Getting into the Silly Season

In Australia and New Zealand, the time period around Christmas and New Years is referred to as the Silly Season. It's mostly due to the increase in parties and the propensity to drink more. I think that it's a great phrase, especially in this part of the world because it's summer here so there are more b.b.q's, picnics, beach-time, outdoor activities in general and long evenings. I think that it makes you way more likely to go out and enjoy the season and the time off around the holidays because the weather is nice (though it can be really hot) and you're not bundled up, trying to avoid snow and ice.

Flowers by my new apartment

Since it's not quite Silly Season yet, this post will be more looking back at the craziness that was November for me. I started off the month by moving into a new apartment. It's a cute, one-bedroom, third floor walk-up. Not ideal for moving stuff into but as least I have a view other than a brick wall. I was able to find a place that came with both a fridge (no BYOF for me!) and a washing machine. It ended up taking me a month (yes, a whole month) to get the internet working in my apartment, hence the lateness of this post. If you ever want the full story, let me know. Needless to say, it was a royal pain and I spent a lot of time on the phone with my internet provider.

Ross came over in mid-November and we spent a decent amount of time at Ikea furnishing the new place. The last place where I was living with a housemate was furnished, so I had no furniture when I moved. My former housemate let me borrow an air mattress though so at least I didn't have to sleep on the floor until Ross showed up to help me pick out and then assemble a bunch of Ikea stuff. At this point I don't even want to think of how much I've spent at Ikea, setting up various apartments around the US and now in Oz. I think that the real takeaway point here is that Ross and I move a lot. At some point we will settle down, I swear. Or at least I assume that we will. 

Harry Potter with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra

Ross was in Melbourne over Remembrance Day (11 Nov) so we made a special trip to the Shrine of Remembrance as they were celebrating the centenary of the end of WWI. I don't think that most Americans appreciate how devastating WWI was for the ANZAC's (Australia New Zealand Army Corps). The British basically sent them wherever they didn't want to send their own troops and subsequently, a lot of the ANZACs were slaughtered. Every town in Australia and New Zealand has a memorial to the troops lost during WWI, and often during WWII as well, with the names and ranks of all of the fallen listed. It is very sobering to see. 

The display at the Shrine of Remembrance for Remembrance Day was incredible. The pictures below show the text that encircled the Shrine. The words and garland are composed entirely of hand knit poppies. I couldn't even hazard a guess as to how many poppies there were and how much time and love went into creating them. I don't have any Kiwi or Aussie ancestors but I was moved to tears.

Close up of the words

Poppies

A couple days after Ross went back to New Zealand, I flew to the US to spend Thanksgiving with my family. It was the first time that I'd been back to the US since we moved abroad in June 2016. During that time, my parents sold the house where I grew up in Boulder, CO and moved to Lawrence, KS to live closer to my brother and sister-in-law, who own a house there. Lawrence is a really cute university town and it was great to see my family. Though it was rather surreal to see all of the furniture and stuff that I grew up with in a house that I didn't know. 

Naka

Nell

When we moved abroad, Ross and I had to leave our two cats (see above) with my parents, so it was fabulous to see our kitties again. One of them didn't seem to care that I was there (Nell) but the other one slept with me every night (Naka) and was on my lap whenever I sat down. In addition to spending a lot of good, quality time with my family, I was also able to see my best friend who lives in Kansas City and go to a lecture by Neil Gaiman (one of my fav authors) with my sister-in-law. After (too) much good food and conversations, it was time to leave.

Naka and Nell
(I took a lot of pictures of our cats.)

Pie time!

The Taylor men carving the turkey.

Nell

Naka and my awesome p.j. pants

On the flight back to Australia, I had the dubious honor of completing the longest flight that I've ever done when I got to spent just under 16 hours in a plane flying from LAX direct to Melbourne.  It was pretty terrible. On the way to the US, I had transferred planes in Sydney, so it was 'only' a 14.5 hour flight to LAX. Anyway, it was way too much time in planes for a week in the US. The next time that I go back to the US, it's going to be for at least two weeks. I had finally started to get used to the time difference in Kansas and then it was time to head back to Oz. 

Random coral reef some where in the Pacific.

I had a pretty rough week and some change when I got back to Melbourne from the US. In addition to being incredibly jet lagged and stressed about some big reports at work, I was also incredibly lonely. Ross is still in New Zealand so I wasn't coming home to anyone and I don't think that I had actually realized exactly how much I miss my family and friends (and how easy everything is in the US) until I went back. My coworkers in Melbourne were great and really supportive until I got my feet back under me. So it's great knowing that I have that support network here. Ross and I still aren't sure how much longer we're going to be abroad past the end of my current visa (Dec 2019) but we've decided that if we do stay abroad longer, we definitely need to visit the US more often, maybe once a year, just to see family and friends.

I hope that this finds you all well and enjoying the holidays. Spend time with your family and friends and, if I know them, given them an extra hug from me. The next time that I post, Ross will be living in Melbourne with me, so I'm pretty excited about that. I haven't started counting down the hours yet, but I might soon. : ) 

All the best until next time!

Spring Down Under

Somehow the last couple months have slipped past and it's almost the end of October already.  How did that happen?!? Admittedly I have been pretty busy but I'm still not sure where the time has gone. So, here's the quick and dirty on the last couple months Down Under.

Sunrise on the City and the Yarra River

Towards the end of September I made the annual pilgrimage to the Royal Melbourne Show. It runs for eleven days and is akin to the big state fairs in the Midwest. While the Minnesota State Fair is known for everything-on-a-stick, the Royal Melbourne Show is all about show bags. These are bags filled with candy, action figures, athletic gear, pretty much anything that you can think of really. Most of them are actually a good deal in that if you were to buy everything in it separately, it would be significantly more expensive.  That being said, I'm not sure why anyone needs most of the stuff that you can get in these bags but they are quite the thing at the show. It's not uncommon to see families walking around the show weighed down with 10-15 bags. Despite my naysaying, I did break down and get one show bag after much deliberation as to which one (last year I resisted). I got the "crafty" bag so it came with a ball of yarn, some knitting patterns, a fat quarter, a tea towel, a fleece (a white one from a sheep not polar fleece), a box of tea, a commemorative tin, chocolate sauce, slivered almonds and a kilogram of flour, plus the swanky canvas tote bag that it all came in. I must have missed the flour when I was reading the description because I hadn't been expecting to haul that around with me all day.  Needless to say, while I didn't really need any of it, for $25 it wasn't a bad deal.

These are cakes.

Competitor in the Prince of Wales Cup

The last Friday in September is Grand Final Friday. It is the day before the Grand Final for Australian Rules Football and the city of Melbourne (but nowhere else in the country) takes it as a public holiday, supposedly so that more people can go to the parade through the CBD (aka downtown).  It would be like if the Super Bowl were hosted in the same city every year and just that city took the Friday before the Super Bowl off as a public holiday.  It's odd but I'm not going to complain about getting a paid day off from work.  Since I don't really care that much about footy, I took an extra day off and went over to Wellington to spend the long weekend with Ross.

I really miss the view from our apartment in Welly.

Ross is probably *fingers crossed* going to be moving to Australia in late December to write up his dissertation, so this trip was probably my last to Wellington until Ross defends his PhD sometime next year.  As such, we had a laid back weekend and did the kind of things that we used to do when I lived there. We wandered through the botanical gardens, walked along the waterfront, went to the Night Market, saw a movie, and went to some of our favorite restaurants. I also caught up with almost everyone that I know in Wellington, so it was a really nice trip. Plus, the weather was great for three of the four days that I was there, which is practically unheard of in Wellington.

Tulips at the Botanical Garden

Wandering along the waterfront

Night Market

Central Park

Wellington waterfront views

October has been pretty busy too but for different reasons. I ran a half marathon last weekend and was dying towards the end because it was probably close to 80 degrees by the time that I was finishing.  Honestly, who has a half marathon start at 8 a.m. this late in spring? Last year I did the 10 km at the same event and I remember feeling sorry for everyone who was still running (e.g. - the people doing the half and the slower marathoners) when I was taking the tram home. Next year, if I remember this rant about the temperature, maybe I'll skip the Melb Marathon Festival.  Who am I kidding? I'm sure I'll register for it as soon as they email me so that I can get the early-bird discount...  

This is what all of the trees on my street look like currently.

I've mainly been busy this month looking for an apartment for Ross and I. When I first moved to Melbourne last August, I wasn't sure if my work visa extension was going to be approved, so I found a woman who was subletting a room and have lived with her since.  As such, this is my first foray into the world of Australian real estate and, let me tell you, it's like the Hunger Games out there. The realtors will schedule a 15-minute inspection period at some random time and everyone who is interested in the apartment shows up then. I went to one inspection where there were probably 40 other people all trying to look at a one-bedroom apartment at the same time.  It's madness! Plus the inspection times will often be during the week at, say, 12:30, so you have to take your lunch hour to run over to see the apartment. This is all compounded by the fact that I don't own a car, so on the weekends I have to strategically plan out which inspections I want to go to because there will often be multiple at the same time and I can only cover so much ground in a limited time frame via public transit and my own two feet. Yesterday I missed my tram because I stayed at one inspection too long, so I ended up running to a different stop, taking the tram for 20 minutes and then running to the apartment and I barely made it for the next inspection. At this point, I've inspected 8 apartments and had 4 or 5 inspections cancelled on me because someone else signed a lease on the place. It's crazy.  Plus (last complaint about Oz rentals, I swear) 95% of apartments don't come with a refrigerator, even though there is a pretty good chance that they will have a dishwasher and/or washing machine. Apparently it's pretty standard for you to have to supply your own fridge... BYOF?  It's super weird.  

Pretty St Kilda harbor views

Rainbow street in St Kilda

Anyway, Ross is coming to Melbs to visit in early November so I'm hoping to have an apartment squared away by then. After that I'm going back to the States (for the first time since we moved abroad in June 2016) for Thanksgiving, so November is going to be pretty full on.  Until next time! 

Parading Penguins on Phillip Island

As much as I love Melbourne, sometimes it's really nice to get away from a city with almost 5 million people and enjoy a slower pace of life. This past weekend Ross was visiting from Wellington so we decided to check out Phillip Island, which is located about 2 hours south-southeast of Melbourne. 

The two main attractions of Phillip Island are the Penguin Parade and the Phillip Island Grand Prix (motorcycle racing). The Grand Prix is in October, so we didn't have to worry about crowds related to that but I know that Ross would love to go at some point. We also didn't go to the Penguin Parade because you can see the penguins come in from the sea every night, for free, along the St. Kilda Pier, which is only a 20-minute walk from my apartment. We did see some penguins at the Nobbies though, so the title of the blog isn't a total lie... ; )

We borrowed a work truck from my company and took off mid-afternoon on Friday.  We stayed at a cute AirBnb in the bustling metropolis of Cowes (pop. <5,000) on the north side of Phillip Island. We didn't arrive until late afternoon so, after dropping our stuff off, we walked to the beach, saw some whale swimming in the harbor and then watched the sun set over the water and the Mornington Peninsula. 

On Saturday morning we started off the day at the monthly farmers market that is held on Churchill Island. The island is located just off the northeast side of Phillip Island and is home to a heritage farm that has been farmed since the 1850's. We wandered around the grounds some and had a delicious breakfast at the farm cafe after checking out the farmers market.

Just some Highland Cattle hanging out in Australia

Churchill Island Heritage Farm

From Churchill Island we headed down to Cape Woolamai and spent most of the day wandering around on the various walking tracks. The whole area is gorgeous, with great surf and impressive cliffs on the south coast and calm, crystal clear water on the north coast.  We had great weather and there were surprisingly few people out and about.

We then headed to the opposite side of the island (it was maybe a half hour drive) to see The Nobbies.  On the way we made a quick detour to the Forrest Caves, which are actually sea caves (despite the name). Unfortunately we didn't think to look at a tide chart and the water was still too high to access the them.  Next time...

At the Nobbies you get great views of the southern coast and the Mornington Peninsula.  There are also large seabird colonies - Silver Gulls and Little Penguins.  Not too far off the coast from the Nobbies are Seal Rocks, which are home to Australia's largest Australian Fur Seal colony. I think that both Ross and I had assumed that you would be able to see some seals from the Nobbies, but we didn't see any when we were there. We did, however, see some penguins hiding under the boardwalk and peaking out of their burrows.  

On Sunday we started off at the Koala Conservation Centre in the morning.  I love koalas. They are so cute; they're like little teddy bears that sleep all of the time. We must have walked every trail at the centre at least twice, looking at the koalas and birds. It's definitely worth a trip and the entry fee goes to koala research, so it's really a win-win.

Kookaburra

Swamp wallaby

From the Koala Centre we stopped by the Phillip Island Chocolate Factory on our way back to Melbourne. There is a factory tour but we just browsed the store and then had some delicious chocolate fondu with strawberries and marshmallows. Nothing like a healthy snack to get your Sunday afternoon off on the right foot!

Chocolate Penguins

All in all, Ross and I really enjoyed Phillip Island.  I think that it would probably be less enjoyable in the summer (i.e. - swarming with people) but it was a really nice winter weekend away from Melbourne. I have a three-day weekend coming up at the end of September, so I'll have to think of a fun trip to do then. Until next time!