Cups

Matan said we should have written down every single thing we’ve done, so we’d remember and learn for next time.
I said “hello? 👋 remember my blog? I write!”
And then I said “next time..?”

And then I went to look back at my blog and I saw that I actually haven’t recorded properly where we’ve been, at least for the last month in Australia for sure.
So here’s to rectify the situation: (for next time 🥹)

Firstly I haven’t even mentioned the fact that we had about 16 hours in Singapore. I highly recommend!
Yes, everyone says the airport in Singapore is great, we did most of the things you can do there like the butterfly reserve, the movie theatre, the stores.. great stuff, sure.
But I really recommend the day out that we did:
Singapore is a smallish country, 30 times smaller than Israel, and about as “old” history wise. It is magnificent!
They put so much effort into cleanliness and the architecture feels almost futuristic on the one hand with gardens on roofs and structures that look like they should fall but also some vintage stuff and it just feels so.. OCD friendly lol
We went to the famous gardens there gardens by the bay and that was perfect for the girls: a park and a water park and ice cream: the works! Even when it randomly rained on us and after five minutes went back to hot, it was great.
And it was also for the perfect amount of time.
Then when we got to Melbourne we felt like we’re continuing our cleanliness tour (but maybe I just felt this way cause we were in India 3 months lol).
And the first strongest feeling I felt when we arrived at my grandmas house was “I’m home”.
Forget the fact that it technically was my home for a couple of whiles, it felt nice to be surrounded by family and have a “home base” to return to even when we went on day trips or long trips.
The first week we were kinda getting settled and toured locally: frequently visiting Caulfield park, science works, MoPa (museum of play and art), Gesac (the indoor waterpark and gym), and organizing admin stuff as they call it.
And lots of family!
If there’s one positive thing to be taken from the war is that my fam was “stuck” here in Melbourne for Pesach (yay for me, less for them..)
So the week before Pesach we let Savta have the house to herself for Pesach cleaning (our girls would only make messes and not give her peace and quite) and we ventured to Phillip island (we were debating about going to Tasmania but the weather was already too cold to go more south, another minus for arriving late in Melbourne, you can read more about it 2 posts back).
Phillip island was great! Lots of great things for kids and we were able to make the most of it even in rain and not-warm-enough clothes. We saw pelican feeding and highland cows and milking of cows and shedding of sheep and koalas (!) and “amazin things” (which hasn’t really changed since I went there as a kid 20 years ago, yes, I’m old enough to say that apparently haha)
and beaches and lots of nature walks of course, the reason most tourists go the island: penguins!🐧
Which I love and the whole family loves
But I gotta tell you, the tourist attraction itself: overrated as an adult. Amazing for the kiddies!
It’s a little pricey, you wait in freezing cold for a handful of penguins to come out of the water and waddle to their nest.
Maybe I was expecting the thrill I had when I was little, and the girls couldn’t stop talking about them, but it was cold and late and we also saw a penguin a couple of hours before just randomly in nature, so maybe I would recommend looking in nature first and only go to this attraction if nature fails you 🙃

After Phillip island we headed for chag with the fam. It was fun doing something that we do every year somewhere else, but certain things feel the same. The warm home feelings surfaces again and I love my aunts and uncles (shoutout if you’re reading this 😘)

We even went with my aunt, uncle and cousin to Hastings where they have a great place and we spent a long weekend together!
We went to Big Goose and saw little geese and many animals and we did a tractor ride, twice for Gabis dollhouse 😉
we went to cool- I ment hot springs that Savta and the new Saba joined us, we went ofcourse to some indoor playrooms for the girls when it rained, we rode scooters when it was nice and I even had half an hour to myself to go get used jeans for 6 bucks at a great op shop 🙂

I once heard I podcast (yes, I’m old enough for podcasts too) that your time is devided into 4 main groups:
Social life, personal life, work life and family.
And they fill just like cups.
You have a certain amount of drink and if you fill too much in one cup there won’t be enough to fill the others. But the liquid can be balanced out throughout life, don’t worry 🙂
I’m mentioning this because
The past months since the beginning of our trip, except for the month of gan in Goa, our family cup was filled to the brim and the rest were kinda neglected, parched..
And the girls were also thirsty to have some friends their own age, even though cousins are great, they’re a generation older to be honest..

So we decided against all the bureaucracy, to put them into kinder and crèche (gan).
So any spare moment that Matan and I had we either spent filling out forms, finding an apartment, getting some transportation (like a car or bikes or tram) just to try and help the girls get into kinder.

And we did it!
They start Monday 🥰
And no, it’s actually not for us to have some free time (this time 😉 we really are having a blast, especially because we’re learning the tricks of the trade or travel much more)

We are starting to get the hang of hanging out all the fam together 🥰
It’s nice to have that cup full for the first time since October 7th.
No complaints here 🙂
But it’ll be nice to fill some other cups as well now, especially for the girlies.
I hope the girls social cups will fill nicely and this will build them up, will keep posted more now, also with the job hunting for the work cup😇
Wish me luck! And send some liquid over please 😉🙃😇🤣