He's a mover and a shaker

Ninja figured out pretty quickly after getting here how to open up the specific drawer that holds all the cat toys in it. Every once in a while, he will open it up and pick something out and play with it. I love the idea that he makes the conscious decision, "I want to play now" and then takes action to make it happen. It's almost like he's sentient. 

Red Red Wine

On Sunday there was a wine tasting event in a park in Watson's Bay. I took the ferry there with a friend and met a few other mutual friends and had a nice afternoon in the park with some low key live music. Scarlett Bubbles  was the winner, as far as I'm concerned. I actually bought a bottle, which I only do if I really like something. 

In current events, I have heard a little bit of the news about another unfortunate shooting in the US. After this, I looked up online how many mass/school shootings have happened in the US since I left, and the number is close to 40. I looked up the same stat for Australia and there hasn't been one since 2012. I think The Onion sums it up well with the title to this article: 

‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens

I won't talk at great length about this or get into politics, however, all I can say is I do sometimes feel safer in a country that has more deadly animals than any other than in my home country working at an educational institution.

I have been pondering a somewhat related thought lately. What am I supposed to do with news, good or bad, that I hear from home? The internet makes it very easy for us to stay in contact now even though we are across the world from most family and friends, and yet sometimes it is nothing but a tease. We hear about something really fun that we missed, or someone new got engaged or is now pregnant or had a baby and we know we won't be able to see them for a year. We hear news about someone getting sick or a friend's family member dying and we can only do so much about it to "be there" for those people. 

I thought at one point that coming back to the states after this time abroad would be like the other times I left my hometown to travel for extended periods. Things would be a little bit different but pretty much go back to feeling normal after a short period of time. I'm starting to think that this time there might be enough changes that when we get back it really won't be the same. I suppose only time will tell, and I suppose it doesn't really matter, since it's something we can't control anyway. I can't expect to return and press play as thought everyone was on pause the whole time we were gone. And when we go back, I'm sure we will be different too somehow. Hopefully, for the better.

Michael is of the school that I shouldn't check social media as much as I do, since he doesn't pay much attention to it. I mainly check it at the beginning and ending of the day so that I can feel like I at least have an idea of what is going on with everyone, which I don't think is too much. It certainly makes me think more about everyone at home than I would if I wasn't looking at status updates, for better or for worse. 

Anyway, contrary to the title song of this post, I think I should end on this note:

Sensory Overload

Today Michael and I did the usual Centennial bike ride and then went to Bondi Beach to check out the organic farmers market. We tried some yummy/healthy treats, walked along the beach and cliff, and then of course had some Messina gelato. Today's special was Heisenberg: blueberry yoghurt gelato with crustallised violets. No, I didn't spell crystalized and yogurt wrong, that's how they spell them here.

In the evening we went our separate ways. Michael went to his frsbee team's end of season party. I went to check out the Vivid Festival. The Vivid Festival is when the harbour area becomes so crowded one can barely walk. Also, lots of buildings are lit up with an on-going light show. Even the ferries are lit up. The people that do the bridge climb wear special light vests that blink according to their heartbeat, so you can tell who is freaking out and who is keeping a cool head. Here are a few pics...

Hooray for free and accessible art!

Yay!

Two happy surprises today...

I came home and received a care package from my friend at home complete with tea, homemade soap, mini red solo cups, and other little American-themed treats. This is the first thing Michael did with the mini cups...

The other good thing that happened today was we got 4th place at trivia tonight, which means we won another free bottle of wine for the team next week. Why 4th place gets a prize at all, I have no idea, but I'll take it. 

Socialiting

I write as dinner is cooking on the stove.

This week was a typical work week; nothing much to report. Friday evening I went out to have a delicious Thai dinner with some coworkers in Newtown, an inner west suburb with lots of restaurants, pubs, etc. We are a very international bunch - represented at dinner were the US (me), the Philippines (part me, plus another coworker), China, Nepal, UK, Korea, Indonesia, and India. None of the actual aussie coworkers were able to make it, oddly enough. I don't get much time to talk to a lot of them during the day, so it was nice to get to know some of them better. Since we have a blue button-down shirt for our uniform, which some of us were wearing, we got asked if we worked for Harvey Norman (the Australian equivalent of Best Buy), which apparently happened the last time they all went out too. 

Saturday we went for a typical bike ride through Centennial Park. There was some kind of festival going on in part of the park with live music so this time we were serenaded with "Killing Me Softly" as we ate our sandwiches, which was kind of random but nice.

Saturday afternoon we met up with some frisbee friends who were doing a pub crawl in Newtown. I hadn't been to Newtown ever before, and now this weekend I've been there twice. It was a very easy-going, yet punctual pub crawl (two adjectives that don't usually go along with that kind of thing, or with each other). 

From there we headed back to our neighborhood for a birthday get-together at our trivia couple friends' apartment. We just thought we would just have a drink or two, have a little conversation, and then head home. We ended up staying there pretty late and having great time with them and their friends. The food spread was amazing since the couple actually sells some organic treats at one of the local farmers' markets - cheeses, fruits, veggies, dips, chocolates, and even a passionfruit goji berry vegan cheesecake. 

Today we ran errands all over town and the daylight just disappeared all too fast. At one point, when we were near Central Station, we found ourselves surrounded by thousands of people in a rally/march against the government budget cuts. Coming from the DC area, this kind of thing seems like business as usual. Conveniently, the march was headed in the direction we were, so we started walking with them for just about a block. I assume we are now in some international stock footage. 

That about sums it up. More weekend, please.

Another Autumn Weekend in Sydney

Michael got a much better picture of a rainbow lorikeet, and he was able to get close enough to take a "portrait" of a laughing kookaburra. 

Well, hello there!

This afternoon we met up with some friends, had some food and drinks at the Hotel Bondi, and then tossed the frisbee on the beach even though it was too dark to see it. We topped that off with some Messina. Today's special was the Strawberry Cream vanilla bean gelato with strawberry cream cake, glazed with strawberry jam.

Happy Mothers' Day to all the moms out there! Since we don't get the pleasure of spending the day with our moms across the ocean, we'll be out playing some ultimate.

This post has been brought to you by the letter B.

B is for bowling, biking, birds, and bats.

This weekend we went lawn bowling on Saturday night at the local club a block away. There were some familiar faces and some new ones. Since it's autumn, it has been getting quite chilly at night, but they had the tall gas heaters to keep us warm. 

We went bike riding in Centennial Park again. Here are some of the birds we now see there pretty regularly:

Sulfur Crested Cockatoo

Australian Pelican 

(Ronny feeding) Long-Billed Corellas

Rainbow Lorikeet

Purple Swamphen

We also found a colony of easily over a thousand flying foxes (their bodies are about the size of a small cat or dog). Imagine a grove of over 100 trees that all look like this:

It's kind of scary but also kind of cool.

 

Special appearance by the letter G, for gelato. After our ride, we made a stop at our favorite gelato place, Messina , which I have mentioned before. This time I tried one of their specials,  A Greek Tragedy , which consists of "wild flower honey gelato smashed with honey soaked loukoumades and candied walnuts". Michael had another one of their specials, Really Salty Nuts , which consists of "peanut butter and caramel gelato with salted caramel swirls and caramel shortbread". I already liked the gelato, but I think now I'm always going to have to try something off the special menu because both were really really good, and they were only $4 each which is pretty good for around here.

All in all, it was a B-eautiful weekend.