Heading Down Under: Australia 2014

After an overnight flight from LA to Melbourne, we found our way to our Hotel on St. Kildas Road in a lovely area of town across the river from the downtown area.  We were ready for a shower before we met up with distant cousins who live here.

Marilyn and Louis Peipert have been married 40 years and have moved to Australia from South Africa

31 years ago.  Louis is an accountant who works for a family business, and Marilyn works for

a jewelry   company. They were kind to meet total strangers who are distant cousins and to show us their town. We enjoyed getting to know them and what they shared with us about life "down under."

 we went to a great place for lunch that is owned by South Africans right on the river.  we then walked past food kiosks celebrating the Chinese New Year and into a hotel complex where the celebration continued.  Year of the horse.

We then went to the 88th floor of the Eureka Building which is the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere.  Quite a view!! 

Note the section on the the top floors of the building: they  are coated in solid gold to honor the gold miners who died protesting and a red streak connoting their blood. In the 1850s there was a gold rush here in Melbourne much like in California. There was a massacre of protesting miners in Eureka who were protesting oppressive taxation without representation. This crisis led to public support for the miners and to reform that led to voting rights for white male citizens.....

there is much that is done in Melbourne to work towards reconciliation and to make up for past disrespect of groups.  The gold miners mentioned above, and the Aboriginals whose land was stolen from them, whose children were kidnapped and put into slavery and whose culture was suppressed. After a good night's sleep, we will learn more about Aboriginal culture and history.