people out there to see all the tulips and take part in the food, jazz and wine weekend. In previous years Ruth has worked the festival with the rest of her family- dressed in a full traditional Dutch outfit (including clogs). This year she got to enjoy it without having to work. We wandered around the grounds and admired the huge range of colors of all the different tulips. It really was amazing to see. After a long wait in the ice cream stand line, we sat down at the tables to enjoy the jazz band. Yes, they did do Tiny Tim's "Tip-Toe Thru the Tulips with Me" but I don't think many Aussies have a clue as to who he was. All in all it was a great afternoon in the mountains.