So, I quite clearly dropped off the map with this blog. After reading lots of Ariel's blog about her time in Africa I can say I did a pretty poor job of blogging about my adventures. But, the truth of the matter is that I would rather be out experiencing life than spending the time to write it up here. And when I am home, I wanted to unwind. In short, as much as I wanted to keep up with my friends and let them know what was happening, maintaining this blog was a bit more of a chore than I had hoped it would be. Sometimes I love writing, but apparently not consistently enough to have an up to date blog of my adventures.
So what's happened since my last October post? Well, tons of stuff that I doubt I could remember half of it, but lots of good stuff. October was the month of the Sydney International Food Festival and Ginny and I went to a lot of festival dinners. Yes, it was expensive, but I loved the experience and it was totally worth it. We went back to Aria and had a 7 course meal where each dish and wine pairing was themed to state or territory in Australia. We also made it to Sushi e and Emmilou Tapas Bar. Not all in October but I did make it to all the 3 hat restaurants (Marque, Est, Quay). It's about $250 for dinner and drinks at one of those places. A good meal, but not something I need to do all the time. Marque was I think the most creative of the three, but they were all great.
November was a time of travel, first going to South Australia (Adelaide, Barossa Valley, and Kangaroo Island) with Ginny and her family. I really liked that trip. Kangaroo Island was much more awesome than I expected, with really cool geography to explore. We got to tour the Haigh's chocolate factory in Adelaide and well, I love chocolate, so that was fun. Their milk chocolate covered almonds are just amazing (I know, me preferring milk chocolate, its weird). I may have to see if friends from Australia can bring some to me. And I got several recommendations for places to go in Barossa Valley which panned out quite well. I got to Seppelts Field and tried the 100 year old port with Ginny's family. That's a crazy intense beverage.
Later in November Ginny and I went north (thankfully before the floods and cyclones) to explore Darwin and Litchfield National Park in the Northern Territories before heading over to Port Douglass and the Daintree National Monument in Queensland. After a few laid back days there, with unfortunately little exploring since Ginny was a bit sick, we went on my first dive liveaboard doing a 3 day trip aboard the Spirit of Freedom. We did the Cod Hole dive trip and in 3 days I did 11 dives. That was fun, and if I could do it again I'd probably stay on for the whole week. But it was also brutal. My body is not meant to be in water that often. I'd skip a few dives on a longer trip (I did every one).
After a brief stint in the US over the holidays I was back in Sydney and started the process of transferring back to the US. I originally made the decision to move back for my relationship and to have the option of going to a start up. Both of those fell through long before I moved, but somehow I still came back to the US. Really, I want to settle down and not be somewhere temporarily, which is how I'd seen Australia so far. If I stayed in Australia it was going to be for the long haul, until I really had a reason to move. It's a long way to be from my family and my old friends. Though now I'm a long way from my Sydney friends and I miss them lots. It's so boring not to be in a house of 5 people.
Over my last few months in Sydney I mostly just hung out with my friends, got to more good restaurants, and enjoyed life. Sadly I didn't make it to Japan (pre-earth quake) with 3 of my house mates because I was low on vacation time and work was crazy. But while they were gone I become better friends with Ann and Beth and I'm really happy about that. With the help of a few co-workers I got all my stuff back to the US with the exception of one box that should get here next month. Right before I left I did finally make it to the Blue Mountains, and went caving in the Jenolan caves with Brendan, Yasmin, and Nathan before meeting up with Christie and Ann for the rest of the day. That was awesome, and if I had the time I would have loved to go back for their more advanced Mammoth Cave. Maybe on a visit though they only do it once a month so it'd take some planning. I wonder if there is any good caving to do around California.
On March 21st I moved back to the US. Most of my stuff is still in storage, but I have all my things from Sydney (except furniture I left there). I'm subletting a room in my old house for a few months and trying to figure out what I want to do next. Well, I know what I'm doing work wise. But I don't know what I'm doing outside of work. Do I live alone in some small studio or one bed room, or go back into a share house? I value my privacy on one hand, but I really like having other people at home too. I interviewed for the master bedroom in a 3 bedroom apartment earlier this week and decided not to take that. Now I have an opportunity to talk to some people in another large 5 person house like I had in Sydney. Supposedly a large room in a house with two livings rooms, one and a half kitchens, and two and a half bathrooms occupied currently by a sous chef, life chef, nurse, and mechanical engineer. It actually sounds kind of fun. But I want someplace a little cleaner than my last house, where I'm not afraid to have nice things. I'll have to meet them and see what I think. On the flip side, I'm going to look at some studio apartments next week. And really, I have a few months to figure things out and a stable place to stay right now so there is no reason to stress out about it yet.
I hope to stay in touch with my friends from Sydney. I joined Xbox Live and have been playing Borderlands with Ann. So we'll definitely stay in touch through our mutual obsession with that game. Hopefully email, chatting, etc. will be enough to stay in touch with everyone else. I might play some Halo with the people at Sunday night dinner but I think the connection might be a little too laggy for Halo. It was, however, cheaper for me to get a round trip ticket than a one way ticket to go to San Francisco. So I have a flight back to Sydney in October. Maybe I'll visit then and buy another round trip ticket getting into a never ending cycle of visiting my friends in Sydney. There could be worse things.
I expect this to be my last post. No longer am I a Tasty, Tasty American in Australia. Now I'm just one amongst the throngs of techies in Silicon Valley. I may have amusing or insightful things to say, but they belong in another blog. I hope my friends enjoyed the posts I did make here. I may take this blog down in a little while after giving people a chance to read this final post. It was more a means of immediate communication with friends than something I feel the need to have publicly available on the internets forever.
That's it for now. Wherever you are my friends, know that you're always welcome to visit me. What I enjoy most in life is having fun with the people I care about, more than any single activity or hobby. I'll certainly be trying to visit you.
No comments:
Post a Comment