The Americans Are Gone

Another week where I don't have to write :) Read Jess' blogs to see what we've been up to:

Potato Scallops and Zucchini Balls

Cat in the Furnace and Budgie Smugglers

Dolphin, dolphin, dolphin, dolphin...eel...Love Your Kingdom!

And to add to Jess last post, the video she references in the title is called 'Animal Beatbox' and it won Tropfest this year. 

The best part about technology is that all the Tropfest videos are put on YouTube so I can share my favorites with you here....Ok, so I really liked about half of them, they just do such a good job, so watch and enjoy, the bottom two are the serious ones (Mom I think Missing You will really get to you).


Bird Therapy:

Silencer:

The Applicant:

Y2Gay:

The Maestro:

Missing Her:

The Americans Arrive

Well, this past weekend began the arrival of Americans with Andrew and I traveling to Melbourne to meet up with Jess and her friend Erin for the weekend. Luckily because of this it means I don't have to write about this past weekend because she has done it all for me. Read these three posts from her blog to see what we've been up to:

Melbourne is pronounced "Melbin" by the Aussies

A Flat White with Breakfast? Yes please!

Koalas are stoned all the time

The only real difference is that while Erin and Jess headed off on their wine tour, Andrew and I headed off to figure out where our rental car went to. We soon discovered that, sadly as it turns out, the car was not stolen but towed but the city. When we parked the night before it was dark and I didn't look closely at whether there was a sign being covered by the tree we parked underneath, all I saw was that the parking cost didn't start again until 10am on Monday, sleep in for us. What we missed was the sign at the top that said there was no parking from 6:30am-10am otherwise cars would be towed.

Once we realized that towing was the fate of our rental we knew we had to get it back and pay whatever fine came with it, this is why it turns out we were unlucky that it was not stolen. To simply get the car out of the impound lot we were charged $322. When we got into the car we saw that the police were nice enough to give us a $119 ticket before having the car towed for parking where we shouldn't. Since there really is nothing we can do in a city that isn't ours we've had to suck it up and agree we will never drive in Melbourne again.

Getting back to work has been a more of a hardship as I was thrown straight into Orientation Tuesday morning followed closely by Enrolment starting on Wednesday and running through to next Friday. This means that about 7 hours of my work days are spent outside of the office and I have to sneak in when I can to try and get some of my normal workload out of the way. Needless to say this weekend could not come soon enough.

Andrew went over to Damon's to play poker on Friday night which means Coops and I got the house to ourselves to relax and watch some trashy movies, although I got hooked into Iron Man on tv so that was pretty good.

Saturday I had to run up to campus as soon as I got up to get security to let me in to my office because we are running an airport meet and greet service for our new international students right now and the person picking up the students this weekend didn't realize he didn't have enough cab vouchers to give to the students. After that adventure I signed up for Medicare, the Australian medical system (in case you haven't heard the very exciting news, I got my official letter from the government the other day and I have been granted the first part of my residency. I am now a temporary permanent resident, which gives me everything a resident can have, it's just temporary for the next 2 years to make sure Andrew and I are actually in a committed relationship. )

After the excitement of the Medicare Office (oh the fun) Andrew and I headed into the city for some actual fun with the Multicultural Festival. We made an attempt at meeting up with a few people but in the end went it alone because everyone kept getting lost. The festival has gotten bigger since last year block off part of a main road and traveling across the street into one of the other main squares in the city. Just as last year we went around splitting dishes for a variety of places:

 

I'm not sure what everything was but we had spicy banana and polenta from Ghana, some delicious Macedonian meat on a stick, Russian meat dumplings and a bunch of other things we can't remember. And just like last year after two hours we were done with the crowds and high tailed it home where there was a lot more space and less people. It's always good fun though so I doubt we'll ever stop going, too much good food.

Jess and Erin will be with us Wednesday night and I am so excited to show them around. In preparation we did a bit of gardening, by 'we' I, of course, mean Andrew as I can't seem to keep anything alive. He has even managed to get our first peach. Next Monday there should be another good blog from both Jess and I so keep an eye out.

Andrew working in the veggie garden

Our first peach

Bit of a struggle

It's been busy and not busy all at the same time these past two weeks. We haven't been doing too much, a bit of swimming in the river with the pup, some hikes up Mount Taylor, a lot of bbq's and lots and lots of house work.

Last weekend I had a model shoot with this model Dani that I know, we had lots of fun and the photos are really great, you can see some of on my photoblog.

We also got to take Coopa down to the river to swim with Luigi. Coopa is still slightly unsure of swimming, it didn't help that Luigi accidentally kept pushing him under as he tried to swim next to Coopa. They both did well though and the humans greatly enjoyed some relief from the heat.

Wednesday was Australia Day. This year Andrew and I decided that we weren't going to trek into the city on Tuesday for the Australia Day concert. We had a lot of fun last year but it was slightly marred by all the underage drunk kids running around, after hearing that this year the police detained 71 underage kids at the concert we were glad we didn't go. Instead we stayed in our nice air conditioned house and watch some of the concert on tv. On Australia Day we had some friends over for a bbq before heading down to the river to swim, it was so hot and that was the best idea. Even after the river we spent the rest of the day hiding in the shade and I had to sit there and feed Coopa ice cubes.

Paul's older brother came over from New Zealand earlier this week for Paul's 60th birthday so Wednesday night we had another bbq. To go along with the family theme we had dinner Thursday night at the Walker's on Paul's birthday and Friday was the big night. We went out to this fancy restaurant called D'Browes. It was very large and delicious, between the appetizers and dessert that Andrew and I shared plus our massive meals we happily rolled out of the restaurant.

Saturday night we continued the family trend further with yet another bbq at our place. More eating, some relaxing on our deck and it was all capped off by a very tasty crepe dish that I made all by myself (I made crepes! It was amazing! They were delicious!).

Sunday I got up early and drove to Bungendore, a country town about 45 minutes outside of Canberra on the way to the coast. I went there to help out the ACT Rescue and Foster (ARF) charity. They rescue dogs that will be euthanized at the pound, fosters them after they have done temperament tests to make sure that they are dogs that can be re homed and then begin the process of finding them a new family. At the show ARF had a tent where they were selling some merchandise such as t-shirts, calendars, drink bottles and other various objects to benefit the non-profit. We spent the day playing with one of the foster dogs Milo, as it turns out he was adopted later that day.

Towards the end of the day they had a pet parade and dog 'races' right behind where our tent is so we got to see all the cute pups go by, there are some photos of that on my blog as well.

And that was the past two weeks down here. Much more excitement to come after a long weekend in Melbourne with my sister!!! Yay!

Another Aussie Christmas Adventure

 Christmas holidays flew by for us, one minute I was leaving work on Christmas Eve ready for a nice relaxing holiday, the next thing I know it's the 4th of January and I'm right back in the office. Now during that time we did manage to fit quite a bit in to our schedule.


Christmas Eve Andrew and I both finished work at noon and headed home so I could get some cooking done for Christmas dinner at the Walker house. Before we had a chance to make dinner we were invited over to Pam and Malcolm Holley's house (Simon's parents and Judy and Paul's best friends) for dinner and to meet Simon's fiance Becky. Paul and Judy wandered over a bit later with Kate for a quick nightcap before heading to bed, Kate gave Andrew and I strict orders about being at their house by 10am the next morning since I had said she wasn't allowed to open her Santa Sack (stocking) until we got there.
Christmas morning Andrew and I were up and moving around fairly early, we had a large pile of presents under our tree from each other and my family that we decided to start with before heading to the Walker's. I have to say, Andrew and I got completely spoiled this year, by each other and everyone else. After a phone call from Kate at 9:30, just to make sure we weren't going to be late, we grabbed Coopa, all the food and headed out the door.

Kate made pancakes for breakfast that we had to enjoy quickly so that Andrew and I could go on a scavenger hunt for some of our presents. We were led on a chase all around the house before finding the presents in the garage. Andrew's new whipper snipper was too big to wrap, as was the tent and umbrella we were given, good timing too because we were camping for New Years Eve. Kate quickly dragged us back upstairs to go through our Santa Sacks, open family presents and begin our eating and drinking for the day. Andrew's Aunt Karen and cousin Tristan came over a bit before noon, bringing more food with them, and the serious eating began.

 We made some fake snow to play with and help make the house more Christmas like

Andrew struggles with a mind puzzle he got for Christmas, I had already completed it and put it back together

Success!

Queen of Class (that is a potatoe she is eating)

Around 3 we pushed ourselves away from the table and us kids walked down the road to, try and follow the connection, Kate Holley's (Simon's twin sister/Pam and Malcom's youngest daughter) husband's (Mitch) parent's house :) So, if you followed all that, we were going over there for a bit of afternoon backyard cricket. Judy and Paul met us there a bit later to join in the game. Eventually us kids all ended up back at our place with some more of Andrew's friends joining the crowded we gathered at Mitch's parent's. As it usually seems to happen beer pong began, music was played, out of sweet new iPod speakers Andrew got for my parents, and lots of chatting until late into the night.

Afterparty:

Boxing Day Andrew and I got up early and drove down to Jindabyne with the pup. I got my first random breathe test along the way, how fun and exciting. We beat Andrew's parents there so we took Coopa for a walk down to the lake and enjoy a bit of the sun, he wasn't too keen on going in yet but he was having a great time running around the shore. We made a trip back down to the lake almost as soon as Paul and Judy arrived with Jess. This time I got into the water a bit with Coopa and he came out to me a bit, he was having a great time jumping through the water to try and get rocks that everyone was throwing for him from the shore.

After another wander around to really wear the pups out we headed back to the townhouse. Judy and I hiked up the hill behind the townhouse to go watch the local rodeo for an hour. We got to sit right at the fence to watch, a great location and I got some amazing shots, they'll be up on the blog real soon. By the time we made it back down the hill we needed a snack after a bit of a rest and snack we were ready for dinner and a movie.

We had a bit of drama with Coopa that night. He spent the whole day sleeping downstairs with Jess, just hanging around. As soon as we all got into bed and turned off the lights he started barking up a storm, which got Jessie going. So we went downstairs, calmed them down and went back to bed. This happened two more times before we finally decided to give up and let Coopa sleep in our room for the night. Two problems with this, the first is that the second floor is only accessable by spiral stairs, which for some reason dogs do not like and will not go up or down. The second problem presented itself at about 5:30am when Coopa really needed to go to the bathroom. We had to carry him back downstairs and outside than back upstairs again. He spent most of the time between 6am and 8am army crawling under my bed and Andrew's bed, sometimes crawling between the two beds, it was pretty entertaining.

Monday evening Rod and Liv arrived in town for a few days. Liv and I hit the sales and the rest of the visit was mostly spent eating, relaxing and playing cards.

For New Years Eve we went camping with Bonnie, Damon and Connor down at Merry Beach. We had a good size site that fit both our tents, Damon's truck, the camp kitchen and a nice space for us to lounge around by the fire. Our site wasn't right on the beach but it was pretty close. The ocean felt amazing since it was so hot, and we spent most of New Years Day tucked under a tree in the shade where we got a nice breeze and a good view of the ocean. The holiday went too quickly and it was soon Sunday, we were home and I only had one more day of holiday left.

So now I've been back at work a week. Andrew was lucky enough to get this past week off so he stayed home to clean out the garage which took three trips to the dump, and redesigned my website. He has to go back this week too, I'm kind of glad he has to be back too so now it won't be so bad getting up on my own early in the morning.

Little moment of zen, Coopa in the lake.

So, umpires aren’t fat they just wear lots of padding?

The closer it gets to Christmas the busier we have been getting. A few of the highlights from the past 2+ weeks include:

• Hitting up the cinema to see Rare Exports, a different kind of Santa story, with Shelley and Alex
• An attempt to take Coopa swimming until we realized that the beach we were going to take him to along the river was a good 5’+ underwater, it seems as though Australia got all 20 years of rain at once when the drought broke
• The annual Walker family Christmas Carol’s, lots of tasty snacks and some off key, but enthusiastic singing, including an attempt at Six White Boomers
• My work Christmas party, now that Andrew has had 2 of them it's only fair I get one
• The successful baking of pepparkakor (delicious and much appreciate by my co-workers)
• Our first Canberra Cavalry baseball game (a winning success, even if it was freezing outside and we had to huddle up in our hoodies and the origin of the blog title)
• Our first session with our dog trainer, he works similar to the Dog Whisperer in the States. It’s going to be a tough 2 weeks as Andrew and I try to remember, and follow, all the rules to keep Coopa in line and turn him into the best behaved dog but it will be worth it in the end

Now things are slowly winding down as we count down the days and hours until we’re released from work for our Christmas holiday, 2.5 days to go :)

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.