So many places, so little time...

Before I leave Australia, there are number of things I want to do.

1. Visit all the major cities
2. See "The Rock"
3. See something in the Opera House
4. Attend all the major Australian events
5. Go to New Zealand
6. See the Great Barrier Reef
7. Go on a wine tasting tour

So far, I've either done or scheduled most of these things. But there are still a few of these items outstanding. I'm now getting very close to the date they've set for me to go home. This time around, I don't anticipate that they'll extend me, or if they do, it won't be for long.

I've now gotten to a point where I need to decide what is really really important. So far, I've been to all the capitals with the exceptions of Darwin and Perth. I've spent time in Adelaide but it was for work, so I don't really count it. I haven't been to Uluru ("The Rock") or New Zealand or on a "good" wine tasting tour (Hobart doesn't really count).

How do you decide what's the most important to do when you've been given this amazing opportunity to live and work overseas? I feel like I've wasted my time - but at the same time, I've lived like an Australian rather than a tourist.

Now, do I risk the wrath of my boss and ask for lots of time off to finish out my list or do I prioritize them? And what about the money? Getting to these places won't be cheap.

I'd be open to any suggestions people might have!

Oh to be a Newbie...

I've been reading through some of my old blogs and it's making me giggle how much culture shock I went through. I can't believe I thought Starbucks was better coffee. There's no way I believe that now. I'm a bit concerned about what I'm going to do when I move home and want a good coffee!!

And my first trip to Sydney. Now it seems like nothing to head off to Sydney. I know my favorite areas of the city - I have some favorite restuarants even. I love Sydney. I cannot suggest it highly enough to people. Here in Oz, there's a bit of a rivalry (ok, more than a bit) between Melbourne and Sydney. You typically like one city more than the other. I am, without question, a Sydney girl. I could live there very easily. If you've never been, I would highly, highly suggest it.

As much as I might complain about some things in Oz (commentating of the Olympics, no refills), I really do love it here. The people are generally very laid back and easy going people. The weather is good, there are lots of food options, and lots of traveling options.

This weekend there are around 10 of us renting a house in Ulladula. The house is right on the beach with it's own pool and it's own access to the beach. There's 12 acres of land and it should be pretty quiet. Which is good considering we're taking the Wii and the Wii fit board to have a tournament. It may just get a little bit crazy in Ulladula this weekend! :)

Next weekend is Canberra Day weekend so we get a public holiday (woo hoo!). I think HA and I are heading off to Sydney and the Hunter Valley for some wine tasting. At minimum, we'll be at the beach.

Stay tuned..I'll post pictures.

The Olympics

One of the things that I find I miss the most about living here in Australia is my affliation to sports teams. I don't really "get" most of the Australian sports. Cricket is alot like baseball but goes for five days. I'm definitely not into that. Rugby (either of the leagues) and AFL are just confusing. See my first blog for details. So, in the nearly two years, I haven't really had much in the way of sports in my life.

So, when the Olympics started last week, I was kinda excited. Everyone loves the Olympics, right? The Olympic spirit and all that. So I was fully under the impression that it would be much like the US where the Olympics were played in prime time and you get to see everything.

You'd think after living here for nearly two years, I would know better.

No no...the Olympic telecast starts at 11pm and goes for three hours. Now, if this were live or even just a few hours delayed, I could probably get in line with that. But no...it's pretty much a 15 to 24 hour delay. Which means, if I'm reading any sort of media outlet during the day at work, I'll know the outcome before I get to watch it.

But again..fine, I signed up for that when I moved to Australia. What really gets me is the actual telecast and the commentating. HA and I were watching the mens mogals the other night where the Canadian won gold and the Australian got the silver. Wow! A silver medal for a country that is known for it's beaches...and really..it's an OLYMPIC SILVER MEDAL. Be proud..be happy. But alas...they spent the next hour trying to talk themselves into the fact that the Canadian should have won the medal. A literal play by play of the two runs. AN HOUR.

Ok, if it were the US that looked like it should have won the gold, maybe we would have spent an hour detailing it out as well. But then to make matters worse, they don't really show much of the olympics. Most of the show is commentating and talking. I just wanna see the action. Show me some figure skating..and not just one couple but the whole series of things.

Maybe over the weekend I can stay up and watch some of the olympics. I just miss being in the US and being able to be a proud American without coming off like an obnoxious American.

The traffic is gonna be miserable....

President Obama is coming to town! Stay tuned for more information!

An Aussie Christmas...

Its amazing the things you don’t notice around you until someone who isn’t used to them points them out. I’ve brought two Australians home with me for Christmas – HA and Boris. They’ve pointed things out to me that I would never have thought twice about but when I consider it, those things are uniquely American.

• HA loves the yellow school buses. It hadn’t dawned on me that they don’t have school buses in Oz – instead they use public transportation.
• I’ve gotten so much grief from both of them about the four way stops. They want to know why we don’t just use roundabouts and what happens when people pull up to all four stop signs at the same time. They won’t take my word for it that it never happens! They insist that there’s an intersection somewhere in the US where there are four cars sitting there waiting for someone to figure out who has the right of way.
• And everything is big here. You know, when you live here full-time, you just get used to the size of everything but when you come back to the US after being gone for so long, it can be amazing. The grocery stores in Oz are half the size, at most, to the grocery stores here. When I took HA shopping in Phoenix, I was even a little overwhelmed at all the choices. And the movie theaters – they’re huge too. Not to mention the drinks and popcorn. The boys loved it that you could buy this massive sized popcorn and then get a free refill.
• Oh and the refills! You don’t get free refills in Oz! That is definitely one thing I miss.
• One thing I do love those, are the highways. They are so well built and it makes traveling in this country so easy. The roads are straight and narrow and well maintained. Driving 700 miles, when the weather is good, seems like nothing.

I really enjoyed bringing some Aussie’s home with me for Christmas. Its refreshing to see your country through the eyes of someone who’s experiencing it for the first time. While, of course, there were things they didn’t like or didn’t understand, but for the most part, they seemed to enjoyed themselves. And for me, it just inspired me to love my country even more.

May-o-ween?

So a month ago or so on the way to Sydney with my parents, I saw a sign for a pumpkin festival. I thought "woo hoo! Pumpkins in May? That sounds novel!". I had visions of corn mazes, hay rides, and human sized pumpkins floating around in my head. I got even more excited when I read on the website that there was going to be pumpkin pie! How great would that be? You don't normally get pumpkin pie in the US until October or November.

So, I talk HA and Max into going with me on Sunday - it was about a 45 minute drive (kind of a big deal when your typical universe is only where you can walk). The day comes and it's absolutely beautiful outside. 19 degrees and sunny. Who could ask for a better day for a pumpkin festival. The festival was in Collector, a tiny little town of 150. We get there and there are hundreds of cars - the town has probably tripled in size. It's $5 per car - pretty cheap..and with all these people, it must be good.

Immediately, there are boxes that say "Pumpkins $5" - sounds great! I'd love to carve pumpkins in may. Except...wait..these pumpkins...what? They're green. Green? And the other pumpkins...they're funny shaped...like peanuts. What is going on here?? I look around and sure enough there are cut outs of orange halloween pumpkins...but where are they? So I look at HA all confused.."where are the orange pumpkins?" and he looks at me like I'm crazy. Apparently, they don't have orange pumpkins. Deep breath...ok, well, there's still the pumpkin pie.

The three of head off to find coffee and pumpkin pie. I look through all the food stalls but I don't see it. We ask the coffee lady but she's not from around here so she doesn't know. Finally, I ask a little old lady and she doesn't know either. We see a stall with pumpkin sconces and whoa! they have the pumpkin pies! But wait..they look lke meat pie. So I ask the man "Are they sweet or savory pies?" And again, I get a look like I'm crazy. Apparently, they're savory pies. Great. Well, alright, we'll try one. So Max and I buy one and we look at it skeptically. I take a bite and...I get pumpkin and celery. Celery? Yes, you read that right. Needless to say, Max and I had HA finish it. Again, disappointed.

But we made up for it by getting a post-mix at the Macca's in Goulburn. Gotta love the McDonald's fountain sodas. A lesson for my American friends..fountain sodas are called post-mix...and Macca's is McDonalds. Getting post-mix is a bit of a treat since most restaurants serve soda out of a bottle.

Tasmanian Devils are nothing like the cartoon...

So I talked about Tasmania in my last blog and I thought I would share my weekend with you. It was probably one of the funnest weekends I've had in Australia yet.

So my friend Max was in the Antartic for a month on a boat. Myself and two friends decided to go down and meet her when she arrived back in civiliation. The weekend started with a 6:30 AM flight from Canberra to Hobart on a Saturday. For those of you that know me, you know that I'm not much of a morning person. Being at the airport at 5AM hurt. We flew Qantas which is probably my favorite airline ever. The staff is nice and they serve full meals that you don't have to pay for. The US airlines could learn a few things from those guys.

The car we rented ended up being "upgraded" to a small tank. This car was massive - think Land Rover but bigger. Good thing the boys were driving. So we get to the dock area and meet Max. She's surrounded by half the boat (which doesn't surprise me) and so excited to be home. We catch a quick lunch with her and some of her boat friends and then cruise through the markets real quick. Turns out our hotel room was just across the street from her boat so it was so easy to get her luggage and checked into the room. We spent the rest of Saturday afternoon hanging out and catching up. Then we hit a Thai restuarant with some of the crew from the boat (mostly the helicopter pilots and their friends). I found one of my favorite white wines ever at this restaurant and am now hooked. I hope I can find somewhere in the states that sells it.

Here's a picture of Salamanca Square in Hobart.



Oh! Also on Saturday, we toured The Sea Shephard. Thats the boat used to try and stop the Japanese whalers each year. They were giving tours of the boat for donations and hyping their show that's on Discovery. It was pretty interesting to hear about some of their tactics and how the Japanese respond.

Sunday was a beautiful day - sunny but just a touch chilly - kinda like a nice autumn day. The four of us decided to go wine tasting so we headed up to Richmond from Hobart in our tank. I'm not sure how many wineries we hit but between the four of us, we bought 26 bottles of wine. Thankfully, they'll ship the wine to you so you don't have to figure out how to get it home. And it turns out that we were there on a great weekend. They were having some sort of event where wineries that aren't normally open to the public were having tastings. We then headed up to Richmond to have lunch. It's a cute little town with the oldest working bridge in Australia. We ended up going to an oyster farm for dinner as the boys are oyster fans. I however an not so I had a steak. One thing to know though - Tasmania isn't BYO. That was frustrating after buying 26 bottles of wine. Here's a picture of three of us at one of the vineyards. JC is missing as he's taking the pic.



Oh! I forgot the other great part of Sunday. Max became pretty good friends with one of the helicopter pilots on the boat and he offered to give us a quick tour of the area. It was very cool to get to see the coast of Tasmania and a the skyline of Hobart. Here's a picture of Max's boat from the air.



We lost HA on Monday since he had to go to work that afternoon. So the three of us decided to get outta Hobart and do some hiking. We drove up to the the Hartz Mtns and did a quick hike up to a lake. Here are some of the pictures. One of the prettiest areas I've visited in Oz yet.





We lost JC that night so Max and I had to rent our own car. This is where things got really interesting for me. Me, in my wisdom, offers to go rent the car. I get the counter and the lady proceeds to ask me for my license. This is when it dawns on me that I'M GOING TO HAVE TO DRIVE THE CAR TO MAX. In my head, I'm starting to panic but I'm trying to stay cool b/c I'm afraid they won't rent me the car if I act like a fruit loop. She hands me the keys and I cooly get into the car on the right hand side..so far so good. Then I reach over my left shoulder for the seat belt...and i reach...and I reach. Then i realize, Opps..wrong side. I laugh out loud and wave to the lady, who is watchin me and proceed to buckle up. I throw the car into drive and pull out of the parking spot. I go to turn left and suddenly the windshield wipers are on! Oh crap, wrong side. I pull out into traffic, repeating to myself "left side, left side, left side"...it became my mantra. by the time I get to Max, I believe that my hair is falling out from the stress, but at the same time, it was really fun. I felt like I was conquering a fear so I ask Max if she minds if i drive to the hotel. Thankfully, Hobart traffic on a Monday night is pretty light so there were no incidents. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of me driving so just use your imagination.

The next day, Max and I got massages at the hotel and then decided to drive to Port Arthur which is about two and a half hours away. I drove the whole way! Fun! On the way we stopped at a Tasmanian devil farm. They look like dogs - nothing like the cartoon. And they definitely don't spin in circles. I was a bit disappointed. Once we made it to Port Arthur, we toured the old prison grounds and then decided to take the ghost tour that night. It was pretty fun with the exception of the A-holes that used their flash cameras after being specifically asked not to. A couple of pictures for you. You should look up the history of the prison - it's pretty interesting.





Max drove back since it was dark and I was scared of hitting an animal. On that drive we saw signs for every possible type of Australian animal. Max has pictures - I'll upload for you later.

We got back to the hotel in Hobart around 1am and then left a little after 4am to catch our flight and then off to work.

One of the best weekends yet. If you want to see all the pictures, let me know and I'll send you the link.