Canberra's name is thought to mean 'meeting place', derived from the Aboriginal word Kamberra

It's been a busy few weeks. After the Canberra Times Fun Run I had some time off work as I was done working at Ray White but had yet to hear about my job at Australia National University. It was pretty nice being domestic for a week, the house was clean, laundry was done and we were eating some tasty meals. On top of that my website got updated, I finished 5 photos for my cheese calendar and submitted to various competitions.

Last weekend Andrew and I headed down to Tathra, NSW for the wedding of a family friend Kate (Andrew's friends Simon's twin sister/the youngest daughter of Paul and Judy's best friend). We arrived at our cabin in Tathra Friday night in time to grab some fish and chips plus grog to get set to watch the Raiders play what turned out to be their last game of the season. After the tragic end to the Raiders game Andrew and I decided to crash out for the night after our long drive down.

For the weekend we were staying at the Kianinny Resort which was a lovely place. Saturday morning we decided to take a walk through the woods down to the coast, it took us about 20 minutes to get there and was a fairly nice walk although more uphill then we had hoped it would be. Once at the beach we wandered down it for a bit before walking back along the road so we could stop at a shop for ice cream. The wedding wasn't until 3pm so we had plenty of time to relax in our cabin before getting ready to walk down to the lake for the ceremony.

The wedding itself was very quick and to the point, just what Kate and Mitch wanted. After the 15 minute ceremony the bridal party headed off for photographs while rest of us grabbed what snacks and alcohol we had in our cabins and brought them down to a pavilion on site for our own cocktail hour before the reception. We had a great time the whole evening, ate a lot, drank a fair bit and Andrew and I finally managed to make it back to our cabin somewhere between 2 and 3, strangely with 3 bottles of open wine.

We had a bit of a sleep in the next morning before getting up for a quick breakfast before wandering to the cabin next door where Kate and Mitch's family were barbecuing up a breakfast feast. Before we knew it it was time for Andrew and I to hit the road home. We had so much fun that we're already thinking of making a trip down there this summer for a weekend.

Last week Andrew had to head to Sydney and Newcastle for four days which left Coopa and I to fend for ourselves. I had expected to get my official letter of offer from Australia National University (ANU) the Friday we left for the wedding so I could start the following Monday but sadly it did not arrive. We checked on Monday and still no letter so I was a bit surprised when I received a phone call on Tuesday afternoon from Tarik, my boss at ANU, asking me if I could come in the next day to sign my contract and start work.

So last Wednesday I hopped the bus into the city and headed on ANU campus for my first day. I am working in International Student Services where I help the students with the health care, one of the stipulations for overseas student visa's is that the students are covered by health care for the duration of their visa. I'm still learning exactly what I do but I've been told by Tarik that he is streamlining the process so that I won't have to do as much with that and can learn the other aspects of international student services and help with things like orientation.

There is a lot of room to grown in the department and at the university in general. It's a great step in the right direction for me. Besides that it's such a good environment, everyone has been really nice and helpful so far, I even already got invited out for drinks with some of the girls which should be nice. And it's gone from driving to catch a bus, working 8:30-5 with a half hour for lunch to walking to the bus stop at the top of our street with Andrew to work 9-5 and getting kicked out of the office for an hour for lunch. My office is only a few blocks from Andrew's so we're going to try and grab lunch together occasionally, plus it will be nice that during the summer when we want to grab drinks in the city after work I can just walk there to meet up with Andrew and our friends.

So a good first few days, and to top it all off we got this Monday off as a public holiday for Canberra Community Day, sounds pretty lame but a day off is a day off. Andrew's sister Kate returned from her 4 months traveling abroad Friday morning so we headed over there for dinner that night to catch up. Saturday we did a tiny bit of gardening, I got a few plants in the ground, we took Coopa on a long walk and a play at the dog park which he loved before heading into the city for dinner and drinks for Andy's birthday. It was a nice night but made us feel a bit old as we realized we were struggling around 11. Sunday we had a nice bbq with Andrew's family, did a few errands then a nice Sunday roast with Andrew's family.

And that brings us up to today which was nice and relaxing, a bit more gardening and a lot of relaxing, plus a quick trip to the river for Coopa's first swimming experience. We took Austin, Kate's dog, with us to show Coopa how it's done, he mainly splashed along the edge but did manage one actual swim that was pretty impressive. I think it'll be easier to get him in once it's warm enough for us to go in with him.

Well, that's all for now, hopefully some photos from the wedding coming soon otherwise, more next week.

A weekend of sore muscles

Andrew and I had a very busy weekend last weekend. Saturday we start by finally getting Andrew signed up on a phone plan with his fancy new HCT Desire phone, it's a lovely touch screen phone that Andrew has quickly become hooked on. After that we began work on our garden. We spent about 5-6 hours clearing brush and cutting trees and even discovered a path that amazingly goes perfectly from our from door down to the gate we put in, the before and after images are below so you can see our progress.

Before 1

After 1

Before 2

After 2

Before 3

After 3

Sunday was the Canberra Time's 10km Fun Run. Andrew and I had been training to run this before we got sick in Fiji. Since we were sick we decided we'd just run as much as we can and then walk the rest, Andrew's parents were doing the run as well so we figured we could walk with them. We started off pretty good. Paul dropped off at 3km but caught up with us again around 4km at the water table, the three of them dropped down again at 5km but Andrew told me I should keep going, he figured I could make it to the end even though I wasn't so sure. I didn't do to bad, I figured I'd stop at 7km but that was part way up a hill so I kept going. Then I'd thought I would stop at the next water table but it was close to 8km so I kept going. I chatted with a couple near me and was told the last 2 km were flat going to the river and along the river, I thought I'd see what I could do and I kept going. I kept going right until the end and finished in 1:08:26, under an hour ten! I made it back around to the finish line just in time to see Paul cross the finish line with Andrew and Judy only a few seconds behind.

It was great to be able to run the whole thing but next time I've got to be better trained. We finished the race with a nice walk through Floriade, an annual flower festival that takes place in the city.

There were many sore muscles the next few days and we haven't been able to start exercising again, maybe next week.

This week I've been off from work as my time at Ray White ended last week and I am still waiting on an official letter of offer from Australia National University. Well, the wait is almost over, I got a call yesterday from my future boss who told me that I should have my letter of offer today and they would like me to start next week. Which means I can official tell everyone about it since we're all set to go. As of next week I will be the International Student Advisor at ANU, this means that I will be in charge of keeping track of health legislation that might impact the students and making sure the international students have health coverage while they are studying at the university.

This job is a great step into a university career which will help Andrew and I move back to the states in a few years. There is room to grow with International Student Services and the university so this is a really good opportunity for me.

Today I'm off to get my ACT drivers license before Andrew and I head out of town for a wedding this weekend. Oh, and the Raiders are in the finals and play tonight against a really good team so, Go Raiders!

More next week.

Coopa the Wonder Dog

I just wanted to show everyone how amazing our dog is: Bundy Rum Dog

The Great Fiji Adventure

So the plan was, we'd get home from Fiji and have the weekend to relax, do the blog, get photos up and such. The hitch came when we both got really sick before we left Fiji and ended up spending the whole weekend in bed. This is a big blog but that's because it's full of photos, we hope you enjoy.

Let's go back a week. Two Saturdays past we drove down to Sydney with Andrew's parents, stopping at the big sheep on the way.

Back on the road with the sheep lurking behind us we soon arrived at Ikea, our main destination in Sydney. We spent an hour or two exploring the store since it's the closest we have to Canberra. From there we headed into the city centre so Andrew and I could check into the hostel we were staying in for the night, since we had an early flight Sunday morning it was cheaper and easier to get a hostel next to the train station for the night than try and get to Sydney in the morning. A relaxing lunch later and Andrew's parents headed back to Canberra and left Andrew and I to explore a bit more before crashing for the night. My big accomplishment was getting a small tub of Ben & Jerry's ice cream, the first I've had since leaving the states as Sydney is one of two cities that sell it in the country.

Sunday was an early morning to get to the airport, and since Andrew and I have had some bad moments with planes we wanted to make sure we were there early. One check in the V Australia staff kept asking me for a print out of my visa, which I kept telling them doesn't exist as an electronic visa, eventually the woman got a supervisor to look it up and print out the information. After that we were told at passport control where they informed us that immigration needed to talk to Andrew. We were a bit nervous but all they did was scan his passport and hand it back telling us to go on so we have no idea what it was all about but we were on our way so we didn't care.

The plane ride itself was relaxing, we sat back and watched movies the whole way and we were in Fiji before we knew it. We had a car take us from the airport the 2 hours to our resort.

Our bure

We stayed at Mango Bay Resort, a backpackers resort. The resort has 3 types of accomedations, dorm huts, safari huts for groups of 3-6 and beach huts for 2 which we had. Our hut was just a few hundred feet from the beach and right next to the pool and restaurant area.

View from our bure

The bure, as it is called, had a small porch with deck chairs, a queen bed with mosqueto net, which even looked amazing, our own bathroom and a shower in our private atrium out back. For a backpackers resort it delivers very well for couples.

our shower

We were pretty tired but decided to try out a few of the local spirits, Fiji Gold beer very tasty beer and Bounty rum was so good we brought a bottle home. After a poorly played, on my side, pool game and a few hands of cards we crashed a bit early since the traveling wore us down. We were woken up in the middle of the night from a group of drunk americans who arrived after us and decided to drink more and jump in the pool. Luckily we were tired enough we were able to fall asleep fairly quickly while they carried on.

Monday, our first full day in Fiji, we were awoken by the drums to let us know breakfast was ready, and promptly fell asleep for another 3 hours. We did manage to get up in time to go on a guided snorkeling tour where I managed to get two big cuts from the coral, it was pretty interesting though but the tide went out on us pretty quickly. From there the days start to blend together so I'll just tell you about what we did in no order.

Most of our evenings were spent having a cocktail at happy hour, playing cards and chatting with the canadians, germans or a few of the random american students we could handle being around (they were all doing study abroad in New Zealand, some from UC Denver, 2 from St, Mike's in Burlington which was weird, and a whole bunch of other places). Mom you would have been very impressed that we ate a lot of fish on this trip, yes, fish, and it wasn't fried.

Andrew in table tennis finals

Staff singing farewell song at dinner

Crazy crab dish I attemped to eat....it didn't end well, 

I just can't crack shells

One of the days we were taken to the local village, we walked there by the beach and were shown around by a local man who explained how the villages are set up, what vegetables were being grown, different rules/traditions such as you have to leave your door open during meals and if anyone wanders passed you invite them in to join your meal, not a bad idea :)

Andrew taking a picture of me taking a picture

Village middle from Community Centre

The villages are set up in such a great way, all the houses face in with a church and community hall in the middle, there are no roads through the village so everyone walks around, it's such a friendly place. Apparently when someone gets married or it is their birthday everyone in the village helps with the food and arrangements and everything, and if you're building your house everyone in the village will come and help you, you don't ask them to but they just do it. It's so great seeing a real community that sticks by each other and helps each other out.

Kava Ceremony

After being shown the village, including the school where people from 3 villages come to study and the Fiji rugby team practices (we saw them out there), we headed into the community centre for a kava ceromony with some cheif elders. It was all fine to the kava ceromony, we had one previous at the resort, the problem was there were only 9 of us including the village elders and the tide had come in so we had to wait for it to go out again before we could get back to the resort, this meant we drank lots of kava. It tastes a bit little dirty, kind of sour water, not really bad, just strange. It didn't effect Andrew much but for me after I'd drink my bowl my tounge would start going numb, which is apparently what happens to most people because it's a slight hallucinogenic, strange but I wouldn't do it again.





We also took a morning to go hike out to these waterfalls near a village close by. We were taken to the local village where we played with some cute puppies before hiking to the waterfalls, and by hike I mean we walked through some small rivers and such. It was a nice waterfall and a good walk through the woods.

While we were on our way to the waterfalls we stopped briefly at a store that said the name of an airport on it but looked very run down. Our guide pointed across the road where ruins were barely seen through the overgrowth and informed us that that was the first resort on the Coral Coast, it was a five star resort that attracted so many people the airport was built. Back in 1987 a cyclone hit and destroyed the resort, it was family owned so they did not have enough money to rebuilt and it has stayed that way ever since. With the closing of the resort the airport soon closed too. Since I have been looking, photographing and writing about ruins recently Andrew and I took a cab out there on the morning of our last dayto explore and photograph the ruins. 23 years of growth turned the resort into quiet a jungle, we had a hard time finding some things, we never found the pool, but after some wandering I managed to find the kitchen. The resort had a lovely bay with a great beach and it's a shame the resort is no more because it would have been the best in the Coral Coast. The photos will be on my photography blog soon, I will post the link as soon as I've gotten through the images.

Enjoying cocktails on our last evening watching the sunset

Thursday rained all day which was good because Andrews cold was running rampant at that point and he spent the whole day sleeping. I was still feeling healthy at that point but with the rain curled up quite happily with a book and spent the day reading. The sick saga began soon after, Friday I had just a bit of sore throat but it wasn't much. By the time our plane took off for Sydney a few hours later I had a fever so bad I couldn't stop shaking, I was popping panadol like candy and got a blanket from the stewardess. I was starting to feel better when a steward told me that because I was sick coming into the country they would have to tell customs. I was a bit worried because we only had 2 hours to get through customs, check in at the transfer desk and get to our gate for our flight home. Luckily most of the people getting off the plane in front of us were parents with small kids who had to wait for their prams so we flew down to passport control where we got through in lightening time without any stops so we made it to our next flight in plenty of time and home almost safe and sound, my fever took over again before we made it to Andrew's parents so I was a bit of a fright to see.

Last weekend was spent with Andrew and I sick and lying around, not a good weekend but this next week should be good.