Trivia, Zoo, Indian Food

Ok, last week/weekend were eventful in KAngie terms. This means we did things outside the house, often with other people. Last Wednesday we went to a trivia night hosted by Democrats Abroad with a few friends. It was just a trivia night so anyone was welcome (even Republicans and Aussies/Kiwis). We went to an excellent Indian restaurant before the trivia gathering which was reminiscent of the Ethiopian place but a bit more tasteful and extremely tasty! We got a vegetarian combo where they pick the three dishes (always risky) and it was freaking great. And how do they cook the rice like that? It's just plain rice but it's so much better after it came from an Indian person's kitchen. And don't even get me started on naan...mmmmmm...

After delicious and inexpensive (ah, no wonder I liked it so much) dinner, we proceeded to trivia night. Trivia, like basketball and fashion, is something I like but am horrible at. I don't have a memory, so how can I answer random questions about inane crap? Plus, to make an argument that doesn't make me sound like such a doofus, I'm an engineer: trained to know how to find information, not just to know it. In fact, I think my entire generation has learned that you don't need to know things, you just need to sit near a google prompt. There is no need for me to remember random things, which is good because I apparently can't.

With this in mind, I'm always amazed at how much crap other people know that I don't. I generally walk around feeling that I am of at least mildly superior intelligence to most folks (but maybe that's just a complex) and yet, it seems like every idiot knows more trivia than I do. I try to make excuses, but, in the trivia contest, I still look like an oaf. I should take up drinking because then I'd at least have an excuse. "Angie was so useless at trivia, she was totally trashed". But no, I just get to be useless and extremely aware of it.

It didn't help that this was political trivia. Granted, I can't think of a trivia subject that I could confidently answer questions about (except "math", but that's not trivia, it's just knowledge; and I probably wouldn't even be all that good at that, sadly), but politics is surely one of the worst. You may as well quiz me on 19th century ship making or something. It's really pathetic. I don't know names. I can't remember dates. And for god's sake, I don't know historic court cases. These were just a few of the categories at this trivia night where I failed miserably, unable to help my team at all. And no, I don't actually know the names of past and present Supreme Court Justices. Not even if it's in the form of true or false questions. My team wouldn't even let me be the person who writes the answers down because I kept spelling everything wrong. "You said Nancy Ferguson?" "No, Betty Anderson - give me the paper". Damn.

Needless to say, we won last place. But, due to a random joke telling contest in the middle of the trivia marathon, Kane managed to win a free pitcher of beer for our table. And you thought racially insensitive jokes couldn't get you anywhere...

So that was trivia night. We followed that up this weekend by renting a car and hitting up the Werribee Open Range Zoo. Since they are partnered with the Healsville Sanctuary, I thought we could give it a try. It was a nice place; I did not feel like the animals were oppressed in any way. It was a nice day and the animals were neat - though I did like the Healsville place more because there were mostly Australian-oriented residents, rather than hippos and rhinos shipped from lord knows where. Still good though. Picture collage to come, don't have time at the moment.

After the zoo I actually had a night of patented Angie sickness - where my insides suddenly decide they need to be on my outside. And with that, we missed a bbq at our friends' house and instead got to relax in the living room/bathroom Saturday night. Oh well. Even though I didn't feel great on Sunday, I refused to waste a $77 car rental so we drove down to Geelong to see what that place was about. It's about an hour away and is one of the larger towns surrounding Melbourne; many people commute from there. And just fyi; it's kind of a hole - I see no reason to return. But it was a nice day anyway. At least until I had to be escorted quickly back home to reacquaint myself with the toilet. Go me.

Still a good week and weekend. And I've fully recovered from strange stomach ailment, for which I still have no viable origin to suspect. Now it's halfway through the week and is only just over a two week countdown until our triumphant return to the States.

Secret Handshake

A lot of little things happened last week, none of which were worth their own post. The event that made me the happiest, while not the most exciting, was learning the secret handshake at the gym. While not an actually physical manifestation of camaraderie, we still feel privileged to know this new information, which is this: you don't have to pay $108 a month to belong to the gym. They make you think you do because that's what they tell you when you sign up. But, after an undisclosed amount of time being a member and paying a billion dollars a month, you can downgrade your membership to any number of veiled secretive options.

We were prompted to ask because our boss said he only pays $70 a month on the condition that he can only go to the one gym rather than all the gyms in the chain. So we thought we'd ask for that. When we did, Mr. Gym Membership man said we could do an even cheaper "off peak" option, allowing us only to go to the gym between 10-4pm on weekdays. We go every day at lunch, so that was perfect. And it only costs $52 a month - 50% savings, booya! So, sadly, that was the highlight of my week. I love saving money too much.

Other than that, we got to help Marc and Alana move (yes, I wrote "got to" because they read this blog sometimes). Just kidding, it was easy since they only moved down the street. And Kane and Marc did all the heavy lifting, so it was especially easy for me. Yeay. Pictured are the three of us in the front of the moving van, Kane is behind the metal grate in the back (sorry that you're blurry Marc). We also got most of Kane's Halloween costume; he is going to be Shaun of the Dead. I will be a zombie and intend to acquire the necessary makeup this weekend. And, while acquiring this costume, we encountered Mr. White Trash Australian, which was new and exciting to me. I've only ever experienced Mr./Mrs. White Trash America before, so it was nice to see an exact parallel between these two countries.

Mr. White Trash Australian, let's call him Steve, had an Australian flag hat on, sleeveless shirt, and tattoed arms. He was also hopelessly (and appeared happily) overweight and eager to discuss menial topics with us, such as the merits of the clip-on tie that Kane was trying on for his costume. Steve was very excited to see another fellow human wearing this tie, since he himself had purchased this same tie but a week ago. Apparently, "you can't go wrong with a tie like that, mate", which is good because Kane certainly wants his costume to be excellent. And by excellent, I mean as cheap as possible. We salute you, Steve, wherever you may be, no doubt with beer in hand.

Also, the weather, while still hit or miss, is getting nicer. On Saturday it was hot in the day and warm all night - my favorite. I hear it's going to be a hot summer here, so we are relatively prepared to go from way too cold to way too hot weather. Figures.

Big accomplishments occured this weekend when we finally sent in our absentees and did our taxes. Those two have been weighing my to do list down quite a bit; now we are free!! They were both very trying activities and pretty much took all my energy for Sunday. Which works out since we don't usually do anything anyway. Next weekend I hope we can rent a car and go drive around somewhere. The weather better stay good!

Ethiopian Adventure

There's an excellent Ethiopian restaurant nearby that we frequent with Marc and Alana and it has so much character I thought I'd write about it this week. To start, the decor in general is something like what a blind autistic kid might orchestrate. The walls have been recently painted to mostly light blue (an improvement from finger-print-and-other-miscellaneous-dirt-stained off-white), with strips of white at the top and bottom where they didn't want to get too close to the ceiling/floor. Throw some accidental paint streaks on all window and lighting fixtures and *voila*, new paint job. The tables and chairs are of a nameless, rickety, sub-Ikea brand that might adorn an underprivileged elementary school's cafeteria or your backyard left over from the 1980's.

But, upon arrival, you are blinded to all this by the tablecloths. These monstrosities are solid plastic - to the point where I'm surprised that they bend over the edge of the table. But it's the pattern that is so distracting and, really, unnecessary: bright green, yellow and orange flowered print on a white background. It's a bit like the 1960's threw up all over these tablecloths. They are hideous and completely out of place and I have no idea where you could even purchase such an item. They give the place a cheap, awkward feel that lets you know that either the food is really good or really, really bad. Token plastic flowers in a tiny, sad vase adorn each table. And the funny thing is, there isn't a table for four people. There are six tables for three, all pushed up against the side walls and one big table for eight in the center and that's it. Fortunately, we've never come in when anyone else has actually been there (I'm starting to suspect that we're their only customers), so we just take the giant table.

Then they hand you the menus. The menus are a game of luck and chance. I believe they have about a half dozen menus in stock and possibly one of them has all the pages in it. The rest have only selected pages and I believe I've gotten one before that only had the drinks page. Fortunately we've been there enough to know when we are missing pages. It is rather ridiculous but fairly entertaining. We generally use the four menus that we are handed to mentally take stock of all the items on offer to make our decisions.

Up until this last time we went, it was always the same woman working there; I think she was the hostess, waitress, cook, and cashier. She did not speak English. We ordered by pointing. She would waive her hand and say "finish" when they were out of the item we wanted, which was just about every time. She seems like a kind soul, though the masses of scars and tattoos that adorn her arms and face make her mysterious. Her rear end may, in fact, be the size of Ethiopia, which makes her all the more endearing to us.

We order almost the same thing every time and get something completely different. It's like an Ethiopian grab bag. I point, she nods, something different comes out on the plate. But the thing is, it's always good. And I didn't know what I was ordering in the first place, so it doesn't really matter. I point to vegetarian yellow-ish and brown lintel paste with a side of mushy delicious-ness on the menu and get a different vegetarian bean-y paste with a side of lumpy mush. It doesn't really matter. It's all excellent. And the price is right; it's all sooo cheap.

So we go back again and again to the Ethiopian place, to watch Dancing with the Stars muted on the TV and listen to crazy tribal Ethiopian music on the three foot tall, completely disproportionately large speaker in the corner. We laugh, we consume our plate of mush, we try to avoid the sticky spots on the tablecloth. Ahh...I wish I were there now.

Hitlerhoff

This weekend we attended another Melbourne Fringe Festival event (see last week's entry). This time we went to a show called Hitlerhoff, which, just based on the name alone (and the picture), we figured must be entertaining. Hitler and David Hasslehoff both have checkered pasts and were both at one point beloved to the German people. I thought that a play that somehow combined the strengths and humor (I guess Hitler can be funny now, it's been long enough) of the two of them would be necessarily funny. On that note, I was wrong.

Hitlerhoff was stupid. Not only did it not clearly define who the character "Hitlerhoff" was supposed to be (Hitler with a bit of Hoff?, a Nazi-inclined Hasslehoff?, their love child?, someone else completely who had an equal affinity for fascism and lifeguarding?), but it took place in an undefined time in this century (ex: he fought in The Great War while a picture of a gun-toting Sarah Palin appeared in a photo montage) and it had a propensity toward being completely unintelligible. I figure at some point, though I consider myself a generally intelligent and open minded person, willing to accept someone's strange idea for a play, there are plays that are "works of art" that are understood and appreciated mostly by the community of artists that are prone to that sort of expression. Fine, I don't have to get everything. But I'm not actually sure there was anything to get with this play.

There was really no storyline to follow, no laughable jokes (though I could feel the breeze as a few of them undoubtedly flew over the audience's heads), and no climax or real ending to the story. I can say two good things about it: the actors weren't bad and it wasn't so terrible that I wanted to cut myself or anything. I just kind of wanted to take a nap. Actually, what I really wanted was to get what was going on, a desire that fueled my undivided attention to these ranting strangers for an hour on a Saturday night. But alas, I found nothing to get and we left empty handed with only our incessant complaining to comfort us. Which it did. Thank goodness we saw this with two other couples so that we could bitch about it for an hour afterward to help cancel out the time wasted.

The funniest part of the play was actually when some poor fool in the audience decided that he had to go to the bathroom or have a smoke or answer his phone or do something that required leaving the room. This play was in a relatively small room that seated about 50 people and the entrance/exit doors were toward the front of the room between the stage and the first row. In the very first lines of the play, Hitlerhoff says something comically noting how the doors will be locked for the duration of the show, assumingly as a joke. When this guy went to leave in the middle of the show, however, he couldn't get the 1950s-style double doors to open. He wrestled with the door for about 45 seconds much to the amusement of the crowd and most certainly stealing the show from the Hitlerhoff-grovelling-on-the-floor-in-a-red-speedo scene. That got the most laughs out of the whole show, and I certainly thought it was the best part.

So, that was the highlight of our weekend, which actually was a highlight since it provided grounds to bond with our friends and something for me to blog about. So maybe it wasn't so bad after all. ...But don't go see it anyway.

The Fringe Festival

Melbourne is a city of festivals. There is seemingly always some festival occurring in this fine city, and I don't mean the kind with booths and barbecues and face painting (although I'm sure they have their fair share of those too), I mean the kind with events scattered over a few weeks at a smattering of local venues. We just finished the Writer's Fesitval, next is the Arts Festival, and we are currently engulfed in the Fringe Festival.

What is a Fringe Festival? I feel that in some ways the name itself deterred my interest initially just because the word "fringe" doesn't necessarily invoke me to think, "stuff I'm interested in". Alana, however, was fortunately feeling pro-active this weekend and chose a little show for us to go to, which ended up being very fun and cool. I guess the festival is just a bunch of shows playing all around town - comedy shows, little plays and stuff like that - that are short and are relatively cheap to attend. Pictured above are the three of us being not nearly "fringe" enough to attend the festival, but going anyway. Notice that Alana is the same height as Kane from the knee up...so cute.

We saw a little comedy play called "The Last Bucket of Water" which was about the end of the world and guarding the last existing bucket of water, which, as luck would have it, turned out to be possessed. It had only 3 people in it (the play, not the bucket), and the audience was about 25 people. I've seen Patrick in a play like that once, and found it weird that he could see me just as easily as I could see him. I could have high fived him if I had wanted to. I digress; this play was very good and funny (Patrick's was good too, just for the record).

So that was the weekend, aside from watching the debates (which we were fortunate not only to have shown here, but also that they were at a reasonable time - live at 11am Saturday) and avoiding the madness of the Footy Grand Final, which is equivalent to the Super Bowl. The Hawks won, just in case you were wondering. It was probably epic, but, like football, I don't know the rules, don't really care anyway, and only like teams based on their team colors. The Hawks are brown and yellow - totally gross, I would have never been rooting for them.

I worked today because our office is still swamped; we will now take our trip to the States sans vacation debt. We also downloaded an album by The Darkness, which appears to rock. Hope you have a good week! (yes, you!)

Excellent Weekend

It was just as excellent as it was long-awaited. Kane pointed out that I had worked 19 days in a row, which was not a fun thing to hear. Granted, seven year olds in China do that for years on end earning, like, a rice ball or something for it, but still. Not to mention that my bosses certainly don't sympathize; when I started working there in April, my boss David said that he'd taken eight days off this year already. I thought, wow, that's nice, he takes a couple days off a month to relax, hang with his family, etc. Then he mentioned that the number eight included Saturdays and Sundays...yikes. I should have been smart enough to get out then! Just kidding. It's been a busy year for my (our) company. BUT (and it's a big but, and please, no posterior puns from that one), each day of weekend I (we) work, we get an extra day of vacation to fuel our Vacation Machine, which I do believe needs capitalization.

This weekend we got to relax and it was epic. The weather was mediocre, but we mainly watched movies, cleaned the house and took care of computer stuff (me catching up on emails and spreadsheets, Kane playing video games). We got to sleep in, take naps, have dinner with Alana, go shopping for groceries and much needed socks and generally lounge around. Another plus to actually getting a weekend is that I can start to plan some of the vacations that we worked so hard for.

In a couple weeks, we plan to take a Monday off and drive down to The Twelve Apostles for a B&B style weekend exploring the Victorian coast. Then, as you probably know, in November we haul our butts back to CA for a "hang with the family" two and a half week vacation. Then for Christmas, we want to get down to Tasmania for a week, hopefully with Marc and Alana. Sometime in February or March we want to head out to Kangaroo Island, the third biggest island off Australia, and in April or May we want to take a 4 day weekend to Alice Springs and Uluru!

And that's all before leaving in (probably) June to do our Totally Excellent World Tour on our way back to the States. Whew. I swear sometimes I think I like planning it more than actually going. It's sad, I know. Anyhow, so, still really busy at work, but hopefully I can lay off the weekends for a while, though it is nice to have that extra vacation time under my belt!

Warmth

What is this? This yellow light on my face? This feeling of being happy, like I'm all tucked into bed at night? This sudden desire to take off 2 of my 3 jackets?

Spring has apparently, as they say, sprung. Thank the good lord. Yesterday and today it was warm. And not just central-coast-in-the-winter, decently-warm-in-the-middle-of-the-day-but-still-frosty-as-crap-at-night warm, but warm even at night. This is a coveted rarity in my life. We left work yesterday and it wasn't freezing. I was not unhappy waiting for the tram to come, at least not from the temperature. Today walking to the tram I actually took off my jacket and let the sun touch my arms. My arms! Out in the world! People could see them!

Same thing tonight - we went to dinner and I only wore one jacket. This is an obligatory jacket for me; normal people were in mini skirts and t-shirts. A one-jacket night is pretty much the best I ever get, and I was thankful. We even actually took a stroll down the dock at night, hand in hand. And I was not shivering. It was amazing, I wish it were always like this.

It was really probably only 70 or 75 degrees or so, but it felt heavenly. Liberating; a weight lifted. Release from months of oppression. Long awaited discharge from an undeserved prison sentence. The winter was colder than we had expected. I hope that it is over now.

And speaking of weather, shout out to my Texas family - stay safe over there, show old Ike that Texans won't take no guff...

The Dread: A Short Story

This is what happens. You get off work at 5:30 and need to be in the CBD by 6. You left slightly too late to be on time to your appointment and you know it. So, you walk at a pace that looks like, with each step, you are poised at an angle that will most certainly propel you swiftly and face first into the ground, managing each time to project your leg out in front of yourself to prevent falling at the last moment. Each step continues like this in a hurried, frantic manor. You are passing joggers and your calves are burning.

You know the train is faster to get into town, but the tram is usually more frequent. This is a typical debate in your mind: trying to decide which mode of transport Fate will assign you to. It's like picking which line to stand in in the grocery store; and you undoubtedly always pick the wrong one. But alas, as you approach the overpass, you see that the train you want is currently slowing to a stop at the station that is but 200 feet down the ramp across the street. If you run you can make it. You dodge traffic crossing the street and run full-bore down the ramp with your coat blowing in the wind and your gym bag bouncing on your back.

This is one of the smaller train stations that, rather than having a turnstile that only allows you through if you validate your ticket, has a stand whereby you "voluntarily" validate your ticket on an "on your honor" basis. Normally, you are always on your honor (not only because it's the right thing to do, but also because there are frequently city employees pacing the trains and trams issuing fines to those without validated tickets). As you are speeding down the ramp toward the open doors of the train, you know that validating your ticket will undoubtedly make you miss the train. You fumble through your handbag anyway as you bounce down the ramp, trying to find your wallet with the precious tram/train ticket inside that you last validated this morning. You can't find it and it doesn't matter anyway; the train doors are open and waiting...and about to close. So you bypass the ticket stand and jump through the open doors just in time.

Now comes The Dread. You're on the train without a stamped ticket. You're in way over your head here. It's ok, you think, the very worst that can happen is that a tram officer approaches me and gives me a citation. But no, that's not the worst part. The worst part is the humiliation of standing in front of perhaps two dozen fellow train patrons being flogged for not having a ticket. You know they're thinking, "why didn't she just validate her ticket?", or "that was a really stupid excuse, why didn't she just say that she tried but the machine was broken?". You know because you've been the eavesdropping onlooker many times. It's always so pathetic.

So you sit on the train. You glance nervously back and forth down the train car, scanning for possible city officers in disguise (because, yes, they actually do disguise themselves in "normal" clothing in order to catch people). You are practically sweating. And during the two-stop ride, perhaps seven minutes long, you spend the entire time not reading as you normally would, but rather coming up with an excuse that you will use when you get caught. Because obviously you're going to get caught. You may as well have a giant sign over your head flashing "CHEATER" or "CURRENTLY STEALING FROM THE CITY" or similar. Certainly someone will see it; it's impossible not to.

Unfortunately, you were not blessed with the ability to lie convincingly. This is worrying you now. Like a myriad of other sports and activities, you long ago realized that you are not naturally good at lying. It makes you uncomfortable to tell even the smallest lies. Just the other day you accidentally broke a binder at work and the kindly secretary advised you to simply tell the boss that she decided to replace the binder because the original one was getting old. When casually questioned by the boss, you immediately and involuntarily blurted out how you broke the binder. You even provided details about the actual way that you broke it. You could not manage even a simple mistruth to make yourself look slightly less stupid about something that no one even cared about.

Also, you have found, many people expect you to lie in some cases. When you are pulled over in your car, no officer expects or wants you to say "Oh, sorry sir, I just like travelling this fast", or "I didn't see you there or I would have slowed down", or "Yes, I did know I was travelling this fast...sorry". They think your a bit off. And they give you a ticket anyway. You know this because you have done it. Four times.

Somehow you make it to your train stop unscathed. In those long seven minutes all you've come up with as your excuse is maybe to say that you forgot, or that you thought you did validate but must have not done it. You could tell the truth and say that if you had validated that you would have missed the train and that you're in an awful rush. To get to your book club meeting. Not exactly life or death; you doubt they will have pity.

But you're not out yet. You are now at the main train station, the giant, inner-city hub of all the trains. This station most certainly has turnstiles and it also has a thousand people shoving their way through them continuously. You're not sure what happens if you try to pass through the turnstile to get out with a ticket that was never stamped to get in. It's like standing on the edge of a waterfall about to jump in. What will happen? Will you make it through? Or will you tumble onto the jagged rocks hidden by the current and die?

Getting to the turnstile is like playing double dutch. You have to time it right and jump in full force, with confidence. You are reluctant because of your guilty conscience. So you keep getting cut by other rushed commuters. Finally, you just grit your teeth walk up to the stainless steel box that will determine the fate of your evening and insert your unvalidated, lying, cheating, stealing train ticket from this morning. The machine ponders your card for a split second and instead of spitting out your liar ticket, repulsed, and setting off alarms while tethering you to the floor so that you may not escape your flogging, it pops out like normal and the yellow, plastic, triangular "doors" open briefly to let you through. The ticket machine said your ticket was good through 10pm! It was wrong! Blissfully wrong in your favor!

Now the nerves transform into a tiny prickly sensation of joy. You won. You beat the system. You tricked them out of $2.80. You stole from The Man and he didn't even know. You are clearly far more clever than you had previously thought. And as you hop the tram just outside the train station that will take you the additional 4 blocks to your specific destination, you waltz casually over to the ticket machine because even through your magnificent victory, you know that you cannot stand even one more ride with The Dread.

Quarters

I realized today that I miss quarters. They don't have quarters here, in that they don't have a 25 cent monetary denomination; not to mean that you cannot cut things into fours. Our pizza tonight was $20.50 and as I fumbled for a fifty cent piece, I longed for two easy, shiny quarters. Fifty cent coins are ok, but they're way larger than all the other coins, even the $1 and $2 coins, which is obnoxious. Then I got to thinking that I like our change in the US better than Australian change. We keep it simple with 1, 5, 10, 25 while they go through the trouble of 5, 10, 20, 50, $1, $2. And we have a neat name for each coin: penny, nickel, dime, quarter - fun! You're weighed down with change here; women carry bowling ball-sized purses filled with all the change they get. Ok, maybe I'm exaggerating, but there's something annoying about change being worth so much. Got any change? is like asking someone to hand over their watch; it's worth something.

But then I got to thinking about the penny. They don't use pennies here. It's excellent. Pennies are useless, annoying little bits of tin. They insist on edging their way into every amount of change returned to you upon a purchase. They weigh down your pocket, not worth anything at all. With the sense and logic that only seems to exist in a country with a population still in the low tens of millions, Australia has banished the one cent piece. The only change floating around is actually useful. I thought, "gee, America should do this", but then I realized, that's never going to happen. We are the most nostalgic, sentimental group of folks ever (possibly with the exception of the Brits). We won't switch, no matter how much sense (or cents!) it makes. That's also why we're one of only three countries in the world who still hasn't officially adopted the metric system. Yep, just us, Liberia, and Burma (Myanmar), see map. What a trio, eh? Good old Liberia (proceed to look it up on Google Maps, it's actually in Africa). Lord forbid logic and sense pry their way into our red-taped, consumerist lifestyles.


America is great, but for some things, let's face it, we're slow to adapt, difficult to change, and hard to motivate, like Homer Simpson or my cat. Although food is a good motivator for both of them, and probably for most of America too. Ok, my rant is over. Until next time.

Driver's License

Thursday I finally got my Victoria driver's license, refer above. We have put it off until this point due to laziness and not wanting to try to figure out how their system works over here. It was actually a rather simple process, however, and I feel kind of silly not doing it before. I just had to make an appointment at Vic Roads (DMV) and go there with something that proves I live here (a bill addressed to me), my California driver's license, an ATM card, and $45. It was easy and there wasn't even a line. You read correctly, no waiting. Plus, the people at the counter spoke English, albeit Australian English, but that is to be expected. It was great compared to the nightmare in CA that I'm used to avoiding at all costs.

The only hiccup was that you need to have had your license in your home country for 3 years to get a normal license here. Which, is fine, I've had mine for 10 (yep, getting up there). However, the only way they can tell how long you've had your license is from the issue date printed at the bottom of your license. I renewed mine in May last year. Therefore, I could not prove that I have had a license for over 3 years in California. Drat. So, they gave me a provisional license (like I'm 15) that actually only restricts me by not allowing me to drive cars with V8 engines and putting a zero tolerance on blood alcohol levels while driving. The only embarrassing thing is that I am supposed to put these little placards in the front a rear windows that have a big P on them for probationary (or perfectly incompetent, or pending adulthood, or possible a danger on the road; whatever you want to say it stands for) which, of course, I refuse to do.

I don't even have a car to drive so it's not really a worry. I just wanted a cool "look, I lived in Australia" souvenir. So, now I have one. All I have to do to get upgraded to a real, normal person, grown-up license is bring in an old license of mine (yes I have all my old ones, and yes I have them here, in Australia - don't ask) and show them that I've been a licensed driver for just short of an eternity. But, they're only open the exact hours that I work, so I'll wait a while before taking an hour and a half off work again to haul myself up to the stupid DMV to finish the deed. Whew! At least I can show a form of identification that doesn't make people say, wait, what? People get so confused at the CA ID for some reason, it's rather funny.

Down Under

Yep, that's where we are. Just sitting here, way down here. I actually recently read a book by Bill Bryson by this name (Amazon will sell it to you or at least tell you way too much information about it) which was rather amusing. He's a funny guy and though some of it was a bit boring, other parts had me laughing out loud on the tram and it provided a bunch of good info about Australia. I digress. The most recent book that my book club read was Rebecca, apparently a classic novel written in 1938. It was heavy, but I was glad I read it. Very reminiscent of English class in high school. I double digress.

Work is going well for us both, Kane is settling in nicely to BHS. One of my bosses told me that Kane is doing well - good work Kane. Now we can eat lunch, ride the tram, and go to the gym at lunch together again - weee! And, the best part of course, we can talk about work people and work things all day every day. We are immersed. So, that's our life Down Under. We work, we play, it's cold. I can't wait for this stupid winter to be over, it's quite oppressive. I don't think it's much worse than a California winter, but when you don't have a car, leaving the house inevitably means being assaulted by the cold, and even worse, by the wind. Wind that penetrates any type of warm clothing; living by the water has its down sides.

But when Christmas time rolls around, we'll be soaking up the sun. From our apartment. With the air conditioning on. No, we're never satisfied. Still, Australia is treating us well. I even get my driver's license on Thursday, wish me luck!

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!!!