Hats in Oz

I've had hats/sun protection on my mind recently, as the sun is quite strong here, and hats are a real necessity. Here's a photo of Hugh Jackman from the movie "Australia" wearing an Akubra hat.

Image source: http://ediehats.com/archives/2065.

I've been keeping my eye out for a stylish wide-brimmed ladies' hat, maybe even with a chin strap so it won't get blown off at the beach. However, I don't know if one exists, they generally look pretty dorky!

By the way, our friend Mark told us that hats were part of the required uniform at his son's primary school. One day Nico forgot his hat, and he was not allowed to go outside to play during recess. Instead, he had to go sit in the "Responsible Thinking Room!"

Royal Botanic Gardens and Sydney Opera House, and Saturday Night Beer Crawl

On Saturday 28 August we went to the Museum of Contemporary Art, and had a lovely stroll through the Royal Botanic Gardens, where there are interesting plants, lots of cool birds, and also flying foxes (fruit bats)!




We ended up at the Sydney Opera House at sunset.




We also did a pub crawl with a new friend (also named Mark), who showed us that there is good beer in Sydney. We went to:

Redoak Beer Cafe - the Irish Red Ale was good; the Honey Ale also was good, but a bit sweet.

James Squire Brewhouse - enjoyed the Governor King, but we didn't care for the Highwayman.

Heritage Belgian Beer Cafe - cool space; we liked the Leffe Brune and the Chimay Grande Reserve; the Kriek, a cherry lambic, was interesting, but too weird to drink a whole glass.

Then we tried to go to the Lord Nelson Hotel, but they'd closed early, so we ended up at the Mercantile Hotel, where we had some more James Squire on draught.

By the way, "Hotel" here can also mean a bar/pub which may or may not offer overnight accommodations.

Here are the rest of our pics from the day.

Sydney Wildlife World

On 27 August I had an awesome time seeing the animals at Sydney Wildlife World.

Hello, handsome.

Also, here's a short video of the koala.

An adorable rock wallaby.


Here's the keeper explaining that Rex, this huge saltwater crocodile, will be a lifelong bachelor after two failed breeding attempts - he ate two female crocs!


Here's a link to the rest of my pics from the day.

Sydney Aquarium, Chips with Tomahto Sauce, and Beer

On 23 August I had a lovely time wandering through the Sydney Aquarium. Here's a dugong, similar to a manatee.


This weedy sea dragon was so cool!


Here are some chips and tomato sauce from lunch. Man, if you thought ketchup in the U.S. is sweet, try MasterFoods Tomato Sauce! (Yes, it's called "tomahto sauce" here, not "tomayto sauce" or ketchup!)


After having lived in Portland, which has more breweries than any other city in the world, one "con" about Sydney is that most of the beer is pretty dull lager. Luckily, we've found a few places to get good beer, including Redoak Boutique Beer Cafe.


Here's a link to the rest of my pics from the day.

What's for lunch?

Many people know that Google provides free meals for their employees. This is a truly dangerous thing as it's very easy to load up on food and gain extra weight. The "Google 15" is no joke.

Today, as I made my way to the front of the lunch queue I squinted at a small card posted above the "hot meal" tray - it read "Skippy." "What's skippy?", I asked. The reply, from a bloke 2 places ahead of me, was a matter-of-fact "kangaroo."

Turns out Skippy is the name of a kangaroo featured in a popular children's show from the 60s! (Think Lassie down under.) Now that's black humor you can hang your hat on.

Of course I had to have some and it wasn't bad at all. Slightly gamey, it is very lean. It seemed a little overcooked (the Aussies definitely don't eat their red meat like the French) and I can imagine a little less done it would be quite nice. The cook explained to me that Kangaroo meat is high in iron, lean, sustainable and de facto free range: there is no such thing as CAFOs for Kangaroos.

And that's what for lunch.

Moving Setback?

I just got back from looking 3 different houses today. The first 2 were dark and unmentionable. The last was the best one - cute, clean, but tiny one bedroom house in a desirable location. It did not have a single closet in the entire place. I can't store my camping gear in the bathroom, and I doubt an Aerobed would fit in the tiny front sitting room.

Also, we inquired about our shipping container with all our worldly possessions, which was to have arrived in Sydney on 21 August. We were advised today that it is still in Singapore, awaiting a connecting vessel. Its revised estimated arrival date in Sydney is 13 September, making it 3 weeks late. Add onto that another 10 to 14 business days for our shipment to clear Australian Customs and Quarantine, and we may not be seeing our furniture and the rest of our clothes, etc until 27 September.

Our furnished corporate apartment only lasts 30 days, and the lease on any housing we've been looking at may not be able to be held off until the last week of September.

I'm drinking a cup of tea and eating lots of Tim Tams to fortify my strength.

Photos from 17 August, First Day in Sydney

I'm a little late in getting the pictures off of M's camera to post photos from 17 August, our first day in Sydney. Here's a link to our photos from that day.

17 August 2010

Week 1 Update

It's hard to believe we've been in Sydney one week as of today! It still doesn't feel quite real that we're living here, it still feels like vacation (or holiday, as they say here).

It's technically still winter here, but you can tell it will be spring soon. The mornings and evenings have been chilly, but in the afternoon when the sun is out, it's almost short sleeves weather. There have been a few cloudy days, but mostly it's been pretty blue skies and sun, which is lovely.

There are lots of varieties of food available here - Turkish, Thai, Indonesian, Maylay, Indian, etc etc. We still need to go out for dim sum, which here is called yum cha.

On Saturday, we met up with the real estate agent, who drove us around to look at available housing. Real estate in Sydney is very expensive, and it was a little disappointing to see what our budget gets you here. Pretty quickly we changed our minds from needing a full 2-bedroom to a 1-bedroom with a study, just so we can get something a little nicer in our price range.

Saturday was also Election Day here. Voting is compulsory in Australia - you vote or you get a heavy fine. On Saturday night, friends of our friends had an election party, so we went along and everyone was keen to try to explain Aussie politics to us ("Liberal" is conservative here, and the liberal Labor party is red, while the conservative Liberal party is blue). When we left, the election for Prime Minister was too close to call and it's still undecided. This is the first hung Parliament since 1940 - ABC News explains in this article.

On Sunday, we went to the Art Gallery of New South Wales, which is free and has a nice collection of art, and then we took the train to our friends' house, where we borrowed bicycles and rode around their neighborhood and the nearby areas a bit. It was weird to be cycling on the left side of the road!

Yesterday was Matthew's first day at work. I'll let him tell about it, I'll just add that new Google employees really are called Nooglers!

Wandering around the CBD

Matthew is still away on the work outing at Port Stephens, so I walked around the CBD (Central Business District) today - through Hyde Park, into the Anzac Memorial, into St. Mary's Cathedral, into David Jones department store, etc.

This is an Australian white ibis, hanging out in a fountain in Hyde Park. Apparently they are common and hang out in urban areas, just like pigeons. Check out that beak!

This is St. Mary's Cathedral, seen from Hyde Park. It's the seat of the Catholic archbishop of Sydney, and the largest Gothic cathedral in the southern hemisphere.

I also did my first grocery shopping in Australia. Check out my first groceries, including Coon brand tasty cheese. "Tasty" is a variety of cheese here, like cheddar or colby.

There were a lot of mystifying foods, and most things are more expensive in the U.S., except for kiwi fruits, which were something like 8 for $2.

Speaking of expensive, earlier in the day I'd gone into the newsagent and bought a small bottle of Diet Coke and a packet of M&Ms and thought I heard wrong when he said the total was $5.30.

Here's a link to my pics from the day.

Ferry trip to Manly

Yesterday (Wed. 18 Aug) Matthew left to go on his first team outing with work, and I spent the day with Jennifer and Katharina, a nice German student who also just recently moved to Sydney. We took the ferry to Manly and walked around, had lunch at a Thai place, and went to a small aquarium there, Oceanworld.

My first impression of the Australian beach is that it's beautiful, even in winter. The sand and the water are pretty colors, and the weather was not too bad - cloudy and a little windy - but not that cold, considering it's winter here.

Amanda and Jennifer at Manly Beach.

Oceanworld was in need of a bit of refurbishment, but I still enjoyed the animals, especially the turtles, cuttlefish and seahorses.

Seabiscuit, a turtle washed up injured after a storm, had to have one of her front flippers amputated.

It was dusk as our ferry headed back to Sydney and I had a hard time getting sharp photos of the Opera House, but here's an attempt:

Here's a link to all the day's photos.

Sydney: Boston down under

After spending the day walking around Sydney I've come to the conclusion it's very much like a large Boston: on a harbour, fairly dense, twisty roads, good public transport (including ferries) and similar architecture - a mixture of old and modern buildings.

We've arrived down under

Hello from the Southern Hemisphere! We arrived safely at about 6:05 am Tuesday 18 August. Going through Australian Customs and Quarantine was pretty quick - we were done by about 6:45 am.

Our wonderful friends Mark and Jennifer picked us up at the airport with a van for all our luggage, and we're checked into our hotel/furnished apartment in Darling Harbour.

More later - our friends are waiting in the lobby to take us to coffee!

We're on our way!

We had a great time at our Bon Voyage party last night! This morning, we deflated our Aerobed, and began the process of cramming all our clothes and things into our suitcases and small footlocker. It was stressful, but we got it all in!

12:30 pm: Tamara and Andy arrive in 2 cars to take us and our luggage to the airport (thank you, you deserve that iPad!). We checked 5 bags (including the footlocker), and had 2 carry-on items each. Luckily, M is Premier Exec with United, so we didn't have to pay any fees for that amount of luggage.

2:50 pm: flight from Portland to L.A.

5:00 pm: arrive LAX and have lunch/dinner before settling into the United lounge.

6:30ish: we have 2 comfy chairs, 2 laptops, 1 ipod with a headphones splitter so we can share the music. We were provided only 1 complimentary wifi connection for the lounge, but mtw has figured out how to share because he's smart and brought a network cable.

double laptops and ipod at United Red Carpet Club in LAX

Still to come: 10:30pm departure for 14.5 hour flight from LAX to Sydney! We leave the USA at 10:30 on Sunday night and arrive in Sydney at 6:10 am on Tuesday!

We leave the day after tomorrow!

We're getting soo close to our departure date! Our two cars are sold and the house is rented.

Lots of other things on the To Do List, but we'll make it.

Getting the house ready for renters

We're renting out our house while we're overseas, and have been doing a lot to get it spiffed up for renters:
simple landscaping for front, side and back yards
repair back porch
power-wash and re-seal front porch
re-caulk upstairs shower
new sinks and faucets in upstairs bathroom
new doors and drawer fronts for kitchen cabinets
replace floor transition from kitchen to dining room
lots, and lots of painting!

I've spent more than 12 hours in the past few days painting trim in the stairs and upstairs landing/hallway.

We're finally done with the stairs, two windows and the annoying railing in the upstairs landing. Thank freaking goodness I'm done with that! I never want to see a can of white trim paint ever again! ;)

Moving Sale Accomplished

Another milestone - we had our moving sale today! We are flush with quarters and small bills, and the house is even more empty.