M.I.A.

In 24 hours I will be on a flight back home to the states. It will be a whirlwind 1.5 week trip where I will attempt to see lots of friends and family and celebrate a few special events.

This is one of the easiest trips I've had to pack for. Since I left a considerable amount of stuff back at my parents' house, if I forget anything, there's a 99% chance there's another one at their house or I can very easily get a replacement. I'm not looking forward to the long flight by myself, sitting in a middle seat in economy (compared to getting to fly to Australia business class). Traveling like that is just going to be a necessary evil you have to deal with sometimes. 

Michael will be holding down the fort here in Paddington. It's the longest we will have ever been apart since knowing each other. Don't worry, he'll have the cats to keep him company and hopefully plenty to do. See you in a few weeks, Oz!

Apparently it's winter now.

It was another weekend full of hobbies for the us. Friday night we played boardgames with some friends. Saturday we had the first practice for the frisbee team we are trying out for. Afterwards we had lunch with a group at the nearby pub and then ran some errands. In the evening we went and saw How to Train Your Dragon 2, which ended up being a decent sequel. 

Today we went for a long walk and picnic in the Royal Botanical Gardens. Below is a picture of me posing ridiculously at a famous, yet unspectacular, landmark in the park. 

We finally tried Flat White , which people rave about but has a terribly boring website. We had a nice coffee and chai tea and a snack. I think we'll have to go back again since it was pretty good and it's really close to where we live.

We also had some downtime today, which the two boys spent together...

We didn't think we packed enough into the day, so we headed out again to Centennial Park for a bike ride close to sunset. It was a good way to finish off the weekend.

Midweek Monologue

I just got most of the way through yet another long tedious application that included manually listing information about every course I have ever taken for college credit. I clicked save and - surprise - the whole thing didn't save. Over an hour of work just disappeared into the nether reaches of cyber space. Nevermind the fact that all of this information is visible on my transcripts that I will probably have to submit anyway, but it has to go into the application too. I think this is a sign from the universe that I shouldn't teach children in Australia. They really make it difficult for qualified people with clear background checks. So the saga continues.

Michael is away in Adelaide for a work project for one just night. The cats are keeping me company with their incessant whining for food and attempts to sit on my computer while I'm using it. 

Our pub trivia standings have dropped lately, but we're keeping at it. The host has taken to giving us "mercy points" for close answers. 

One thing that I have enjoyed about being here is being a bike commuter. There is a certain satisfaction in casually gliding by cars sitting in a long line. The weather is brisk in the mornings now, in the low 50's fahrenheit, which wakes you up. It's nice to bookend a stressful day with one of my favorite activities. It would be nicer if the day was less stressful, but I'll have to settle for the biking for now. I like the idea of not paying any money to earn money. At my old job, I had to pay exorbidant parking fees just to be there, which was disheartening since I didn't make much anyway. I'm averaging biking about three days a week, depending on weather or if I have plans after work that require me to take the train, which I think is pretty good.

As I prepare to go back for my first visit home since moving abroad, I wonder how much I actually am going to get done compared to how much I want to get done. I want to see lots of family and friends, run errands, partake in celebrating milestones with people, and probably get some sleep in there at some point. I'll be in the states for a week and a half, which seems like both a long and short amount of time. 

I almost forgot to mention that this past weekend I had one of the best catches in my ultimate frisbee career. I laid out in the mud to score a much-needed point with one hand. Our team didn't end up winning that game, but it didn't really matter. 

Time to re-watch some more Walking Dead. 

Pakoras, Germs, and Pipes

This week Michael and I went to Govinda's , a combination Indian buffet and movie theater. Although, it's not like a standard movie theater. It's the kind of movie theater a rich person has in their mansion. There are futon mattresses and pillows to lie on while you're in your vegetarian food coma. It was fun, but next time we will have to see a more lighthearted movie than Dallas Buyers' Club.

We've found an annoying aspect about the way the Australian rental real state works; I'm referring to how every different unit in a building is managed by a different property manager/realtor. The pipe that belongs to our upstairs neighbor that is slightly exposed coming out of and back into our bathroom ceiling now has a tiny leak in it. At our apartment back in Arlington, we would have put in a work order either online, in person, or by making a short call 24 hours a day. It would most likely be fixed the next day, no matter what day of the week we put our work order in. Here, because the pipe doesn't actually belong to us, it's technically our upstairs neighbor's plumbing, so I have to go upstairs and knock on their door and ask them to contact their company, who then contacts their own plumber to fix the problem. I'm not sure when it will be fixed since it's the weekend, and we will have to coordinate with our neighbors to find a time when we could have a plumber get into both their apartment and our apartment. We are lucky it's a small leak and not urgent, and we are lucky that our neighbors are home, nice, speak English, and receptive to doing something about it right away. If any of these one issues were different, the situation could easily be a big mess. Hopefully it will sort itself out soon, since I've done all I can for the time being. 

I can't think of any situation where this separate property manager for each units thing is actually beneficial during any aspect of renting. Australians, get your stuff together and change your system and everybody wins.

While I'm on a roll about one thing that needs to be changed, I might as well mention another. Working in childcare and education, I have seen my fair share of epidemics that sweep through a center/school - in the US and now here. It is worse here because the centers are easily twice as crowded, not to mention the fact that my center has no ventilation system (just unit air conditioners). I've only worked for three months at my center, and already have seen cases of nits, flu, coughs, colds viral rashes, hand foot and mouth disease (ew, gross - we don't even have that in the US) and impetigo (also, ew, gross). There are other factors in addition to the crowding that I'm sure add to the spread of germs, but one big one seems to be the general attitude that parents still try to send their kids to school when they're sick, or often don't bother to come pick them up right away when they're told they need to. Occasionally this would happen back in the states too, but not to the degree that it seems to happen here. I don't know if it's an Australian thing, since our center is very international and we have families from all over the world, but it's really irksome regardless. People don't seem to have the understanding that they are creating a public health issue when they expose their sick or infested children to lots of other people, and I find it quite selfish. So, people of Sydney, wherever you happen to be from, cut it out. Nobody wants your kid's germs. On the plus side, maybe I'm strengthening my immune system by being exposed to all this stuff? Hopefully?

To end on a more positive note, we had a discounted lunch at Vapiano today, a chain that we also used to live near back in the US. We didn't think it was very common outside of the DC area, so we were happy to see that there was one here when we moved. It was like having a little taste of home. 

Ku-Ring-Gai Chase National Park

This weekend Michael and I went to Ku-Ring-Gai Chase National Park just north of the city. Here are a few pictures...

These guys are not 100% wild. They hangout at the visitors center in a sort of fenced in area. I say sort of because if they wanted to, they could really just walk out via the road where cars come in, and there is no fence in between you and them. They don't get fed by people, they just eat off the land. They blend in with the surroundings surprisingly well. One was just a few feet away from us and we didn't notice at first.

Our picnic view above, only to find out later we weren't supposed to eat there. I guess they don't want people to leave food for the kangaroos to eat. We cleaned up after ourselves very well though.

Here is Michael at the lookout at the north end of the park, overlooking Lion Island.

We saw a lot of Australian brushturkeys and even a lyrebird. I wanted to teach it some cool sounds, but it ran away before we could even get a good picture.

During a short hike we also heard three distinct thumping sounds and saw a blur of a tall, dark brown creature vanishing away into the bush/trees. We deduce that it was a large wallaby because they sometimes thump as a warning sound if you are getting close, and then apparently freak out and run away. 

This might be the only place I ever see this sign in my life.

Food, food, some drinks, and more food

This weekend, our friend Ian was in town. We know him from the US, but he is now living in Brisbane and came down for a visit. We did the walk from Coogee to Bondi, backwards from how we had done it before. Spoiler alert: it's pretty much the same. The weather was pleasantly cooler and the sun wasn't beating down on us like the last time we went. After the walk, we introduced Ian to the wonders of Messina gelato. This time we had the special Vanilla Manjar: vanilla gelato with dulce de leche filled donuts and salted roasted almond flakes. We also ate some yummy artichoke dip with sourdough toast at Bondi Hardware, which reminded me of a smaller, more posh version of the Hardware Store restaurant in Charlottesville, VA that apparently no longer exists. 

For dinner we ate at Cochin, a Vietnamese BYO restaurant. In Australia there are lots of restaurants that do not serve their own alcohol, but you can bring your own. I'm not sure why a restaurant would choose to do this because you'd think they would miss out on some profit, but perhaps it's easier because of permits or other reasons. We ended up having quite a large group of people since Ian's friends brought more friends, and it was a lot of fun. From there we went to the Vivid festival, which was less crowded compared to last week. We also had mango weizens at Lowenbrau in The Rocks, which was nice end to the night.

Today we had brunch at Mad Spuds. The atmosphere was fun and the food was really good. The fresh squeezed watermelon juice hit the spot. We also introduced Ian and his friends to the Emperor's Puffs in Chinatown, a favorite treat whenever we find ourselves in that area. Then wandered around the Paddy's Market there for a while until we all had to go our separate ways.

It was a yummy weekend, and we had fun with an old friend and met some new ones. Can't complain about that, except for the fact that it went by too fast.