It's a small world...

Yesterday I was watching the morning news while getting ready and one of the stories talked about Michigan. They did the little tag and mentioned violence in Michigan. I rolled my eyes, thinking CO had more fuel for his Michigan teasing, but kept the tv on that station, my curiousity piqued. As it turned out, there was a story about a little town called Grand Rapids (lol) and a pillow fight held there over the weekend. I kept watching, scanning the crowd for familiar faces. How strange to be in Melbourne, hearing news about GR!

And then, yesterday on the train, I sat next to a couple of Brazilian women and their children. I got to practice my Portuguese. I'm getting kind of rusty at speaking - the words don't come to mind as quickly as they used to :( but I held my own and could converse pretty well. Funny that out of a whole train, I sat next to them!

Why is it...

... that Subway's baking bread smells so delicious every time I walk by, but their sandwiches just don't deliver??

Penguins!

So, until I figure out how to download my one picture of a penguin, you just get the story :)

We went to Phillip Island and had a great time!

We went to the chocolate factory and bought a chocolate shaped like a penguin- how wonderful!

We hiked along Cape Woolamai, which is another back-up site for the Bells tourney.

We went all over the island - to Smiths Beach, and also to Cowes, and to the Nobbies (it stunk, but was free.)

Then to the Penguin Parade. We bought Penguin Plus tickets (around $30/person) and showed up around 5:30. We wandered around the cafe and giftshops, then got to go outside to the seats around 6:15. We got popcorn to eat while waiting - kind of commerical, but hey, we got to see penguins! So around dusk, the ranger explained what was going to happen.

The penguins are out in the ocean all day long fishing and come back to land to mate and socialize. It's kind of crazy - they wait just offshore until they have a group of 15-50 and then all pop up onto the beach at the same time! And then there's a little break, and then another group pops up! One group at a time waddles across the beach and then off to their burrows in the grasses. There's a break for a few minutes, then the next group comes. It's quite hilarious to watch them waddle - I think they must be much more graceful in the water! It is amazing how they come in at nearly the same time each day, and in such big groups. We really enjoyed our time watching the penguins!

As you leave, the rangers remind you to check under your cars because sometimes the penguins hide under them.

If you go, be sure to bundle up because it gets cold and windy!

Hopefully, I'll post pictures one of these days...

There were supposed to be pictures :(

But apparently there's a virus on my USB storage-thingy (yeah, I'm all into technical terms).

Sad day.

Plus, the Geelong Cats lost yesterday.

Sad day again.

It's Grand Final Day!

-cue western themed music for showdown-

The Geelong Cats will face off against the Hawthorn Hawks today at the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground) in the final of the Australian Rules Football league. Our blessed Bulldogs lost to the Cats last weekend, but we're still going to cheer for the Cats (our Uncle John cheers for the Bulldogs, but our other relatives cheer for the Cats).

It is an absolutely beautiful spring day and it's really strange because no one is outside! It's a ghost town out there! CO and I are heading to the pub with our cousins (Cats fans) to cheer on the Cats - the game starts in less than an hour, so I had better go put on my blue and white!

(post on penguins coming soon - they were wonderful! We had a great time on Phillip Island!)

Happy Feet? More like Surf's Up...

CO surfed Bells today. Uh, let me just say that he was more than a little excited about it. I don't have pictures because I had to work. :( He's not home yet, so I'll tell you how it went later.

But, as a reward for my hard work, we're going tomorrow to see PENGUINS! Not just any penguins, but little penguins (aka fairy penguins!)!!!! I got a little preview tonight at the pier of the adorable little creatures. Yay! I'll try to post pictures as soon as I can :)

Speaking of wild animals, we had dinner with our friends from South Africa last night, and they were telling us all kinds of fabulous South African wildlife stories. Like when they were charged by an elephant and thought they were going to die. And when Robyn was 8 and she got out of one 4 wheel drive vehicle and got into the other, and her mom took a picture of it and when they developed the picture, there was a cheetah just 3 feet behind Robyn! They had all kinds of good stories!!

Holy Smokes!

One thing I forgot about in thinking about living in a city/by a city, whatever, is the amount of smoke you have to deal with. Gosh, it seems like everyone and their brother smokes here. It's just plain gross. Also gross are the commercials they run to get people to stop smoking - they show the amount of tar you get in your lungs if you smoke, and the junk that builds up in your esophagus. Eeeew!!

DH chooses a name!

Ok, so dh (dear/dumb husband, designated hitter, whatever you call him) has a new name, thanks to you!. He chose CO. And, as you cleverly pointed out - it can stand for Captain Obvious or Commanding Officer (which my delightful husband has been quite often).

Thanks Amy and dutchgirl - I'll have CO help me find a prize!

I'll just have to remember to use it now :)

Favorite things: Oz-style

Rove.
Yup, there it is. We love the television show Rove. So funny. Except for the blonde. She's not funny. I could deliver jokes better than her. But everyone else is good. Too bad it's only once a week. Yesterday the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was on. Unfortunately, it wasn't as funny as when Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly were on.

See Glass
Cute designs out of glass. We got my mother-in-law one for her birthday and I'm lobbying to get one for mine. :)

Marie B Jewellry
Australian flowers pressed into jewellry. How adorable. Also something I bought for a birthday present for an in-law.

The Esplanade Market
Sunday afternoons, there is a craft market right by the beach in St. Kilda. It has tons of good stuff (like See Glass and Marie B Jewellry)

Mark Laricchia, Philip Greenwood, Matt Irwin, Linda Macaulay
All local Melbourne photographers/artists who sell at the Esplanade Market

The Western Bulldogs
My footie team :) Ha! We tried to support our team as best we could, in the short time we were aware of them. Unfortunately, they just lost in the semi-finals. But they're still our team!

Let me just say

That I LOVE Melbourne. Love it. I really enjoy living here. It's fabulous. Everyone should come visit us, it's just that wonderful. Please come visit us! I love riding the tram through the city on my way to and from work - it's a gorgeous city with fun architecture, cool parks, lots of stuff to do.

Oh, and I need some more help. Dh still hasn't chosen a name yet, so I'll nag him about that ;) But we are going to go to a Halloween party this year I think, and so I want to come up with a funny costume. I'm thinking maybe something annoyingly American? Who could dh and I be?

And you have less than 60 days until my birthday. Just a heads up ;)

So I got a job.

As a nanny. It's pretty interesting, because I'm not exactly Mary Poppins.

Anyway, God really provided this opportunity, and I'm grateful. I work on the days dh has school and am off on the days he's off! Woohoo! He can't escape me :) Plus good money doesn't hurt!

Here's the quote of the day from the little boy I nanny for "3 bags full. One for my master, one for my dame, one for the little boy who lives down the DRAIN." Lol.

Two out of three isn't too bad...

Remember the hot wing recipe I posted a while ago? Dh loves them. I love them. Unfortunately, it is kind of hard to recreate some American recipes in Australia. Take, for instance, our famous spaghetti. Oh, I have no idea how Mrs. Tornator was able to make her fabulous spaghetti in Japan, but I am unable to recreate it in Oz (ok, perhaps it is due to the commissary... an unfair advantage).

We tried a week or two ago to make wings. There are 3 key parts to wings. Sauce, the wings themselves, and then the dressing. I found the sauce, Crystal, at the "USA Foods" store. For SIX dollars a bottle. Hmm. That's only 4 times what I pay in the US. But, it's better than the mark-up on Lucky Charms. Good thing I don't like Lucky Charms. Anyway, due to lack of cornmeal, the wings were bad. Plus we couldn't find Bleu Cheese dressing. The meal was not edible. I sent dh off to find food at the nearest restaurant, which, unfortunately, was McDonald's.

Fast forward to yesterday. I found corn meal (aka polenta - duh! for not thinking of that earlier), and set off to make my own Bleu Cheese dressing using an allrecipes.com recipe. I thought it was passable, but dh turned up his nose and didn't eat his normal amount. But he did eat some. I'll continue to work on the Bleu Cheese dressing recipe... and until then, 2/3 isn't too bad..

This week in pictures

The weather's been gorgeous lately, so I've headed down to St. Kilda's pier
(and it reminds me of my days in Grand Haven ;)! )

OMG - so I met someone downtown at Federation Square, and it was full of Rocky Horror Picture Show fans! It turns out that they were all there for the Time Warp world record attempt. Yeah, I have no idea what that was. All I know is that there were a lot of "colorful" people there.

One of our favorite meals here is Fish and Chips... mmmm!
(and oh, so nutritious!)

Me on the windy St. Kilda pier - I made dh come with me this weekend

Looking back at Melbourne from the pier

The Prahran Market - a great place for fresh food and flowers
We buy the best gnocchi there!

by the Prahran Market, waiting for the tram

Gnocchi & salads for dinner on our new Ikea coffee table

Melbourne and the Yarra River

The Time Warp in all its "glory"

If you come to Australia, bring your own:

- Blue cheese dressing, and ranch for that matter
- Hot sauce
- Lucky Charms (unless you want to pay $13/box)
- Sour Patch Kids or any good sour gummy snacks
- Chocolate & Peanut butter treats - ie Reese's PB cups, Reese's Pieces, PB M&M's
- Corn Meal
- Canned Pumpkin

Just FYI...

Who you callin wife?

First of all, I'd like to offer another contest. Dh just started reading my blog - Hi honey! - and decided he doesn't like the name dh. I don't want to use anything that will give away his identity, to honor his request. Anyone have any ideas? Winner gets a fabulous prize, and that just might include Vegemite. Or not. I can't bring myself to try the stuff. It just smells awful.

Dh and I got our insurance cards from his school the other day. We still have our Tricare, but were required by our visa to get insurance through the school, which might prove easier should we actually need to use it. So we get our cards. This is what it says on them

1. Dh firstname, dh lastname
2. WIFE, dh lastname

WHAT? I've been relegated to no name wife. Not only am I "dependent" (thanks US military) but these people took it one step further and took away my name... Grr. So much for womens rights.

Life is a little different

One of the questions we get asked the most is what is different between the US and Australia.

I think these are our main answers:

- Coffee/Cafe culture - Australians, particularly Melburnians are really crazy about coffee/tea. There are sanctioned breaks in the morning and afternoon for tea. Melbourne is full of cute cafes and coffee shops. It's really cool to visit different ones.

- Kind of along with that is NOT TIPPING - It's kind of nice to have everything included in the meal price, tax, gratuities, and all. It's hard to get used to though, I feel like I'm being rude every time I don't leave anything.

- Tax is included in the listed price. Yup, if a sign says $8.95, that's it! You don't end up paying an extra 9% tax!! Woohoo!

- Heat - It doesn't get as cold here as it does in, say, Michigan. But fewer places have heat. That makes it really cold.

- Clothes dryers - Every American has one. No where we've been in Oz has them. Except maybe this one laundromat we saw once... And FYI, towels take a REALLY long time to dry!

- The whole "left side" thing - People drive on the left side of the road here. This means the steering wheel is on the RIGHT side, and the passenger's side is on the left. When you cross the street, you look right then left. You have to be on the correct side of the road when getting a tram because its doors open on the left (curb-side) in the direction of travel. People walk on the left side of the sidewalk. Up escalators are on the left side, instead of the right. It affects more than you think. Nothing too crazy... just kind of unnerving.

- Things here can kill you. Well, sharks, spiders, and snakes in particular. Not so much the Melburnians themselves. We saw an exhibit about "Surviving Australia" when we were in Sydney, now I'm all jumpy about things.

- Fewer chain stores/restaurants - well, aside from the 7-11's on every corner, and the occasional Subway, Pizza Hut, and Domino's Pizza, there aren't too many chain restaurants. This is really fun to figure out what things we like and which we don't. Grocery stores are chains... but that's ok. But then again, without chain stores, it's hard to know which stores have good quality and which ones don't... but it's an adventure!

This week in pictures

Melbourne has lots of old stuff... stuff covered with graffiti

Swanson St., downtown Melb

Flinders St. Station - aka "the clocks"

(a working train station with the next train times on clocks)

100th anniversary of "The Great White Fleet"

The HMS Darwin?

Me by the USS John S. McCain based out of Yokuska, Japan

It was named after the current Senator/presidential-hopeful's grandfather and father

The bridge - always my favorite place on a ship ;)

Aussie ship on left (04), McCain on right

For Melbourne Day, I went to see the replica of the ship that took the first settlers to Melbourne. It's called the Enterprize. Not the StarTrek Enterprise, sadly.

View of Melbourne from the Docklands area (where our church is)

Telstra Dome is in the center-left. A lot of "footy" is played there.

Wait a second... Hungry Jack's stole Burger King's logo?

Nope - it IS Burger King!

The house that dh's grandma grew up in

The church where dh's grandmother and grandfather were married

A beautiful sunset from St. Kilda

Our cousin Anthony had an art show.

This is us with Aunt Cheryl, Uncle Peter, and the artist himself

dh and I with Anthony and Alli (his girlfriend)

Lou and Reubs

They let dh drive their car home... (they were present - don't worry!)

Would you go in a park? Would you go in a pub?

To church that is...

I tend to like non-denominational churches. I've been to churches that have met in parks, in restaurants, in schools, in movie theaters, in an Elks building, and most recently - in a brewhouse! I think the hardest thing about moving so often is trying to find and connect with a good body of believers.

Last week, we were unsure of where we would go to church, but then I saw a sign on the way back from a "Melbourne Day" event. It advertised church in the James Squire Bar and Restaurant. I convinced dh we should go, and we did. We enjoyed it! The people were friendly and helpful, even though we were a bit late. For only being here 4 more months, this church is perfect!

Check out more at Docklands Church.