Australia by the Numbers

We just passed the one year mark living in Melbourne (August 25th to be exact). While contemplating myriad witty ways to quantify or qualify our last 12 months, we found ourselves counting the number of things we’ve done and seen, so in the end we just figured we’d let the statistics speak for themselves.

Herewith, then, some facts from our 1 year (or so) in Australia:

Number of Australian states visited: 4. NT, NSW, VIC and TAS.

Number remaining: 1. A person really needs a reason to visit Canberra.

Number of other countries visited: 2. New Zealand and Singapore.

Number of dents put on the Commodore: Marlys = 1; Matt = 1

Number of new bikes bought: 2. That’s fair…

Number of flats Matt’s bike has picked up: 2.

Number of flats Marlys’ bike has picked up: 0. Life is not always fair.

Number of miles Matt’s flown: 106,423.

Number of movies Matt has seen on an international flight: 36

Number of movies Matt has seen in an actual move theater: 2.

Number of trips Marlys has made to Healesville Animal Sanctuary: 6.

Number of trips Marlys has made to Healesville Animal Sanctuary since we became members: 0.

Number of wineries visited: about 30. Firm count is a bit hazy for some reason.

Number of footy matches: 5.

Number of cricket matches: 2

Number of visitors: 11.

Number of jars of Vegemite purchased: 5.

Number of boxes of Tim Tams eaten: 6

Number of boxes Tim Tams brought to the US: 23.

Number of times we’ve heard the following in actual conversation:

• “G’day, mate”: 0
• “Shrimp on the barbie”: 0
• “Crikey!”: 1. It was just yesterday.
• “Fair dinkum”: 1
• “Things are so cheap in Melbourne!”: a very big zero.

Number of scuba dives: 0. This is disappointing.

Number of new friends: a lot.

Number of US friends/ family missed: all.