Victoria Market

It's Thursday here in Melbourne. The conference is over and our life feels somewhat surreal. The routines we established over the past week changed today, and I think we both feel a little disoriented. Instead of eating brekkie and running down to the convention centre to catch a workshop, we slept in, started thinking of packing and set our sights on a different part of town.

Today we took a little shopping trip to Melbourne's Victoria Market. It's quite a collection of a cross between a food market and all kinds of other vendors. Lots of people - visitors and locals - shopping for a mix of weekly needs, souveniers or a whole assortment of goods. It was quite an experience. The market is located just a bit north of the city and only a 15 minute walk.

The locals here have a saying that Melbourne has 4 seasons in a day. Today was a good example. The day started off nicely - a bit overcast but pleasant and warm. By 2pm, the sun was blazing hot. By 4pm it was raining hard and the temps had dropped. You never quite know what you're gonna get here.

A few observations about Melbourne. First, this is a clean city. There's very little trash anywhere. Maybe we're missing the dumpy spots, but wherever we went, the city seemed quite tidy. Secondly, the Asian influence is huge. The population of people from Asian countries is just amazing. I don't know if they are visitors or residents, but it is quite wild to see the faces, skin tones and languages of so many different nationalities from Asia. Speaking of language, what is also wild is to hear everyone speaking with the same accent. I might expect someone who looks like they're from Thailand or Cambodia to speak another language and they break out with a thick Aussie accent that I can't even understand...

OK, we just read today's local paper - honestly the first time I picked up a paper in a week. One of the headlines is that the Obama administration confirmed sending some secret reps to the Parliament to talk with religious leaders about Islam. Apparently they met on Monday and had a very good meeting. Never knew the parliament exerted that much influence.

It's hard to believe that our trip is ending. Melbourne has become so central in our daily lives and the city and landscape have quickly become so familiar. There's much we will miss about this place and what happened here...and we miss our life back home. We miss Jonah and Kateri, the family, all our friends. I know I am grateful to have been here with Lynne. Were I not able to ride her coat tails to Melbourne, this wouldn't have happened for me. But beyond that, she's just a great partner on the journey, and it is always so powerful to have these experiences together. It's been fantastic to get away with her, and we feel so blessed to have had this time together. Thank you to all those who made this possible for us.

Gonna try to get a good night's sleep. Long plane ride tomorrow. We leave at 1pm in Melbourne and get in at 10am in L.A. Neck pillow. Airplane food. Movies. Deodorant. Journal.