11 Cups of Coffee Later…

This past week saw both Andrew and I travelling off to conferences for work, as would happen our conferences were in different cities. While Andrew flew to Sydney on Sunday I packed my bags and head to Melbourne on Monday.

This was my first big kid conference so I was pretty excited and ready to go, so like any kid I now have come down from my sugar high with an airy of excitement, much exhaustion and my memory full of good times.

Fancy fancy hotel room, it even had a small galley kitchen

The view from my balcony, if you went out and leaned over the edge of it

We flew to Melbourne Monday so we could settle in to our hotel and get a chance to rest before starting workshops early Tuesday morning (and of course by early I mean we had to be there by 9). Michèle, Ellen, Anne and I went down the street to Insigna, a pub I discovered in the rain on my last trip to Melbourne. It was as good as ever, iwandered the streets to find food, deciding on an Indian restaurant (and by restaurant I mean tiny shop front that the three of us barely squeezed in to to be able to point to the curries we want. We sat outside on the street enjoy the fact that, for once, it wasn’t raining in Melbourne.

Michèle and Ellen

Me and Anne

The amazing Swedish cider (the Swedes do things so well)

Mmmhhh curry

I discovered that the 7/11 across the road from our hotel sells Ben & Jerry's.

 Melbourne is one of two cities in Australia that actually sells the ice cream.

Tuesday we wandered down the street to a nice coffee house/restaurant/bar (it’s between a YHA and tour group so it’s a very diverse place) called Five66 for breakfast, we actually spent every morning there except Thursday morning when we decided to try out one of the many other amazing coffee places in Melbourne.

So the actual conference was great, there were people there from all over Australia who work with international students in schools, it was a good chance to meet other people in similar positions and learn what everyone is doing, what problems people are coming up against and what solutions people have found. There were lots of inspiring moments and people that have been turned into a nice long list of things we wish we could accomplish here at ANU if we had the money and resources. We are going to meet sometime this week to see if we can take anything from our wish list and actually turn it into a reality here, which would be really great.

When we weren’t in sessions we were chatting with other people and drinking lots of coffee. Tuesday night they had a welcome reception for us with waiters walking around with lots of drinks and snacks (they had some very tasty mini burgers that I couldn’t get enough of) and a group of traditional Japanese drummers played for a us a few times. After drinks one of the girls, Bonda, rounded up a group of us to head over to a bar for some more drinks. We ended up taking over the patio at the local Belgium Beer Café where we sipped Hoegaarden and snacked a bit more while chatting until we were practically asleep at the table, it didn’t take that long as it had been a long day.

Wednesday’s social event was the conference banquet, and a banquet it was. The whole conference was being held at the Crown Promenade, which is attached to the Crown Casino, a bit flash, so the banquet was held in one of the large ballrooms upstairs. It was 1960’s themed so we dressed as best we could and stuck some flowers in our hair before heading over.

Japanese drummers

They began with more drinks as we waited to go inside the ballroom and the cocktail hour gave us time to make some more friends and check out everyone’s outfit. The meal consisted of more drinks, a first course of some delicious garlic, mushroom torte thing, I have no idea what it was besides amazing. Then came king fish for me (yes Mom and Dad, I voluntarily ate fish and it wasn’t salmon or tuna) plus mashed sweet potatoes and more wine. And the meal was topped off with a plate with chocolate mousse, coconut ice cream and something else that I cannot remember, plus more wine.

Michèle, Ellen and one of Ellen's friends

Flower power tattoos

Me, Zan and Michèle

the yummy appetizer

hmmm dessert, I love good food

Dancing

And an incriminating photo of Ellen trying to eat the giant gingerbread house outside the banquet hall

Once everyone was gone and the band began packing up we decided that we should probably switch locations, so back to the Belgium Beer Café we went for a nightcap before dragging ourselves home. The next day was a bit of a struggle but it was worth the fun of the night before.

Thursday I met Zan and Michèle for breakfast after which we strolled around the river bank a bit before the rain began. That night we hopped the free trolley up to Lygon Street, the well known Italian district and had ourselves a very nice feed that we had to roll home from, luckily our hotel was slightly downhill.

Looks like Andrew has a business he never told me about, and it's food related, the nerve

Apparently this penguin grants Christmas wishes, it seemed to work because I wished for a giant penguin

The free tourist trolley

The light on Lygon Street was amazing as we were walking along

Friday went by fairly quickly and before we knew it we were packing ourselves into a cab to head to the airport. Anne is a Qantas Club member so she asked at the desk if she could take us in with her, which thankfully they agreed to, so Ellen, Anne and I waited to board our plane while sipping champagne and eating some cheese and crackers, a nice start to the trip home.

Coopa and Andrew greeted me at the door when I got home with a clean house, flowers and a bottle of red wine (ok, the wine was from Andrew’s conference but still). Which means it is now time for our first guest blog.

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First Guest Blog
Ok so Sarah has asked me to write my first guest blog, so here goes. Well Last week was pretty busy, which I guess is expected for this time of the year. On Friday we had our Department Christmas party which usually involves binge drinking at noon till...... well my director didn’t get home till 6.30am which kind of puts it in perspective. This year the theme was ‘out of this world’, I think it would be the only time you could see a wookie, darth vadar, and captain spock all lining up at the bar for their next sprit drink.


Saturday was our thanks giving party which to my surprise had more food than Christmas lunch. I had the high pressured job of carving up the turkey, I finally got the hang of it at the end and was happy I didn’t make much mess. It was a big day and I think we were all worn out by the end.

Sunday I had to fly out to Sydney for a conference. We arrived in Sydney at about 4ish and then checked into our hotel which was right in the heart of the city, it was a great location. We even had an attached pub downstairs which was an interesting touch I thought. The conference was basically about how different businesses use Microsoft SharePoint (Content Management System) as a communication tool......riveting stuff I know lol

It went from Sunday – Wednesday and they had a bunch a guest speakers, some even from the states.

Most nights we ate out which was great. On Monday night we found a nice restaurant with views of the Opera house and I took this lovely picture which I’m sure Sarah will like J. All in all it was a lot of fun, but very tiring and I was happy to get home.

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This past weekend went by in a blur as Andrew and I tried to get readjusted to being home. I woke up very early Saturday morning and Coopa and I joined Bonnie and her dog Jye for a walk/hike up Mount Taylor. It’s relatively small, only taking us 25 minutes to reach the top, but because we have been so rainy and flooded out recently it took us another 25 to get back down. The dogs had a great time together, both off the lead, bounding through the high grass, playing in the streams and just generally running around, Coopa was exhausted the rest of the day.

The rest of our weekend consisted of getting a new desk, rearranging furniture, setting up our Christmas tree, doing some Christmas shopping and lying around listlessly not know what to do with ourselves, it could have been a bit less busy but it was nice to be home.