What the heck is the Melbourne Cup?

"The race that stops the nation"

"Megan, I'll tell you right now that nobody is working anywhere in Australia. Everyone is watching this race."

Paul and I at the Melbourne Cup party! Dresscode is fancy/summer dress and a fancy hat. This is all I brought and Paul loves my hat!

So ladies and gentlemen,

May I present to you - The Melbourne Cup winner! He wasn't the jockey/horse that I pulled out of the hat, but Sue, my host mum was the lucky winner at our party! I guess I'm getting ahead of myself...

So what is this thing?
When I was at the Brisbane airport someone mentioned it to me and I thought they were talking about a sailing race...haha!
Every year, in Melbourne, there's a huge (end of the season?) horse race. It's the fashion event of the year for Australia and all the women wear their best dress and hat. Think...Oscars red carpet, but throw in sunshine, horses, bets, and wicked hats...plus some monarchy here and there. Tradition states that people throw parties, get dressed up, place bets, drink champagne, eat and be merry. Oh, didn't I mention the race was at noon on a Tuesday. Yeah...what?!

Everyone places $1 (AUD) into the pool and then randomly draws a horse from a hat. The person who has the winning horse "sweeps" and gets all the cash. So, we enjoyed champagne (a few glasses), food and then sat down to scream at the screen as those horses races their butts off to the finish. Of course, the two horses I picked, named "Older Than Time" and "Unusual Suspect" were not the best in the pack.
After all the excitement was over we enjoyed a lovely lunch outside (our "Bring a plate") and more champagne. For dessert I enjoyed my first ever pavlova...delicious. I will be making this from now on.

Tongue out like a true gentleman. He loves my hat so much that every time he comes into my room he puts it on and marches around the house! 

After all the excitement (and clean up), I went to the shopping centre close by to try and work out a mobile phone. Of course I got there and realized I forgot my Canadian cell...DUNDERHEAD. I bought a $2 SIM card off Vodaphone, but lovely Rogers has locked my cell phone to their service. I will therefore treat myself to a new phone and one that has the ability for WhatsApp an app that my sisters and dad use to text for free. I went to KMart and bought some cheap chocolate to make myself feel better. Please note, however, that I've adopted a chocolate regimen. Now that I'm posting it on the world wide web, I have to follow it! I've got a bag of treat size Dairy Milk bars and I am allowed one per day per workout. Today I worked out twice so I had two! :) This is merely to help control my chocolate addiction or I would gobble up the whole bag.

Today was another SCORCHER. It's definitely summer here, at least thirty degrees. This morning I lazed around in bed and didn't get up and going until 6:30am so when I finally got on my run I didn't finish until 7:30am and it was far too hot. Not that I'm complaining my fellow winterized Canadians! I went to the gym this evening with my one and only friend so far (there are really only families in this neighbourhood), Sarina from Germany. She is the au pair that had my position before I got here and she's fantastic. I'm soon going to be part of the Perth Au Pair group and all the au pairs are meeting in the city this Saturday night! Maybe I'll have more than one friend my age...

But I will always have a friend in Paul!

Goodnight, it's way past my bedtime!! More soon, I promise. BEACH THIS WEEKEND!

With love,
Megan