Homeward Bound

We did it. We booked tickets for a visit back to Cali. Late November. Be there.

And, if you're still feeling generous after my Woods fundraiser, feel free to donate to the Flights-From-Australia-to-the-USA-are-Ridiculously-Expensive Fund. Perhaps not as philanthropic, but equally as appreciated. And $1700 each was the cheapest by $300 for the surrounding 6 months, and about $400 cheaper than any other airline/website that I could find. Apparently moving to the other side of the world is ridiculous. Who knew? Checks accepted care of Jim Sommer =). See you then.

Together Again

Monday was Kane's first day at my work! He put in his 2 weeks notice at his work 3 weeks ago (duh) and this was his first week at BHS with me. Thank goodness, we are together again 24/7 and can talk about work people and work things. Ahhhh. I thought maybe we should try working apart, but his job wasn't what he hoped it would be and my job was looking for more help since we're super busy. So, he works 15 feet away from me and is getting settled to the new standards and people and everything else.

In related news, we joined the gym that's right next to our work and have started working out at lunch. We had been doing virtually nothing since we started our jobs 3 months ago. So now my legs are way too sore and we'll be slowly getting back into shape. The down side is that the gym is freaking expensive. We seriously debated joining for like 20 mins sitting in the little foyer/interrogation area at the gym. It costs about $117 per month each. Yep, you read correctly. I believe my dad pays somewhere on the order of $20 a month in Hayward. We used to pay about $40 per month each in SLO. Anyway, now that we've come to terms with them basically stealing from us, Kane has found out that they don't provide towels. He wanted to shower after his workout on Friday and went to ask for a towel only to find that they don't offer them. He's been very pissed about it ever since, mentioning it multiple times outside of the gym. It's just ridiculous. But hopefully we'll stop being so lazy which is basically the goal.

New Shoes

As Paolo Nutini so lovingly put it, "Hey, I put some new shoes on and suddenly everything's right" (incidentally, I thought this song was by John Mayer or someone similarly and equally singular and mediocre; who is Paolo anyway?) . Indeed everything is right. Except that these shoes are Converse and are hence about as comfortable as walking with two wooden slats under your feet, or, conversely (haha) no shoes on at all. But, while other girls will suffer the sorrows of high heels to look cute and trendy, I will endure the plight of the adorable Converse All Stars to blend in with the 15 year olds.

Last weekend Marc and Alana buggered off (translation: left) to Thailand for 2 weeks and graciously left us the use of their car. We took the opportunity to go clothes shopping - a mutually hated activity that we've both neglected to the obvious detriment of our pathetic wardrobes. It was a successful trip, another rarity, whereby Kane bought a jacket (yes, Kane actually willingly purchased an item of clothing) and a hat and I got my neat shoes, a shirt, and a pretty scarf (half off!). Progress at last.

This week, sadly, we didn't make much use of Little Red (nickname for tiny red hatchback) and I only have used it this weekend to go into work on Saturday. Boo. I would just like to note that it's a stick shift - which is fine, I can drive one - but the stick shift sits on your left since the driver seat is on the right side of the car. It's not actually as hard as I thought it would be to shift the opposite way to what you're used to, but it was still intimidating to me. At the very least it's made grocery shopping way more enjoyable (the car, not the stick shifter).

Today we hope to go somewhere - anywhere - in an attempt to utilize this rare car-having opportunity. We'll see what we can dig up. My shoes are pretty cute though, huh?

Weekend in Marysville

Hello friends and fams, today I would like to write about our weekend in Marysville, as you may have guessed from the not-so-elusive (rather, allusive) title. This past weekend was our belated birthday weekend which was postponed both because of our lack of planning and because our actual birthdays aligned nicely with the summer holiday of the local school kids. So, we reserved our "Romantic Weekend Getaway", or whatever, at The Cumberland Hotel and Day Spa. We rented a tiny automatic Toyota from Hertz and set out Saturday morning at about 11:30 (we're bad at leaving at a reasonable time when it's not required) driving east of the city.

Marysville is about 150 or so km (100 miles) northeast of Melbourne and, taking the accidental circuitous route, took us about 2.5 hours to get there. This included lunch at an odd bee-themed restaurant in Healsville and, as mentioned, an unintentional detour to a place that I will deem the middle of freaking nowhere. As a side note and possible excuse, the road signs in Australia leave quite something to be desired from the unfamiliar traveler; it is reminiscent of New Jersey, god forbid you ever end up there. Anyway, our tour of Marysville, once we arrived, consisted of a hasty drive down "the strip" in search of our hotel which is right smack in the middle of town on "the road". It's one of those towns. Very cute to visit, no idea why people live there. We actually didn't even patronize the cute little shops lining the road because it was cold and we were tired. Instead we, in classic Kangie style, took a nap until that obnoxious ball of fire in the sky (that is barely doing anything for us at this point) went away.

We awoke and stumbled out to the large gathering room full of couches from a bygone era and a nice but oddly placed fireplace. We read our books until dinner at 7:00 then sauntered into the dining room only feet away to be greeted with a four-course dinner that was included with our hotel package. It was awesome. The food was good and my favorite part was that we got a menu with no prices. Normally I would think this was awful, but since the meal was included with our stay, we could order whatever we wanted. So, instead of picking the cheapest, healthiest, non-meat item without rosemary in it, I got to just pick the healthiest, non-meat items without rosemary in them. Excellent. And it was four courses so we got a bowl of soup, a tiny appetizer, a main dish and a dessert. My favorite kind of meal. I always want the sampler platter at a restaurant and that's basically what this was.

Then, once again in classic lame style, we retired to our room to watch Sandra and Keanu tear up the streets of LA in Speed before retiring for the night. An excellent film, by the way.

We awoke to rain, which did not manage to affect the pleasantness of our massages at the day spa. I've never had a professional massage before and aside from the oddity of having a stranger's hands on my bod with my boyfriend two feet away, it was very nice. I found it a bit disconcerting to be that...close...to a strange woman and I also found that even though it was a pleasant temperature in the room, I was nonetheless freezing. There's no way around that, I guess. Unless Kane and the two masseuse ladies were dripping sweat and all but melting into piles of goo, I would have probably been cold. Oh well, it was still nice - and I was covered in blankets, so I wasn't really that cold. The new age music, dim lights, and having Kane in the same room made it really relaxing and an overall nice experience.

After we were adequately massaged and checked out of our hotel, we decided to visit the Healsville Animal Sanctuary on our way back. Let me be clear that I am not a zoo person. I won't go to the zoo. I don't want to see animals forced into cages on display out of their natural habitat and climate. So, I was wary about this "sanctuary", because, really, you could just call a zoo a sanctuary if you wanted to. But everyone at the hotel was raving about it, so we decided to go. And it was great! This sanctuary rehabilitates injured animals and repopulates endangered species. And they have big old habitats for animals that you wouldn't imagine would mind it (birds, reptiles, extremely lazy kangaroos, etc.). It's very open and actually quite large and has a lot to see. One thing I did like, not for the obvious reasons, is that we didn't get to see all the animals that they have. We couldn't see the Tasmanian Devil or the echidnas and the wombat was all curled up and just looked like a pig. I didn't mind though because I really felt like it meant that the animals could hide or do what they wanted and weren't forced to be on display for us all day every day.

So, the pictures above are from our wanderings at this park. Left to right top to bottom-ish we have: the most sarcastic bird I've ever seen in the top left corner. This bird was staring at me with the most New York "you lookin at me?" expression ever. Kane has no idea what I'm talking about and probably neither do you, but it cracked me up. Next to the right are giant grey birds that are about my height when they raise their heads. They were cool and huge. Upper right corner is a nearly extinct type of wallaby - adorable with huge long tail. Center row has a dingo (yep, it just looks like a dog) and two cuddling kangaroos on the left, an inexhaustibly cute koala in the Whoopie Goldberg slot (Hollywood Squares, anyone?) and a giant pelican-type bird and a pretty parrot on the right. The parrots actually were in Marysville (not at the sanctuary) and are scattered throughout urban and suburban Victoria (and maybe the rest of Aus? Don't really know). They're so pretty and neat! The bottom row shows an emu which is a large ostrich-like bird that makes a very loud rumbling honk noise deep in its throat. I'm not sure what it was trying to say to us, but it sounded freaking weird coming from something that wasn't James Earl Jones. Next to Mr. Emu we have weird-beaked bird, a couple bats hanging upside down, and another adorable wallaby (slightly less endangered). If you click the picture, it will enlarge it for you so you can see the pictures more clearly, if you want.

We saw more than that, but those were the good pictures. If we ever get the chance to go by there again, we'll definitely take it. There was enough stuff there to occupy a whole day. Not just with the exhibits but there are also events every hour or so where you can meet the keeper of each of the animals or watch them be fed, etc. etc. Very well done place.

Oh yeah, and there was a platypus display. But since they only come out when it's dark and quiet, you can't get a good picture of them in the dim, dank cave area that they built for them. I was surprised at how small they were - I thought (probably just from Warner Brothers cartoons) that they were about the size of a medium-sized dog - maybe 40 pounds or so. The ones at this place were probably 3 pounds. They were tiny! There were a bunch only about the size of my hand, but I think those were the babies. The others weren't much bigger, maybe the size of a medium-sized turtle. I can't imagine them weighing more than 10 pounds or so. Those might have just been small ones, but they were cute and I was surprised nonetheless.

You will note from my lack of descriptive names and information that I don't read the labels at museums and sanctuaries. Actually, on this visit, we were short on time because we had to return the rental car by 5pm, but I'm typically not a label-reader anyway. Except in grocery stores. Just ask Kane.

So that was our weekend. It was fun and certainly was worthy of a birthday celebration. Thanks to mom and dad for providing the monetary support for the massages - much appreciated! High five to anyone who actually read this whole thing - I tend to get a bit wordy (literally).

Not Much

What have you been up to? Not much. What's new? Not a whole lot. Anything exciting happening? Nope, wouldn't say so. Sorry to disappoint, but not much is going on right now. I feel like, not only because I moved to another country but also because I choose to periodically report on our experiences and life in general via this blog, that I'm somehow obligated to have something to write about. It's just not always the case. We're boring. I do appreciate you being here just to read about our boring life though, thanks. Shout out to Sue - dad tells me you read often. Hi from Australia.

We didn't do much this last weekend, but next weekend is our belated birthday celebration, to take place at The Cumberland Villa Spa in Marysville, which appears to be about an hour or hour and a half west-ish of Melbourne: http://www.thecumberland.com.au. We got the "Romantic Spa Getaway" package including a room for Saturday night, fancy dinner, breakfast and massages. It's going to be awesome. Will report on that next weekend.

Today I happened to be near a VicRoads office - DMV equivalent - so I made an appointment to get my Victoria driver's license. We've put it off forever partially because we were too lazy to find out info about it and partially because we were too lazy to go to a VicRoads office to make an appointment. Plus, I guess we really haven't needed licenses up to this point. Anyway, supposedly it's a simple procedure whereby I prove that I am in fact myself and then pay them money to let me drive in their country. Hopefully it goes that smoothly. I was hoping that the DMV here would be an improvement on the DMVs from home, but alas, the insanity that is the department of motor vehicles is ubiquitous. The only difference is that the clerks spoke English as a first language which both surprised and amazed me. In California (at least in the Bay Area) English as a second language is a requirement and, actually, may be the only requirement to be a DMV employee. Although being impossible to understand, very slow, and extremely crotchety doesn't hurt either. We'll see how it goes getting the actual license - my appointment isn't until August 21.

All else is well in Australia - the days are getting longer now THANK GOODNESS. I'm pretty sick of the dark and even more tired of the cold. If you haven't heard it straight from me yet, the winter here is pretty much the same as the winter in California (where we're from at least). Generally cloudy and crappy with random sunny days interspersed. Colder temperatures in the day (40s-60s sometimes maybe venturing up to 70s) and freaking freezing at night (30s-50s). And windy. I dislike the wind the most. Needless to say I'm freezing often. But it will pass and it could be worse. NO NEED to brag about the excellent California (or insert other location here) weather right now. I prefer sympathy, understanding, or cash, thank you very much.

Another Day Older

Or year, or whatever. I would like to firstly mention that it's odd to have my birthday in the winter. I love summertime and my birthday is always in the summer. I get to do things like waterslides, outdoor barbecues, and wear flip flops on my birthday - that's the deal. But alas no; I have moved to a place where this isn't the case. Winter coat on my birthday, sunscreen on Christmas; this place really is backward.

Anyway, this is weekend 1 of 2 of Kane and Angie's birthday extravaganza. Saturday we rented a car, drove down the Great Ocean road, stopped in a small town on the ocean called Lorne (Kangie film strip in Lorne pictured left), walked around and had lunch, then drove back for a night of fancy cake from Brunetti's and Big Lebowski with Marc and Alana (Malana). Me, cake and Malana pictured above - it was great.

Today we go to the mall to go shopping, then return the car. Next weekend we're hopefully going to do our overnight spa weekend if we can find an open booking somewhere desirable. Apparently it's school holiday so all the families are taking up our precious birthday weekend space. Part 2 of 2 will be completed next weekend.

Back To Normal

Well, our lives are back to normal. Work, work, work, weekend. But, actually, my work for Thom is slowing down, so I actually have time. Time at my home. To do other things. Like I'm finding today, I don't know what the heck to do with this extra time. I always seem to have some inane task or hobby to occupy my time, but I think I'm all out. I'm sure I'll find something. We might be motivated to go out and do things, but it's pretty cold and cloudy every day since it's the dead of winter. It puts a damper on our already fleeting desires to go out and do stuff. If we had a car, I may want to, but public transport on a crappy day is just depressing.

Speaking of public transport, Kane had the pleasure of riding the tram to work with an outspoken drunk last Thursday. Yes, drunk at 8am; certainly a winner. At least the people on my tram route appear to generally be normal business people, so I have yet to be accosted by these unpleasantries so easily and often found on public transit.

We looked at a couple new apartments this week and so far we're not having any luck. Kane's commute is over an hour and mine is about half that, so we're trying to move somewhere east of the city that's a bit more central to where we work. We're also sort of looking for a car to buy for use on the weekends, etc. And by "looking", I mean Kane is supposed to look, which means that nothing is really happening. But still, we often say, "We need to get a car". So, maybe someday we'll actually make the effort and fork out the cash. Someday...

Other than that, not much going on. It's our birthdays next week though - whoo hoo we're getting older! We're thinking of going to see a play and maybe getting massages. And there's a rad bakery downtown with extravagant cakes, gelato, and other ridiculously delicious looking treats that I hope to patronize for a birthday binge.

Also, I'd like to give a shout out to Alana for giving me this Regina Spektor CD; it's so weird but it rocks. Thanks dude! And Happy 4th of July to all you Americans - we'll be patronizing the pride of our country in tribute - TGI Friday's - with the other American Expats in Melbourne. Yeay for mediocre food and atmosphere!

Whirlwind Friends

Well, I think that was the quickest 10 days of my life. Carissa and EJ got here on Sunday the 8th and then, BOOM, it was the 17th and I was taking them back to the airport. They say time flies when you're trying frantically to think of things to suggest to your visiting friends to occupy their vacation in the city to which you have recently moved, and sheesh, ain't that the truth.

The first Monday they were here was a public holiday called Queen's Birthday, which is not actually the birth date of any queen. And I'm not even sure which queen we're trying to celebrate anyway. But who cares: day off. So, we went around town a bit and saw the standard sights to see: Federation Square, Flinders Train Station, the mall, etc. It was a bit drizzly so not the best, but still nice. And this was one of the days that Angelica (Kane's friend's sister) was here visiting as well, so it was a nice group of 5 of us. Angelica left Tuesday (only to return the following Saturday) and Carissa and EJ continued touring around the city during the days while Kane and I worked, and then we'd all go out to dinner at night.

Over the weekend that they were here, we took a trip to Phillip Island, which is about a 2 hour drive south of Melbourne. Angelica was back that weekend as well, so it was the five of us again on a nice overnight trip. We saw the penguins as they flocked inland from the sea at dusk, then toured around a koala reserve the next afternoon. It was awesome to see some authentic Aussie wildlife - I felt like I was in a different country! I liked the wallabies the best (like small kangaroos - pictured above), they were totally rad.

I took Monday the 16th off of work to hang with Car and EJ on their last day (Angelica left that day to continue her Aus/NZ travels). We went to St. Kilda to see the "strip" of touristy shops/restaurants, walked the beach, and went to a sweet veggie restaurant on the water. Then we paid ridiculous prices to go up in the tallest viewing deck in the Southern hemisphere (don't even get me started on the stupid Southern hemisphere claims (biggest this, tallest that, etc), which are a totally bogus way of trying to make something in Australia or New Zealand sound impressive). It was very...tall...up there and I'm not excellent with heights, so I took some pics and was happy to have my ears pop as we whooshed back down to the ground below.

We walked through the Crown Casino (biggest casino in the Southern hemisphere...yeah, yeah, yeah), lost a few bucks on two cent slots, and made our way to the arcade. Carissa did managed to get carded however, and yes, the gambling age is 18. The irony is that we were on our way to the arcade when the attendant demanded to see her ID, but we kept that to ourselves.

The visit was a success and I encourage others to follow suit! It might be more fun to spend a few days here then check out some of the more exotic places like Queensland before coming back to see us before you leave, but Melbourne certainly has enough to do for a couple weeks. Also, I have posted some of the pics I took during their visit on my Picasa website, so please check those out as well: http://picasaweb.google.com/angiesommer

Thanks for tuning in and thanks to Carissa and EJ for visiting and buying us dinner every night (an act which we are heretofore making a relatively mandatory requirement if you're staying in our house, so budget that in, people)! ;-)

Father's Day

Ok, so Father's Day went a bit by the wayside, but at least I got to talk to daddy-o in the midst of my visitors. In true blog style, however, this is my tribute post to dads everywhere, albeit a little late. I love you daddy!!!

Guests!

We have guests. Kane's friend's sister, Angelica, got here today, and Carissa and EJ arrive tomorrow morning. Whoo hoo! Angelica only stays for a couple nights then comes back for another couple later in the week while Carissa and Elijah stay for 10 days. Should be fun!

In related news, we rented a car today, which I picked up and drove around solo while Kane waited for Angelica to arrive. Yes, me, gigantic Toyota sedan, navigating the streets of central Melbourne alone. It wasn't nearly as bad as I had expected - the left side of the road thing isn't actually the hard part. It's easy in urban areas since you just sort of follow everyone else. The thing that's quite the doozy is that the steering wheel is on the right side of the car. This means that everything is backward and that the bulk of the car is to my left rather than my right. So when I try to deftly swing around the car in front of me who is waiting for a parallel parking space, I need a significantly larger berth than my car-brain is allowing. I didn't hit anyone, but the first time I passed someone like that I proceeded to make a mental, if not verbal, actually, note to not get so god damn close on the left side.

The other thing that's funny is when I'm on a street turning onto another street with no light or stop sign. I look for cars both ways like normal, but I realize that I have no idea which way I'm supposed to turn or which way the cars are supposed to come from. It's funny what's ingrained in you and what can adapt easily. I also actually laughed out loud when I looked up to see the rear view perched on the "windscreen" (windshield) facing the wrong way! It's obviously angled such that the person in the driver's seat can see, but it looks backward to me, as thought it's facing the passenger.

Anyway, no casualties so far and I managed to pick up the car, get to Marc and Alana's, go to work, go to the grocery store, and come back home. All without getting lost, confused, or denting the car. Excellent. Carissa and Elijah arrive tomorrow at 9:30 am, bless their hearts for arriving at a reasonable time of day, and then the week of Aussie tourism begins. I'll try to post some pics next time of all of us. Until then, wish me luck on the left side of the road!

Dentist

I had my first visit to an Aussie dentist on Thursday. All went pretty well, but I have to say that I was wary about a new dentist in a new country. It seems that everyone pretty much feels the same way about the dentist: it's no fun but preferable to the alternative. Sort of like doing your taxes or showering. I guess it's just not fun for anyone, but with my overactive imagination I always seem to have these wildly awful daydreams about my dentist's secret sadistic tendencies taking hold and him randomly deciding to gouge one of his many sharp utensils into my delicate gums. Or him just slipping with pointy-stabby-stainless-steel-scraper thingie and embedding it into the roof of my mouth. Or the spinny-tooth-buffer-thingie suddenly malfunctioning and catching part of my lip in the rotor. Sorry to expose you to my insanity; I try to snap my mind away before these thoughts become fully Nazi or Quentin Tarantino, but what else am I supposed to think about at the stupid dentist? I can't exactly organize my weekend with him scraping around in there.

Aside from my ridiculousness, there were a few differences that I noticed at this dentist versus any dentist I have ever had in the states - which, granted, is only like 2 that I can remember, so may not be an indicative sample of my home country's dental practices. Firstly, the dentist himself cleaned my teeth. I've never heard of that happening. When I asked him about it, he says he feels like he gets to know his patients better this way - very cute. I did feel better having The Dentist cleaning my teeth rather than some random girl, although the random girls have been doing a decent job so far, never having succumbed to any of my gruesome fantasies (except that one time that the hygienist knocked out one of my loose teeth that I was taking extensive and painstaking efforts not to disturb as it hung quite literally by a strand of gum tissue, a ritual that I repeated for the exodus of the majority of my baby teeth, mostly because I'm a huge baby and get all freaked out by teeth related grossitudes, which probably partially explains my lively dental imagination, though I also have an inordinate number of stupid daydreams in most situations, which I would go into if this sentence weren't ridiculously improper already...).

Anyway, another thing I noticed was that he did the tooth-buffer instrument first, rather than after the tooth-scraping. I have always experienced scrape first, buff after, so this was new and strange. Also, instead of the standard sharp, curved, steel tooth scraper instruments that they normally plunge into the crevices of my teeth, pushing so hard that my thoughts wander to the contingency of the tip breaking off and lodging itself in my tonsils (yes, I still have tonsils), he had an ultrasonic sharp curved tooth scraper thing. It felt strange. It was nicer because he didn't have to really scrape the hell out of my teeth to clean them; he could sort of just glide this thing over and it would do whatever it was supposed to. But the ultrasonic-ness made for some weird sounds and felt almost electric-shock-esque when cleaning between my front teeth. So, I'm not sure if I would prefer it or not, but it doesn't really matter since I'm at his disposal in there.

The funny thing about this new technologically advanced instrument is that it pours out water, assumingly to keep it cool while it does it's sonic groove. Similar to how a concrete circular saw works, if you've ever used one. So, the dental helper girl has to hold the sucky thing in my mouth the entire time to remove all the water that is being dumped in there. It was like having serious dental work done, but with no pain and no numbing...it was kind of weird. I almost laughed at one point (but made a point not to so as to avoid inhibiting their progress) because the ultrasonic thing must have hit some sort of angle against my tooth and water just started shooting out all over my face for a good 10 seconds. While this was happening, the hygienist girl was frantically trying to counter the problem with her sucker utensil, but to no avail. It felt like there was a construction site in my mouth for a minute there. Then when the dentist took a break from sonic-ing my teeth, they both reached for my bib to dab my face at the same time. It was like something out of a three stooges routine.

All in all it went well, my teeth are cleaner, and I can rest easy until my next appointment in December. I am sooo glad that I had a friend to recommend a dentist though - one of the only things keeping my frightening thought at bay was that at least I didn't pick this guy from the yellow pages. He hadn't maimed Alana, so I'll probably be ok. Whew. So, there's the Aussie dentist, he's not a bad guy.

Wrong Side of the Road!!

I was walking down the street the other day, and I saw a car driving. I immediately thought, "holy crap, that guy's on the wrong side of the road!". But then immediately remembered that they drive on the wrong side of the road here. You think I'd be used to it, but I'm just not. Probably because I'm not actually driving. I still look all ways (left, right, up, down, behind me...) when I cross the road because I'm not going to be another casualty statistic from stupidity. I guess that's how most foreign tourists die here - not looking the right way and getting hit by a god damn car. Forget that. I've had a few close calls and now I just look all directions, not even knowing where the cars are supposed to come from. Why can't we all just drive on the same side of the road?

The other thing that's been hard for me here is the metric system. I have a decent concept of meters and stuff already, but it's still hard for engineering purposes. I'm trying to think in meters and kilonewtons, but It's like trying to think in Spanish when you've only taken a year of high school classes. It just doesn't work. So I sit and convert metric to imperial in my head (or with a spreadsheet) to see if my calculations seem right. Plus, they do everything (engineering-wise) in millimeters - so the numbers end up being huge! Not that you'd know what I mean, but the moment of inertias for steel members here are measured in the billions! It's ridiculous. I'm trying though, hopefully it will get better.

Work all this week, work in the day, work in the night, work on the weekends. I'm finishing up this one task for Thom (not that work won't come in after this, but this is pretty major and needs to get done), so it's taking up a lot of time. Anyway, better get back to it!

Million Paws

Today I volunteered for an RSPCA event called the Million Paws Walk here in Melbourne.

http://www.millionpawswalk.com/

I was one of over 200 volunteers manning (womanning, as it were) the booths that made up this fun event. They were trying to break the world record for dogs walked, but I'm not sure if they were able to. It was a nasty day, but at least it wasn't raining. I was in a booth taking sign ups for the dog competitions which were: Cutest Dog, Dog-Owner Look Alike, Best Trick, and Waggiest Tail. I got to see all sorts of furry characters (dog and human) pass by.

Other than that, I've just been extremely busy trying to get a job done for Thom while (whilst, in Australian) working overtime for my job here. Kane is yet to be given actual work to do at his work, which has made the days rather grueling so far. He/we have higher hopes for next week. And so another week begins, the madness never giving rest to relaxation. But, most certainly, another day, another dollar.

Shout out to Uncle Jeff before I get back to work today - I hope you're feeling better!

Happy Mom's Day

To all the mothers on Mothers Day: we love you! Above is a collage of many of the sweet mothers that are in my family, and below are the mothers of the mothers...we miss you! Above sort of left to right top to bottom: Terri with her three babies below her: Cassie, Puff and Ginger; Robby with momma Kim; Jane and Tiff; Me, Jen and Mom in the middle, Kane and Rhonda bottom left; Adele, Monique, Justin with momma Denise above them. AND Monique is now a momma-to-be...huge congrats! Below: Grandma Dorie with my mom and me (three generations of blonds); and Grandmam Clarice on the far right with her four babies: Jane, John, Jim, Jeff.

Happy Mother's Day to all the great mothers in the family (and mother to be). Our family has been truly blessed with some of the kindest, most caring, fun, funny, smart, beautiful mothers that this earth has to offer. We literally owe you our lives and take this day to thank you for everything you have done for us (just one day?). I love you Mom!!!

My apologies for the lack of bloggery - I just don't have the time! I've been doing better and better at work, volunteering to come in this Saturday to help get a project done that is way behind. Good news: Kane did get a job and started Thursday. Bad news: he's not sure if he likes the place he's working. He's going to give it some time and see if it pans out. Until then, I'm totally swamped and at least he's working. So, have a great mother's day everyone and a great upcoming week. And will someone please hug my mom for me?

The Groove

I'm gettin' into it, the groove that is. Working a pretty consistent 8:30-5 day with half hour lunch, taking care of stuff at night, talking to Thom at 6am (yargh), relaxing on the weekends. And, most of all, I can certainly get used to a chunk of money being dumped into my bank account every Thursday. Yes, life is back to normal and is good. A typical work week in Australia is actually only 37.5 hours; 7.5 hours a day, which is sweet. I may take my extra half hour when I get into it a little more, but I'm still trying to work as much as I can to get up to speed as quickly as possible. Learning, learning, learning...there's lots to learn over here. Different building codes, which are actually mostly similar to ours, new office standards, different construction practices, etc, etc. I think I'm catching on quickly though. And, I get to hang with actual Australians all day. With their funny accents and all. Yep, getting the full experience now.

My favorite two terms that I've come across are: squizz and traveling. These are used in this way: Hey, we're going to go visit this site later today, why don't you have a squizz at the file to get familiarized with the project; and, How you traveling on those calculations? It cracks me up; I love it.

Kane went on an interview Friday that seems promising. They do mostly custom houses (sound familiar?) and Kane liked the guys that interviewed him. They make an offer on Monday, so maybe he'll have a job as soon as next week! The only down side of this place is that it took him over an hour to get there on public transport, blah. But, we're looking into getting a car and if he took the train instead of the tram, I think it would go faster. So, if they offer him a reasonable amount of moo-lah, I think he'll take it. Yeay! Then we'll be normal people again with jobs and an income, etc.

Other than that, it was a pretty uneventful week. Even with managing work from SLO, my regular job and other stuff, I didn't feel nearly as overwhelmed as last week. Probably because work will get easier each week just because I'm getting more used to it. So, that's our life update. And now that winter type weather has set in, I get to freeze my ass off every day on the way to, at, and after work. Basically any time I'm not sleeping I'm cold. I thought I was getting away from this crap, what the heck?

Busy Week

Well, I've finally found a job, started work, and am way too busy. I've said it before and I'll type it again - when it rains, it pours. I started my new job Monday at a small firm a few miles outside of central Melbourne, only to get an offer on Tuesday from another company that I had also interviewed with. Sheesh. I haven't turned down the offer, but I probably will next week - they really didn't offer me a very high salary in my opinion. Plus I like the work the smaller firm that I'm at does. My bosses are really nice (two guys own the firm together) and the office is nice and easy going. I'm still managing work from Thom, which basically takes up my (early) mornings, nights and weekends, though that work seems to come in waves. We'll see if I manage not to explode from all this - so far so good.

Kane is still on the hunt for a job. We talked to a guy at the Engineers Without Borders meeting on Thursday who said he'll talk to some friends of his to see if any of their firms are looking for people. We'll see how that goes - Kane longs for the structure that a job adds to your life. Apparently video games all day every day aren't cutting it. Imagine that.

So, that's the only news here, really. Work work and more work. I'm still managing to juggle EWB meetings, a book club that I recently joined, volunteering for events with the RSPCA, and our American Expat meetup group along with actually doing fun things with our friends. I'm also going to sign up for a photography class at the local Center for Adult Education, just to make sure I really plug up all the possible free time that I may have. I wish I were one of those people who only need like 4 hours of sleep a night, I could be so much more productive. As it is, I succumb to the request of a full 8 hours and sleep away a third of every day. In exchange, my body rarely gets sick - it's rare if I get a cold in a year's time. So, there's trade-offs I guess.

Ok, now I'm just rambling without anything especially interesting to type. So, I bid you adieu until next time. Pictured: "professional Angie".

Jogging and Jobbing

The issue has been raised as to Kane and my dedication to, and the possibility of fraudulent claims of us being joggers. History has delicately placed me into a long and traceable lineage of innate, adamant non-joggers. Some postulate that the name "Sommer" is derived from the Latin sumarius, which is an adjective form of the word "molasses". And like molasses, a Sommer only happily moves slowly, and really would prefer to stay put altogether whenever possible. I believe my great, great, great uncle, William Sommer, has been quoted to say, "Take away my freedom, my dignity, my country, but do not ever try to force me to jog".

However, with the intention of continuing to fit into my overpriced, fancy work suits, in addition to balancing out my love of Nutella (and anything chocolate for that matter), I have begun an extremely rudimentary and considerably pathetic workout regiment. We looked into joining the gym here, but were swiftly deterred by the $40 per two weeks fee - the only thing I hate more than being out of shape is being out of money. So, we were left to our own devices and decided to start the doing the cheapest workout around: jogging.

We started by just jogging down the street and back, walking when I start to overheat. We're up to around 1.5-2 miles each morning of pathetic, trudging, huffing and puffing jogging. Sometimes Kane eases into a fast walk next to me just to show how exceptionally slow we are actually moving. But, I keep to it, slow and steady - there's something a Sommer can relate to. We can win the race, just as long as you're easily distracted...

So that's the skinny on the jogging. Or perhaps the "average sized" on the jogging, as it were. To answer cousin questions: I do dislike exercising, but am embracing it as a necessary evil, like politics or nylons. To report my findings, my suit pants do still fit well, which I know because I have recently gone on two job interviews in said pants. I will say no more about it because the jury's still out and I wouldn't want to post all sorts of stuff on the internet since sometimes companies do a quick google search on you nowadays. Just know that all is well and that a follow up will commence next week. (Email me if you're too curious)

We Need A Car

Pictured: a tram in downtown Melbourne.

Public transport around Melbourne is excellent. It creeps through all of downtown and spreads its tentacles far outside the city center with trains, trams and buses. It's relatively clean, decently priced, and seems to have enough capacity to support this city.

I am, however, sick of it. There are two main issues that I have with the public transport: it takes forever to get anywhere, and public transport people. Kane and I went to a meeting at the RSPCA (Royal Society for the Protection...) on Tuesday, which is about 15 miles from our house. It probably would have still taken us a while to drive since you have to go through downtown (lots of lights, traffic, etc.), but it surely wouldn't have taken us an hour and fifteen minutes.

And then there are the crazies. Why do crazies, of any nation, seem to love public transport so much? They flock to it like moths to a streetlight - and like the moths, it seems to get worse at night. On our way back from the RSPCA meeting, we rode with crazy headphone-listening, singing-along, air-drumming guy who approached two other strange looking passengers and then commenced to stare at them for the duration of the ride, only taking breaks for impressive air drumming solos. Who are these people? Can't they keep quiet for 30 minutes while the ride the tram with the rest of us? I suppose that asks too much.

The funny thing is, we got off the tram when the air-drummer relocated to the seat right next to us, only to encounter crazy, drugged out, screaming-at-the-air-right-next-to-her lady on the street downtown. As she approached from behind, I felt uncomfortable being within audible range of this "fight" this woman was having, obviously with someone dear to her, over the cell phone. I then felt even more awkward to discover that there was no cell phone involved. Maybe I don't like big cities, sheesh. Or, maybe I just need a car to acquire the level of isolation from these crazies that I'm used to. Then there's always: if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. I think I would be a rather talented air drummer...

Adele Island

Adele island is a small island off the coast of Abel Tasman National Park in the North-West corner of the South Island of New Zealand. We kayaked by this place only to find that it was named after the discoverer's wife because of its semblance to a woman's profile. I tried to label the picture above (you have to use your imagination a bit) to see the woman laying on her back in the ocean, her head at the left down to her bust on the right. Yes, she has a bit of an adam's apple, but they're made of trees; what are you gonna do.

I bring this up not because the island was anything extraordinary, but because my beautiful cousin, Adele, is. Today (well, depending on how you look at the time difference) is her wedding day, and I am unfortunately not able to attend. I have requested the favor of the most pictures possible from family members; but I know no picture will be able to capture the sheer radiance she emits on this special day.

Therefore, this post is to you, Adele, a tiny dedication on surely one of the finest days of your life. I miss you and I love you and I wish you and JJ all the best things in the world during your long life together. You guys are a beautiful couple and nothing makes your family (me included) happier than to witness your love for each other and to celebrate it with you. I am truly sorry I could not be there for this day, I hope it was everything you ever hope for and more. Huge hug to both of you.

And, BCF, Adele. Should we sing one of our songs? Nissan, Nissan, dun dun dun duh duh duh...

The Wind

It's windy today. You think, so what, it's just wind. But this is actually wind enough to blog about, in my opinion at least. It has nothing to do with me being bored as well...nothing at all.

We left our window open last night in hopes of somewhat avoiding the funk with which a night of two sleeping humans seems to fill a room (or apartment). As a result, we awoke at something-early-am to the sound of our blinds being relentlessly whipped by the early gusts. "What is that," asked Kane. "It's the blinds, we left the window open," I respond. We can typically sleep through anything, but it really sounded like someone had broken into our home and was spastically frolicking in a mountain of Hot Wheels toy cars on our living room floor.

We went for our morning jog and were met with a mean head wind on the way back - so rude. We saw plastic bags flying 50 feet in the air around us (and yes, it was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. American Beauty, anybody?) I thought it would die down, but it's been pounding on our building all day. We first noticed the extremity of the situation just before our jog; I re-opened the sliding glass door to air out the place while we were out and my ears popped just as the door cracked open. Then, as I went to exit the apartment, I was almost unable to open our front door due to the ridiculous pressure coming in through the window, holding the door shut.

Throughout the day, it has sounded like a veritable hurricane is passing through our apartment (this is with the windows shut). I swear, it's worse in here than it is even outside. I'm not sure if it's because of our A/C being connected by a fan to the outside, or if our balcony draws some sort of magnificent wind eddie, or if our building is just the most non-aerodynamic structure in the world, but it's freaking loud in here.

So, the wind has been blowing on and on all day long, but it's really the booms and the creaks that are the scariest. We're on the 14th floor, so I'm not sure how much sound, and wind for that matter, gets exaggerated at this height, but every once in a while there are huge booms that come from inside the building somewhere. Sometimes the sound is smaller and appears to come from the ducts in the walls/ceiling of our apartment. In these cases it sounds like there is a kid with a Nerf baseball bat trying to get out of an aluminum box in our ceiling. It's not scary just more strange, especially when you add that picture to it.

Then there are the big booms that must come from somewhere else in the building like the elevator shafts or giant ducts in the hallway or something. These sound like the kid in the aluminum box has been dropped 7 stories onto an immense aluminum bass drum. Then there are the cracking noises which sometimes sound like the expanding or contracting of glass or steel mullions and sometimes sound like the concrete slab of our floor yielding to the storm and dropping us, along with our building, neatly into the harbor.

I swear, I must watch too many movies, but with every *pannng* or *bwooonk* of the building I get some sort of Die Hard-Matrix-Indiana Jones scene playing out in my head. It typically involves the dramatic structural failure and collapse of our building (spalling concrete crumbling, yielding steel creaking, sparks, steam, flickering lights: the works) and subsequent, improbable yet completely possible, valiant action-hero escape of Kane and I to safety. In these daydreams I always remember to grab my laptop, just as Will Smith grabs the cat at the last second as the house is demoed in I Robot. Memories are precious, people.

So that has been our day. Oohing and aahing (and flinching) at the sounds of our building screaming in the wind. We look outside to see that the city is covered with what looks like smog, but since it has only showed up today, we assume it's the dirt and crap that has been kicked up by this gnarly wind. Since it's Melbourne, I anticipate completely different weather conditions tomorrow, whatever they may be, and I look forward to them.