Hi everyone!
So Josh and I were faced with making an impromptu visit home. We had to get our visas done and although we tried to make it work in Canada (first appointment available there was on my due date) and Barbados (Damn Zika virus), ultimately we decided the easiest thing would be to travel back to Melbs to do it there. This time in particular it was difficult to leave California because of the amazing summer weather we were having.
But not to worry, once we landed in wintry Melbourne, it was easy to find all the things we loved.
Josh’s first cappuccino 
My first cappuccino 
Brunch! 
Brunch!
Our first thing planned for the trip was our visa appointments at the US consulate on St Kilda road. The whole thing was exhausting and I was on my feet from 9 am to 12:30 pm. You can also imagine the dirty look I gave the security guard when halfway through waiting I asked for a toilet and he told me to just continue waiting and eventually there’ll be one at the very end of it. Not to worry, Josh held my place in the line while I roamed outside to find a toilet. *Sigh* bureaucracy.
But once that was done, we could finally move around and see family. First up, a trip to Albury. This time though, the drive was not as nice.
Josh had to make sure he had his trusty driving aid to get us through:
Albury was absolutely lovely. A little cold but we had a great time catching up with Josh’s Nan, parents and friends. Josh even took me to see the iconic Noriel Park. That was where you went swimming and all the cool kids (not Josh) would jump off the highest trees into the Murray river (which looked dangerously shallow so good on Josh for not doing that).
Along with Noriel Park, Josh took me to another iconic institution: The Bended Elbow!
Not sure why there is a huge coat of arms at the front because when you walk inside, its very modern and fancy:
Another very important thing we did, which Josh was putting off doing: get Josh the whooping cough shot!
While at Albury, we checked out the local nearby towns. This time, we chose Bright to spend the day at. The weather really turned itself on for our drive there:
When we got to Bright, we had a lovely lunch at Tomahawks where we ate way too much good food.
After lunch, we walked around checking out the town. It had a lovely creek:
… and the cutest little cinema.
And then when we wanted to get out of the cold, we stopped off at the Bright brewery where one of us got to drink beer in front of the fire and the other one of us got to drink ginger beer.
That pretty much marked the end of our travels in Albury. After this point, we travelled back to Melbourne where we hung out most of the time. I had a baby shower which I’ll share in another post. BUT while in Melbourne, we managed to catch an exhibition that I was totally bummed to hear I might be missing out on when in the US: the Terracotta warriors!
The exhibition was really really cool.
This was a cool little horse and cart assembly:
It looks small but I took another picture for perspective:
We also caught some other exhibitions while at the Gallery.
And that’s it. All the fun times we had in Melbourne. And just like that our trip was over and bags were packed.
And while this is usually where I would sign off, let me tell you about the flight back. I was flying and almost at the end of 7 months of my pregnancy. I couldn’t get comfortable but really in the grand scheme things, got more sleep than I was expecting. What was an absolute nightmare though after 14 hours on a plane was to get straight off the plane and walk into this:
Yes that’s right, that is the line to customs. It was 2 HOURS LONG!! Josh and I stood in that crawling line for two freaking hours and thank god we thought to go to the toilet first. And then when we reached the carousel, they had already taken our bags off and dumped them in a pile somewhere because we had been so delayed in collecting them. I can’t imagine if someone had to make a connecting flight! But that’s it, rant over and Josh and I made it back to Oakland safe and sound.
Talk soon,
Sim & Josh
