Wonder Fridge

A long time ago I posted about our Christmas in July and Kay's good use of our fridge. We took a picture that night, which much later I got a copy of, and then I started a draft of this post containing just the image. Now, months later, I can continue that post.

I like our fridge. It's evolved over the year, and is used for passing messages, cute artwork, doing homework, and just about anything else that might requiring writing stuff down. On the freezer below (not pictured) are some scribbles from when my nephews were visiting in March and felt like contributing. You'll see the top left is typically our grocery list. The top right used to track when we fed the cat, but isn't used anymore, though an improved drawing is in it's place. We have some baking and baked goods meters, though admittedly I think they are often out of date. Love the idea though. Ann typically draws dragons, which I love. She's got quite a bit of artistic talent. The dragon on the bottom right is still there, months later. Though in the past week Ginny colored him in.

Currently in the middle is the crazy map of how we needed to use the over to make our Christmas in July dinner. Mad props once again to Kay for such a super job on that. We've got a listing first of what everything is that needs to be baked, and for how long at what temperature. Then below that she worked out a timeline, which we updated throughout the day, of when everything could go in, including overlapping things with similar temperatures in the oven. It was a job well done! You can see everything I've been describing in this picture:

My last fridge couldn't be written on, and wasn't even magnetic. So sad. This is quite the improvement. I have a collection of fridge magnets back home, though not many are here. A lot are famous quotes though not all. I have a few favorites. One says "Don't make me come down there -- God", another has a fat chef who says "I like to cook with wine, sometimes I even put it in the food". I can agree with that one!

Extra slim, the new large

A few weeks ago I went shopping at DFO (Direct Factory Outlets) with Brendan, Christie, Beth, and Yas. I'm not sure why as I don't really need anything. Okay, that's a lie, I could use a jacket, and some decent slacks, and some new t-shirts. But for some reason I didn't feel like really getting much that day, but I still went shopping on what turned into a fairly massive outlet shopping trip. It was a success though as we got Brendan a hot suit and all the girls found some awesome stuff.

Brendan and I in our wanderings went by this store Rivers, which had some nice things, but nothing in our (very small) size. Everything was huge, and they mostly had only large sizes available. If they had a small, I'm guessing it would be too big for me. On one nice looking jacket they had this oxymoronic label. I'm not sure if oxymoronic is a word, but you know what I mean. Really, the picture should explain it all.

Can someone please explain to me how you can have a "Really Really X Slim Fit" jacket that is also XXL. I mean, I guess at any size something could have a slimming cut vs one that's not. But it just seems a little weird to call anything that is extra, extra large also really really extra slim fit. I just visualize this marketing guy saying "It's so slim it almost like you're wearing a medium." Well it provided some amusement for my day so it wasn't all bad, and I'm sure it would look good on someone.

In another store, Tarocash I believe, we saw this amazing wool jacket. I really liked it. However that jacket was an extra small that was really extra small, and fitted. I could zip it up, but it felt pretty tight on me when I did it, which is quite the accomplishment. Sadly, it was the only size they had so, no jacket for me. I'm picky about having things that fit. On a different clothes related note though, I've found this shop Marcs that has excellent dress shirts and their x-small fits me amazingly well. They aren't cheap but the fabric feels great and some of the shirts look very nice as well. I bought two before my last trip to the US to wearat various wedding related events and anything else dressy and I've worn them several times since. If I find any more shirts I like at Marcs I'll definitely be buying them.

Christmas in July

You might be thinking "Christmas in July?!?", and if you are, you probably aren't Australian. See, Christmas out here is just an entirely different affair. It's the middle of summer, people go out to the beach, barbecues are common, snow is no where to be found. Quite the contrast to the white Christmas stereotypes I grew up with. Not to mention most of these people aren't really sure what Egg Nog is.

So, in an attempt to closer identify with the stereotypical Christmas as put forth by our North American and European cultures there has arisen a movement to have Christmas in July, Sydney's typically coldest month. It still doesn't snow, but it's winter, and it is closer.

Okay, really it's just an excuse to party. And in that theme we had a special Christmas in July themed Sunday Dinner. There are lots of pictures, but to protect the privacy of my friends I shall not post them here. If you're friends with me, you can send me a message and I'll share them with you. Jono, in a surprise move, brought costumes for everyone, which made the party far more fun.

Ginny had to work during part of the cooking, but even without her assistance early on we managed to create a great dinner. Menu included:

• Spinach dip served in a bread bowl.
• 2 loaves of home made bread.
• 2 Roast Chickens: 1 stuffed with apples and onions, the other stuffed with lemons, and associated gravy.
• 1 Roast Leg of Lamb, along with some veggies it was cooked with, and associated gravy
• Mashed Yams (and lots and lots of butter)
• Roast potatoes
• Sauteed green beans with almond slivers
• Apple pie
• A ridiculously rich chocolate cake made from Brendan's favorite cupcake recipe.
• Mulled wine

We also consumed a few bottles of wine from Sandalford while cooking, from a case I purchased while I was on vacation in Western Australia. All in all it was a great dinner. And I finally got to use the roasting cookbook I'd bought around actual Christmas.

As you might guess from the number of times "roast" appears in the menu, not to mention two desserts and bread our single oven was a contentious, limited resource for this dinner. We actually cheated and made the lamb in a slow cooker.  Coming to the rescue in our time of need was Kay. Part way through the day I asked her to figure out the amount of time everything needed to be in the oven. She far surpassed this simple request and the next thing I knew our fridge had a detailed list of everything that was supposed to go in the oven, at what temperature in Celsius (some conversion was required), and for how long. In addition we had a complete timeline, starting with the apple pie that was already in the oven, on when everything should go in based on time we needed it for eating, and what things could overlap in the oven at various temperatures. This timeline was then updated throughout the day as we fell a little behind. I'm still in awe of her work there. It definitely helped organize us and get dinner out at a reasonable time (a little after 8). Kay was certainly not alone though, as Ginny, Christie, Yasmine, Ann Jono, and others I'm probably forgetting to mention all helped with the cooking which started in earnest at about 2:30pm. 

And of course, you can't have Christmas without having Brendan's birthday. So we managed to convince him to come back early from cross country skiing and wished him a hearty happy birthday in July, and hence the cake from one of his favorite recipes. Now we should all just get him a present.

I don't think my Australian friends read this blog, as I've never pointed them to it, but thanks should go out to all of them for a wonderful Sunday dinner, this time and in general. It's a great tradition and I've had a blast. Looking forward to more.

Thanks should also go out to my mom for the awesome bread book. She actually does read this blog. We've been making bread from scratch for the past month or so using a cookbook she brought from the US. I believe it's called "Artisan bread in 5 Minutes a Day". It's delicious, and definitely cheaper than buy the 6+ loaves a week we're making right now in large double batches of bread. So far we're sticking to pretty basic recipes, but if I can ever find rye flour in Sydney we'll start doing some more variations. I can definitely recommend the book. It takes more than 5 minutes to make the bread, but most of the time is waiting. It's probably not more than 5-10 minutes of active work a day, which is quite impressive and the recipe seems pretty easy. Kay has starting making the bread at her house, and a few people have been asking for the recipe.

If I can get a good picture of our fridge timeline, I will post it.

Customer Service

In June I'll be taking my first vacation inside of Australia to Exmouth and Monkey Mia with Whitney and Ted, which is about as far North-West as you can go and still be in Australia. In Exmouth we will do a few days of diving, and snorkeling with Whale Sharks. In Monkey Mia (about 8 hours drive south) we'll hopefully get to play with dolphins and maybe ride a camel. Overall, should be a nice vacation. Though a little pricey. Getting to the far reaches of Australia turns out to not be cheap.

In an effort to save some money I wanted to share a hotel room with Whitney and Ted, who were graciously willing to do that even though they are a couple on vacation (thank you!). Thing is, they already booked their entire trip including hotel room, rental car, diving adventures, etc. It was a nice little adventure of an evening trying to expand a million reservations to include me, and provides some nice perspective on customer service.

We had made reservations in two different Best Western Inns in Western Australia. One in Exmouth and one half way to Monkey Mia in a place that I think is called Carnarvon. Both reservations were made online, the first through Expedia and the second through Orbitz. I called both places trying to find out if we could upgrade to a bigger room. The Best Western in Exmouth was exceedingly friendly and helpful. Once confirming with Whitney (whose name the reservation was under) the immediately changed the reservation, and didn't charge any fees, etc. It was exceedingly easy, and gave me a great impression of the hotel and it's employees. The second Best Western we called in Carnarvon was much less helpful. They claimed that they knew nothing about reservations made through others online and we'd have to chancel or change our reservation through those sites if possible at all. This actually turned out to be fairly easy, as Orbitz allowed us to cancel and re-make the reservation at no cost. So, still not bad, but having just talked to the exceedingly friendly and helpful people at the other Best Western, I still had a worse impression of this one. I realize it is most likely a franchise, but I was surprised at the difference there. That said, we were able to change most everything with number of phone calls and emails, so I'd say it was an overall success. I did half of this while in the US, calling Australia with Google Voice, which was pretty cheap at two cents a minute, which was also pretty cool.

Now all that's left is to figure out our very last night of hotel, and actually take this awesome vacation. I want to go all around Australia and this is just the beginning. Hopefully Cairns sometime in July or September, and some weekend trips to places like Uluru or some of the major cities. Exploring here I come!

Leaving on a Jet Plane

In two days I will be embarking on another trip to the United States. While there I will visit California, New Jersey, Oregon, and New Mexico. I will travel on 10 planes, having bought tickets in 7 different transactions. This is not an unusual for a trip to the US for me these days. On my last trip I California, Oregon, Colorado, and New Mexico. Basically work, Ginny, and family. Still, I think you can quite easily measure the amount of time I've spent on planes in the last year in days, if not weeks. I'm beginning to appreciate good flights, fast security lines and the like. This trip will be the first time I ever fly premium economy, which on Quantas is supposed to be pretty awesome. We'll see if I get spoiled.

I'm already looking to buy heaps more tickets. I'm looking into a set of flights in June to go to Exmouth with Whitney and Ted, which will involve 4 flights (round trip Sydney -> Perth, round trip Perth -> Exmouth). Those are really expensive. And then once Ginny is here I want to go all over the place. Cairns, maybe Darwin and Uluru, New Zealand, Perth, Melbourne, Brisbane, and if I can places outside Australia like Venuatu, Fiji, Japan, etc. I realize New Zealand isn't in Australia though my last sentence makes it seem like it is. I associate it with Australia in terms of my visiting priorities. I'd love to get there in winter for skiing and then again in the summer for more exploring.

Basically, I'm just saying I'm flying a ridiculous amount. I don't know how consultants and the like do it. I'm really starting to value my own bed, and not having to constantly be getting my toiletries and clothes out of small bags. I really wanted to make my next trip as short as possible, yet it still ended up being 3 weeks, and if anything is more stressful because of how quickly I'm going between places. There are a lot of times where I'm not sure how I'm getting to or from the airport, but hopefully I can work it out.

Sadly I've also learned that the sharing of airlines miles is pretty bad. When I fly Quantas but use my American Airlines frequent flyer number, I only get like 1/3rd of the miles flown. That's a pretty crappy alliance if you ask me. Had I known better and consistently flown Quantas from day one, getting one of their frequent flyer cards, I'd be well on my way to some form of elite status and a free round trip to the US.

I've been learning the ins and outs of jet lag and handling it. Coming to Sydney from the US isn't too bad now. This past trip I adjusted fairly quickly. I was waking up at 7am every morning for a few weeks, even if I went to bed late, but most nights that was still a normal amount of sleep. Going from Sydney to the US is a little harder. This upcoming trip is a bit longer because I decide that taking two red eye flights in a row would kill me. Otherwise I could have done a Friday red-eye from Sydney to San Francisco, followed by a Friday red eye from San Francisco to the east coast, with a long layover and some connections on that end, followed by a busy weekend. But since I decided that might kill me I'm going to have a few days in San Francisco first to start to adjust to the US. And it will be nice to see my friends there.

Well, tomorrow night I have karate, so I should use the rest of tonight to actually start packing and getting ready for my trip.

Surcas

Depending on who you talk to you'll hear that Surcas is the Sydney University Recreational Clowing Around Society or the Sydney University Circus Arts Society. Anyway, it's their circus society. And they teamed up with Circusoc, the UNSW circus society to put on R & J, a circus version of Romeo and Juliet, which I went to see last Friday.

I really enjoyed the show. As with ballet or opera, the story was condensed and told mostly through action. There was almost no speaking during the show, except for a recorded voice reading some of the original Romeo and Juliet during transitions. But, as a familiar story (at least to me), it worked well. I could clearly identify the main characters. And interestingly enough Romeo and Juliet were a lesbian couple, adding a new dynamic to the show.

I've always admired displays of skill and coordination, so it was pretty easy to please me during the show. That said, the performers made obvious mistakes a few times. I was impressed however with how smoothly they incorporated the mistakes into the show and kept on going. It never really halted the show. Early on in the show Juliet, played by this woman Jess whom I've met briefly before, did a hula-hoop routine incorporating ballet and doing a fair bit of it en point. That was mind blowing. Later on she had a ciroc dance routine with a fair number of aerial maneuvers that was also fun to watch. There was a lot of partnered juggling. None of the jugglers had crazy solo's with large numbers of balls, but they did a good job coordinating between multiple jugglers and then wrapped up with two pairs of jugglers on different levels passing a fair distance across the stage it looked pretty hot; lots of clubs flying around.

All in all, a fun show, and I enjoyed it more than I expected. With a bit more practice it could become a really stunning show. Sadly with only 3 performances that won't happen this time. But there's always next time. Quite a few of my house mates have been active in the circus society at one point or another so maybe I'll even learn how to do some of this stuff. I'd love to learn some of the stick work, or maybe poi. Just need to not light myself on fire.

It's completely unrelated to this show. But later I came back and looked up some hula-hoop videos on the net, so I'll leave you with a link to this impressive video: http://www.spike.com/video/sexy-hula-hoop-girl/3314628?cmpnid=790&pt=sr&refsite=7118

Welcome Home

I may not have had a full on Australian birthday party yet, and who knows if that will happen given that my birthday is rapidly fading into the past, but I did get one of the best welcoming home weekends ever upon my return to Sydney. Apparently my house mates tried to arrange to pick me up from the airport, but I foiled their good plans by only giving them vague notions of when I was arriving. I really didn't expect anyone to pick me up from my 6:30am flight.

The great thing about arriving on a Sunday was... Sunday night dinner. My first night back and I get to see most of my closest friends in Sydney. I saw them baking a chocolate cake that I thought was for dessert, little did I know that it was actually a pre-dinner birthday cake for me, complete with Jewish-themed messaging, "Eat me, I'm Kosher", which I recognize as a reference to our Mardi-Gras adventures, where we saw men wearing clothes labelled that way. This chocolate cake had bourbon and chile in it, combining many of my favorite things and was very delicious.

The rest of Sunday dinner was tasty as well. It was apple themed and we had some steaks with an apple chutney, and these delicious apple fritters for dessert (all after the cake of course). And I got to play Borderlands, which I'd been wanting to do for weeks since I'd left. I'm totally addicted to that game. When I get done writing this blog post, it's back to that.

The next night, Monday, the house mates and Yasmin were all hanging around and the evening was wrapping up. Little did I know it, but they'd been trying to lure me to my room all evening and failing to find a inconspicuous way of doing it. Then as Yasmin got ready to go home I made some crack about how she should be staying here instead and she makes her way (jokingly) to my room. Of course she wasn't really going to spend the night with me (Ginny might object), but hey, it's fun to joke. So I follow Yas up to my room, the house mates all sneaking up behind me. And when I get to my room, what do I find but Ginny

the bear, a birthday present from my house mates. Ginny Bear is quite furry, but her fur is soft and she likes to cuddle, so we've become fast friends. I'm hoping she and Ginny the person get along when they are both in Sydney. I think we can come to some sort of happy arrangement.

Foreign America

My trip to the US is about three weeks long, which I think has been enough to acclimate me back to the United States. But, I've definitely adjusted to life in Sydney. As I got off the plane from Maui I was waiting to get off the plane and looking and listening to the people around me. I distinctly remember thinking wow, there are a lot of Americans on this plane!

I've been surrounded by Australians for months, and hearing and seeing so many Americans was a shock. I think it didn't hit me till then since in Hawaii I was mostly among the small, and more familiar, group of Ginny's family. And it carried forward a bit. Every time I hear someone say the word basil, I think of the Australian pronunciation (more bah-zil, than bay-zil). My first instinct these days is to refer to uni not college.

I've borrowed a car to use from time to time during my visit, and out of courtesy I thought I'd fill it up with gas. Lots of confusion ensues as I use an Australian credit card and the gas machine asks for my zip code. Uh .... 2009? Oh, you don't accept Australian postal codes. How about Google's MTV one 94043? Oh, well I accept that you don't like it. It is the wrong one afte. Guess I can't use this system. Luckily gas station attendents have been quite nice about manually running my credit card and activating the pump for me. But it wasn't a problem that ever occurred to me to even think about before. It'd be amazing if there was a card / interface that could accept credit cards from all over the world and still use this sort of verification method.

While the two countries may both speak English, they are definitely culturally different. It's amazed me how something like what side of the road you drive on impacts so many things. Because it's not just what side of the road you drive on. It's what direction your train is coming from, where your escalator is, where you stand on the escalator if you're not walking, what side of the sidewalk you should walk on, etc. I find myself just looking both directions many times before I ever cross the road. Every so often I look at a US car and think, that driver's seat is on the wrong side.

I'm not a huge burrito fanatic, and I actually really like Flying Fajita Sister's, a Mexican restaurant in Sydney, so I haven't mixed Mexican food too much. But I can say I've loved having real bagels again. I went to House of Bagels in Mountain View and have gorged on both asiago and pumpernickle bagels over the last week. I've also just gotten an opportunity to get to some of my favorite restaurants, even if they are a genre of food I can get in Sydney. But, I really do miss my wedges. If you ever get out to Australia do yourself a favor and get some potato wedges with sour cream and sweet chile sauce. They are awesome. Sydney has introduced me to the greatness of sweet chile sauce. I love it. I must put it in many more things.

That said, I'm ready to go back to Sydney. I really like my life and my friends there (not to say I don't like the same in San Francisco and the rest of the US, I haven't made my life easier with the move). And I'm totally addicted to Bordlands on the Xbox 360. I really hoping I get back and can take over the Xbox in Christie & Brendan's room and play with Ann for a lot of my first day back.

A Brief Return

Since I obviously can't get great weather, beaches, diving, and snorkeling in Australia, I've come to Hawaii for a vacation. Actually, it's Ginny's spring break and I'm just here to see her, and enjoy sandy beaches and associated activities. Her family has rented out a very nice 4 bedroom house on the western side of Maui. Here's the view from our hot tub:

Down below the house there is a little bay, which generally has lots of giant sea turtles (you can also see whales and dolphins in the distance). We went snorkeling here my first day, which was a great way to get used to being in the ocean again before diving. Snorkeling we saw giant turtles, a trumpet fish, and lots of other tropical fish that I don't know how to identify, along with some hard and soft coral. While there are reefs in Hawaii, Ginny was explaining to me that the islands are young enough that the reefs are much smaller than at other locations like Australia or Belize.

After our first lazy afternoon around the house, on day two we got up bright and early at 5:45 am, so we could be at the dive shop by 7am for a 2 dive boat trip out to Lana'i where we dived at Cathedral 1 and No Name.  I don't have pictures, but Andy, Ginny's brother does. So if I get some from him I can post them. The dives were great. Cathedral is aptly named. It has interesting topography, including cathedral arches formed from lava flow. There are also some cave like places you can enter that I believe are lava tubes. While the topography is interesting to explore we also saw lots of fish like Bandit Angel Fish, Trumpet fish, a redish brown octopus, and lots of other fish I don't know how to identify.

After Cathedral 1 we went to the next site No Name. It had a similar selection of fish, though I also saw a shrimp, a moraee eel or two, a fish that has a face that reminds me of a gorilla, and lots of other fish I can't identify. I also really liked these pitch black sea urchins that were quite spiky. Here we anchored on a small outcropping that was about 20ft deep, and it then dropped down to the sea floor which sloped downward, with a coral wall on one side. We went down to about 65 ft. You could hear tons of whales in the water, though I didn't actually see any of them while in the water.  While we were taking our surface interval huge schools of dolphins came by the boat. It was exciting to see. A few people actually got into the water fast enough for the second dive to see them under water. Our dive master had a Cannon 5D with an underwater housing and got some great shots of the dolphins. One of the most memorable parts of the dive for me was our surface interval. The coral outcropping where we were anchored had lots of beautiful sea life and it was great to be able chill there and look at it all while doing our safety stop. I could have done a whole dive around it.

We'll hopefully dive at least one more time, go snorkeling some more, and enjoy other parts of Maui that aren't in the ocean. We did have a great dinner at the Japanese restaurant Sansei Seafood Restaurant last night. Several of us got sushi. It was quite tasty, though not as good as my favorite places like Yoshii's in Sydney or Sushi Ran in San Francisco (both of which are quite expensive though).  Today is looking like it will be a lazy day, which I think is great for a vacation. So, I'm off to go enjoy it!

Australians love meat flavored chips

They do. At least that's what I'd judge from the flavors that are available. There are honey soy chicken flavored chips, prosciutto flavored chips, burger flavored chips, and as I recently encountered Cheetos Cheese & Bacon balls. I can't think of any meat flavored chips I've encountered in the US. I must admit, I really like the honey soy chicken chips, and I'm a bit of a sucker for Cheetos or nacho cheese Doritos, so I took the plunge and tried these bacony Cheetos.

They were nicely bite sized, and definitely were Cheetos. But I have to say, I think I prefer the regular plain cheesy Cheetos. The bacon flavor just came across as some weird flavor that minorly impacted my appreciation for horribly unhealthy snacks that are supposed to somehow be cheesy, but are deliciously addictive.

Hmm. Now I'm hungry. I could go downstairs and have lunch. Or I could eat part of one of the 20 or so chocolate bars behind me. I think I'll do that, share a bit with Christie, and get real food in a bit.

Silence of the busy and internetless

I seem to have gone into another lull in writing to my blog. It's not for lack of ideas. Rather I don't write in the blog when I'm particularly busy and don't spend much time at my computer outside of work. This past month I've been moving into a new house, having a 2.5 week long visit from my family, and not had internet at home. I will probably devote a whole post to the story, but the short version is that our ISP iiNet disconnected our service, which we didn't want them to do (for no particularly good reason, though it was an honest mixup) and we've been struggling for the last 2.5 weeks with them to get it reconnected. God only knows why it could possibly take this long, but they claim we'll have it back on Wednesday.

Anyway, with it harder than normal to get online and post, and lots of activities going on I haven't posted much. On Thursday I'm off on a one week vacation to Hawaii with Ginny and her family, and then it's two weeks in the US working and visiting friends. So, I'll try and get a few posts out to you guys, and don't think I've stopped writing, but yeah, the place is a little slow right now. My goal is generally once a week.

Right now the problem is if I wait too long after an event I don't remember it as much, and I'm not sure it's worth blogging about. Like this outing I had at the Sydney Observatory to see the blue moon. Might revive that post that's never made it out the door, but it's been long enough and I have enough other things to write about that it might just never make it out.

Then again, I have no idea how many people read this thing. I know at least a few members of my family still do. Maybe no one will notice. Eh. I shall write anyway. It can be fun. I've got a very relaxed day and a wireless broadband card I can use, so I'll do at least one more post.

Still Tasty

It's been about six months since I first touched down in Sydney. Rest assured though, the fauna of Sydney still finds me quite appetizing. Someone at a party last weekend was telling me that it has something to do with blood type, i.e., people with certain blood types get bitten more. I haven't researched this, but I also don't know my blood type. I don't get bitten the worst generally, so maybe I'm only somewhat appetizing.

I'd been pretty good since my first round of insane bites. Lately though it's been very hot and unusually rainy. I think these factors have combined to encourage a large bug population. That's my hypothesis at least. What I do know is that I'm once again covered in bug bites. I went around barefoot one day and it was not a good choice. Now I have a lot of bug bites on my feet, which are itched when I walk around on shoes. Especially my clogs that are designed to slide on your feet. I seem to be having a bit of an allergic reaction to the bites, at least they seem bigger and redder than normal. Though I also scratched at some of them for a while before realizing they were bites.

It's getting better. They still look a little nasty, but they don't itch as much as they did a day or two ago. I'm getting a lot better at ignoring bug bites and not scratching them (at least intentionally, I do sometime end up with bites in areas that are scratched by normal movement).  Maybe someday I'll figure out what the Australian equivalent of hydrocortisone cream is and use that. Being self restrained is the cheaper alternative for now.

I'm amazed at the amount of bites I can get and not realize it's happening. You'd think I'd see and kill a few of them, but that's not common. Perhaps we're not as high on the food chain as we think.

I need a new watch

I got a Skagen watch for Christmas from my sister a few years ago. I really like the design. It's simple, light weight, and overall a nice looking watch. Sadly, my experiences with the watch have not been good ones. Despite the fact that I love the Skagen designs I don't want another Skagen watch after this one. The woven metal band had wires split and poke out of it injuring me and those around me when giving hugs, etc. The black color from the band wore off over time. The clasp started to not close particularly well and come loose fairly frequently. I was managing quite fine with all of these issue and not actively looking for a new watch when the glass started to crack. I assume I hit it at some point against something, but I have no idea what. The crack was at the top of the glass face, going through the date area. 

Interestingly, over the next few days the crack got larger and larger, expanding on its own and working it's way down the watch. All this time it continued to tell time at least. Then one night I was at Pancakes at the Rocks with Ginny, Christie, and Brendan. We were talking about Ginny coming back sometime in 2010 and I made a joke that Ginny would move to Sydney when my watch was completely dead.

So, what happens next? Well, Brendan picks up his knife and stabs my watch. It was hilariously awesome. Since then I'm pretty confident my friends liked Ginny and would be ok with her coming to Sydney for an extended period of time. So my little crack turns into a giant gaping hole and a large piece of glass for my watch goes flying away. Remarkably the watch keeps ticking. It actually still works, though somewhere over the next few days it lost its second hand. My watch now looks like this:

I haven't for a second been mad with Brendan. The watch sucked, the act was great, and it was good times all around. However, now I don't really feel comfortable wearing the watch around. It does have open glass edges, and I think if it gets wet at all in this state it will probably die forever. So, I've gone the last month or so without a watch at all. It's hard! I like knowing what time it is, and being on time. I have to get my cell phone out to see what time it is and that's too much work for my taste. So I need a new watch. But, I'm pretty picky about what I like. Keeping an eye out, but I haven't found anything I like yet.

Come to Australia...

According to the New Zealand Herald, Killer Spiders are invading Sydney. In this instance funnel web spiders and they look like this:

One night after Karate we had quite a long conversation about funnel web spiders (and lots of other deadly things). Sadly, unlike the awesome drop bears, funnel web spiders are a real threat. Apparently they are very aggressive for spiders and will just attack people. Luckily there is an anti-venom so the death rate is pretty low. But yeah, and aggressive spider whose fangs will go through many a shoe and is apparently hard to kill.. Just what you want in your back yard! And there are other varieties of nasty spiders too. I think Ginny and I are both a little scared of all spiders now. Every time I walk home late at night I'm more paranoid about walking through a spider web than I am of running into human trouble like muggers.

Lesson: Don't stick your appendages in dark places in Australia. Reaching into random hole or shell: bad idea.

This whole post has reminded me of a video I was shown shortly after arriving. I really like it, and as the title says, everyone should Come to Australia.

Yellow Belt

This week in karate I graded for, and received, my yellow belt. The grading was a bit harder than I was expecting. Mostly it just went quickly (about 30 minutes) without any breaks: push ups, crunches, no-contact sparring for about 8 minutes, demonstrating a routine and skills, etc. I was very sweaty and tired at the end. I'm going to have to get into even better shape if I want to keep grading.

After finishing my grading I rejoined the rest of the class for the remaining portion of our fitness class and then started learning my routines for my next belt, the orange belt. If I'm here all year I might get up to grading for my blue belt in November, but that will depend on grading schedule, etc. Should probably make it to at least purple (the belt after orange). I'm not too focused on the belts though. I joined karate for exercise and I definitely get that. It helps that quite a few of my friends are in the class (and most of my future house mates). That keeps me motivated to show up even when I'm having a draining day. I'm always glad to have gone after I get there and through the class.

So what do you miss?

Having moved across the world quite a few people have asked me what I miss the most. Truth is, I rarely think about it. I'm so involved trying to make the most of my time in Australia, that I'm not dwelling on all the things I left behind. I'm instead thinking of all the things I want to do here. In Sydney I still have tons of museums and what not to go to. I want to do the bridge climb, though it's $200 which I think is crazy. I want to go to my old landlord's cousin's restaurant on Bondi Beach, which is supposed to be excellent. I want to go to the French patisserie that Kiri works at on Sundays. I want to explore the parts of Australia that are outside of Sydney like wine regions and the coral reefs. I want to watch the rest of Dollhouse, and season 3 of Chuck as it comes out.  I've started taking notes on my phone as I hear about cool things to do.

So, I'm not spending huge amounts of my day dwelling on what I left behind. When asked what I miss, I generally answer my friends and family. They are the reason I doubt I could move to Australia permanently. If I did that I'd miss my nephews growing up! Next I mention food. I'm working hard to discover good food here in Sydney, but I cook a lot more than I go out. Not that I can't cook food... And when Ginny was around we went out to some really good places. I'll have to blog about some of them soon. But, I do really miss spicy food! My tolerance is going down I'm sure and I'm going to have to work to get it back up again. I'm sure there is spicy food here, but many of my friends aren't into it, so I haven't had much. When Annie gets back we're having some Sri Lankan food and this will help. But more than just spicy food, I have come to love the food of New Mexico. It may have taken twenty some odd years, but it finally grew on me.

Sadly, my favorite New Mexican restaurant, Diego's, closed down after a few people got salmonella poising. This is a tragedy, and we've yet to find any place we like as much to replace it. My sister is diligently searching. In December while I was back we tried out Castro's, which is one of the more Diego's like places she's found. It was a good dinner, but my enchilada wasn't as flavorful, and it wasn't a blue corn tortilla. Still, it was a delicious meal. I took a picture so you could all see the awesomeness that is a classic New Mexican meal.

In the top left you have the sopapilla, in the top right you have chile con queso and some corn chips. Then smack down there in the bottom you have my main (entre to you crazy Americans) which is a chicken enchilada covered with green chile and a fried egg over medium with spanish rice and posole as sides. A little tomato and lettuce serve as a garnish. This is pretty standard, though often you see beans instead of posole. I generally substitute both for more spanish rice, which I love. Needless to say, shortly after taking this picture I devoured the meal stuffing myself more than I should; but hey, I don't get New Mexican food very often these days.

Now as I'm counting down the weeks till my family visits, savoring my ridiculously expensive bottle of tequila ( Don Julio 1942 Anejo). I'm definitely missing New Mexican food. And my family, but them I'll see soon, the food not so much. Customs did let me bring some Chimayo chile powder in which I have been using cooking. But I was wary of trying to bring in frozen or dehydrated green chile. Australia is pretty tight on customs, especially on food items. I'm looking forward to my next trip to the US where I can binge in some New Mexican restaurant.