Update from OZ

Brisbane Trip Part I - Byron Bay

noreply@blogger.com (edith kate) — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 06:18:00 +0000

We decided to take a last minute trip to Queensland after we found out Stefan wouldn't be starting his job until April 12th, and Edith wouldn't (originally) be starting work until the 10th! So about a week and a half ago after Stefans nonchalant "We should go on a trip before work starts" morphed into us planning and booking tickets to fly to Queensland, rent a car, stay in 3 different locations (including one that Edith has wanted to stay at for over a year), find an amazing boat cruise and plan daily events for a week, all in less than 4 hours. We stayed in 3 places on our trip, Byron Bay, NSW, Kinka Beach, QLD, and Brisbane, QLD. We're splitting each place up into a separate blog post to give each the attention they deserve.

The trip was absolutely fantastic. We got a week of beautiful, beachy, summer weather (and as we spent most of the last Australia Summer in the US Winter, we were feeling a bit sunshine deprived), and got to see quite a bit of Queensland, but left us already imagining a trip solely devoted to going further North and doing a trip planned around islands in the Great Barrier Reef (and involving little to no driving).

We flew up to Brisbane on April 2 at the crack of dawn, and arrived in Brisbane before 10am. We quickly picked up our rental car and drove north of Brisbane to the Sunshine Coast to visit Stefan's grandparents, Maureen and Eddie. They were very sweet and welcoming, and hadn't seen Stefan for 12 years, so there was a lot of catching up to do! They made us a fantastic lunch of steak and salad and garlic bread and dessert, we were so full afterwards! Eddie and Stefan were reminiscing about Stefans amazing puzzle skills, which he showed off last time he stayed with them, and Eddie gave us a neat puzzle that we're working on right now. We stayed as long as we could, though of course it wasn't long enough. The picture on the right is of Stefan with Eddie and Maureen, and the the pictures below are of Maureen showing Edith some of her sewing projects, and Stefan, back in Melbourne, working on the puzzle Eddie gave us.

After we left their lovely house in the Sunshine Coast, we headed down to Byron Bay, which is 2 hours south of Brisbane and actually in New South Wales, not Queensland.

Byron Bay is right on the coast, and is a bit of a hippy town that attracts a LOT of tourists, especially backpackers and people traveling around Australia in camper vans. We stayed at the Arts Lodge, which is a neat hostel that we had read about in a book of short stories Kelley gave us last Christmas. It's a really neat quirky hostel a bit outside of town that has 2 teepees, dorms, tent cabins, and (as we found on our exploration mission of the grounds) a huge campground and vegetable garden. The grounds are extremely lush and built near a swamp/mini lake, and there are hammocks strung near the lake with plenty of people reading or napping. We stayed in one of the big teepees, which was really fun. The teepee was very centrally located, which made it a bit loud the first night, but on the second night gave us a great chance to listen to the Talent Show without braving the cold and the mozzies (mosquitos).

As we didn't get to Byron until almost 8pm, we didn't see anything outside the hostel on our first night in town. The next morning we woke up bright and early and headed straight out to a breakfast joint mentioned in our severely outdated, yet still helpful guidebook. The breaky place was called Byron Beach Cafe, and it has a great outdoor patio that overlooks the beach. It wasn't crowded at all when we were there, and we both had the fantastic breakfast special and a cup of excellent coffee. If you ever visit Byron I definitely recommend this place for a great breakfast away from a lot of the backpackers. Here are two pictures from their website, because I forgot to take some while we were there:

After breaky we made a short detour back into town to see all the shops and to check out Vinnies (we'd forgotten beach towels!), which is Australia's version of Goodwill or the Salvation Army. There we found not just beach towels ($3!), but also a great CD of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf and Mozart's Toy Symphony ($1!), and some dress pants that fit Stefan really well ($2!). With Stefan's height finding clothes in a thrift store rarely happens, and he just magically stumbled on this pair when he wasn't really looking. It was quite a find! After our short thrifting adventure we picked up some groceries for the next few lunches, and hit the beach. We stayed in the shade for much of the morning, and applied lots of sunscreen throughout the day. The water was absolutely amazing! Very comfortable temperature, although a bit shallow for swimming, Stefan had lots of fun playing in the waves.

After the beach we went back to the hostel to shower and change and get out of the sun for a bit by exploring the hostel and reading in the shade of the trees by the lake. Late afternoon we went back into town and walked around a bit, checking more of the area, and ending up grabbing a beer at a little bar called The Rails (it's right by the train station), and hung about there doing crossword puzzles. We went back to the hostel for dinner and turned in for an early night of reading in preparation for another early morning. From the teepee we could hear the Talent Show going on, which was actually really quite impressive. We even heard one song that ended up stuck in our heads for the rest of the week, that was sung by an indie/folk artist from Canada named Dan Mangan. The music video is below if you'd like to experience a bit of the sounds we heard our last night in Byron. We had a really fantastic time while in Byron Bay, although we were surprised at how commercial much of the downtown was, as we saw a lot of the same stores we have in Melbourne and Sydney, whereas we expected a bit more of an eclectic variety, though I guess Byron's reputation as a tourist destination has promoted big businesses to move in. Despite this we still had a really lovely stay, and would recommend our hostel for anyone looking for a unique place to stay while in Byron Bay.

noreply@blogger.com (edith kate) — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 09:53:00 +0000

One of the days we were staying with Neil and Noreen out in Blackburn, Noreen took us wine tasting! We went to 2 or 3 wineries, Chandon, TarraWarra Estates, and Train Trak. Chandon is where we started right when they opened and enjoyed a lovely champagne tasting and a neat self guided tour of the champagne making facilities.

Stefan with our lovely host Noreen

TarraWarra Estates had lovely grounds (just like Chandon) with the tasting room overlooking a pond, and a lovely art museum. We caught some of the William Delafield Cook Survey, a photo of one of my favorite pieces is below. The wine at the adjoining winery was pretty good, but not great so we did not purchase anything there.

Our last winery of the day was Train Trak, a really small winery that was built right next to some abandoned train tracks that you actually had to drive over to get to the winery. They had some really yummy wines and we picked one up and enjoyed it at the house one day.

Overall our quick trip to the Yarra Valley wine region was fantastic, and it was so nice having Noreen show us all around (and drive!). We hope to make it out to the wine region again, especially as it's only about 45 minutes to an hour away.

Introducing Our Home!

noreply@blogger.com (edith kate) — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 14:01:00 +0000

When we first arrived in Melbourne we were lucky enough to get to stay with Neil and Noreen, friends of Stefan's mom, Chris, who we had met once before. They were amazing hosts, we had agreed beforehand to stay for 2-3 days and in the end they let us stay for 7! They have a beautiful house not too far from the city, so that was our home base while we searched for more permanent housing.

After much searching and seeing quite a few houses and taking copious notes and photos along the way we finally found the perfect place! We have 2 flatmates, Erin and Simon, who are both really cool people that we're enjoying getting to know. The suburb is Brunswick East, so its a 20 minute tram ride to the heart of the city, and we're a 3 minute walk to Lygon St. which has a lot of great cafes, bars, and restaurants. There's also a park nearby where we have gone jogging and slacklining, and the grocery store is about an 8 minute bike ride away. Basically we're loving it.

This photo features a wild Stefan seen in his natural habitat!

And that's our new home! We are absolutely smitten with it. We have a couch! And carpets! And don't have to brush our teeth in the kitchen! Ahh the little things in life. (Although if you remember our old place in Sydney you can understand how this is a serious upgrade.) And it's not really a part of our house but the quickest way to the tram stop/main street is through this adorable little park with gorgeous overhanging trees. More updates coming soon!

Melbourne

noreply@blogger.com (edith kate) — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 10:53:00 +0000

So, we've moved to Melbourne! Get ready for some upcoming posts on the epic drive from Sydney to Melbourne, and on our fantastic new house. (hopefully the post after that will be about our fancy new jobs...)

Melbourne is absolutely fantastic. Much flatter than Sydney so it's easy to bike all over, and probably the best coffee in the country if not much of the world. We're loving it so far!

Our Tasmania Trip!

noreply@blogger.com (edith kate) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 13:52:00 +0000

Wooowww.... so it turns out that this is the first post in 364 days! (Maybe 365? Was 2011 a leap year?)

This post was originally just going to be a quick rundown of what's happened in the past year but a few events I just couldn't sell short, so our trip to Tasmania get's its own post. About 11 months after we actually took the trip, but who's counting?

So Tasmania, fondly referred to as Tassie, is a state of Australia that is actually an island off the south of Australia. (Sort of like Hawai'i). It's very rural, with two "big" cities--Hobart and Launceston. To call Launceston a city is really pushing it, although Hobart definitely did fit the criteria. We camped for part of the trip in Freycinet National Park, and couchsurfed in Launceston and Hobart, staying at a hostel for the last night in Launceston before our flight. We absolutely loved everywhere there. We even talked about how neat it would be to retire there. Everyone we couchsurfed with was absolutely amazing and did all sorts of neat things. The people in Launceston had an amazing garden and they did compost and worm farming to help with the garden (and of course to cut down on waste). Some of the people we stayed with in Hobart were vegan/freegan, so they'd eat vegan unless of course they found it (usually via dumpster diving) and then it didn't have to be vegan. We also stayed with a family in Hobart, and the mom taught French at a school and shared all sorts of neat French music with me. Even without touring the area we had quite an education just from the people we stayed with!

But below are some pictures from the trip and rundowns of some of the highlights. The trip was all in all absolutely amazing. The pictures are a bit out of order in terms of when they happened in the trip, so please don't use the order below as any sort of idea about our itinerary because geographically it would make 0 sense if we did it this way.

Going to the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) in Hobart, Tasmania. - Where ancient artwork (old arrowheads, ancient Egyptian artifacts, etc...) is interspersed with contemporary art. The museum was very new when we visited (less than a month since the opening), and it was fantastic. The tour was all self directed with information being delivered on an ipod touch with headphones. The device would geolocate your spot in the museum and you chose which piece you were looking at. They would have music to coincide with the piece, or an interview with the artist or museum curator, or other interesting things to add to learning about the piece. Truly an amazing museum experience.

Visiting the Boag's Brewery in Launceston, Tasmania. Got the full brewery tour and a tasting to boot!

Wineglass Bay - Long, strenuous hike in, but you're rewarded with one of the best beaches in the world (Outside magazine said it, so it must be true), shaped like the bowl of a wineglass.

Bruny Island Cruise - Bruny island is an island off the southern tip of Tasmania. (We joked that we were on an island off the south of Tasmania, which is an island off the south of Australia, which is an island off the south of Asia. We're not sure anyone else thought this was as funny as we did.) We took a ferry over to the island and drove to the boat cruise place we'd booked!

Our adorable rental car that was our trusted steed through our Tasmanian Adventure!

The water was absolutely this blue, it was amazing! Also this is the southernmost Stefan and I have each been!

Drive from Hobart up to Launceston - this meant driving straight through the middle of Tasmania, from bottom to top. We saw a lot of great landscapes and had some crazy weather changes along the way.

SNOWWW!!!

And then about 15 minutes later blue skies and green grass.

We got this great pic (yeah dual citizenship!) at an American style diner somewhere on the road.

We went to go see some awesome caves I read about. They were closed because of flooding. But we saw a goat. Totally makes up for it right? Yeah I didn't think so either.

Cataract Gorge - in Launceston

So thats all for the Tasmanian trip. A lot more happened over the course of 2011 but we may have to breeze through them. Get ready for an update on what's happening now very soon!

- E & S

We Moved! (Before and After pictures)

noreply@blogger.com (edith kate) — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 08:59:00 +0000

The Kitchen

Before

The Bedroom

Before

Notice the great Decemberists poster from Dorothy

After

The Study/Lounge Room

Before

After

Our color-coded bookshelf! (Front is in color, behind that is a row of black and white)

So a few weeks ago we moved! Our old house was great, we really enjoyed the neighborhood and had a really great group of roommates. But after 7 months of sharing an average sized kitchen with 12 other people, and being woken up too early sometimes it was time for our own place. We viewed a few places, applied for 2, and got 1!

It's a heritage house so the house is really old. The bottom floor is a dentists office, and the top floor is split in 2, with another couple having the front half of the house, and we have the back. While the front is nice as it has a balcony looking out over Glebe Point Road, our house is nice and quiet and looks out over the back alley, so it stays nice and quiet.

Despite working for a moving company we hand carried everything over to the new house (it's about 3 blocks away from the old house--2 blocks up Glebe Point Road, and 1 block in towards GPR). This includes our queen size bed, frame, and armchair! (Stefan did a yeomans duty with this move.) It's taken a bit of time to get everything situated, with a few trips to Kmart, Vinnies (like Salvation Army/Goodwill), and one very strenuous trip to Office Works for a desk and chair. We found some items on the side of the road--our clothes rack, that bookshelf that holds our tv, books, and bookies, and n64. We bought side tables at a reject shop, and another bookshelf off of Gumtree, which is the Craigslist of OZ.

The thing we loved about the house when we viewed it was that it gets tons of natural light. This is mostly a blessing, but during the heat wave we've had recently it can be a bit of a curse as the kitchen turns into a sauna during the day (hence those hideous make-shift curtains). But we know that it will be great in the winter as it will keep the room warm. We're also still in Glebe, the neighborhood we lived in before, and now we're even closer to the main road, Glebe Point Road, where we can go to cafes, buy fruit and fresh-baked bread, visit the butcher, the dry cleaner, and pick up the bus to go to CBD or work!

It's so nice to come home at the end of the day and have our own space to unwind in, and I'm sure when school is back in session at the end of the month it will be even more appreciated!

So thats our big news, and also why we haven't updated in so long! (We're still figuring out an internet provider, we had Virgin but it didn't work in our area and ended up being a big waste of time.)

In other news... we're planning a trip to TASMANIA! :)

Happy New Year!

noreply@blogger.com (edith kate) — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 08:48:00 +0000

Sydney By Night

noreply@blogger.com (edith kate) — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 08:23:00 +0000

About a week ago Stefan had work and when my plans for the night fell through I decided to take a walk around the city with my camera. This is something I've been meaning to do for awhile, but with the addition of all the lovely Christmas lights, this seemed like the best time to do it. I went through Glebe past Black Wattle Bay, and then through Darling Harbour into CBD, taking George St up to the Rocks, then crossing over Circular Quay and going through the Opera House.

Sydney Tower (taken from Darling Harbour)

Sydney Harbour Bridge

View from Black Wattle Bay

View from the Opera House

And there you have it! We are due for some belated Birthday and Christmas posts, both of which were amazing. But for now, we just leave you with those images from around the city.
Cheers,
Edith

Free Rice: A scary housing trend

noreply@blogger.com (edith kate) — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 06:10:00 +0000

So after introducing you to our lovely home we have some news... we've decided to move. There are far too many people in the house and it's becoming a bit of an issue. We still really enjoy our nice big room, and most of the flatmates are really nice people whose company we enjoy. But the fact that there is never any room to cook in the kitchen at dinner time, you can't leave things out, and I'm never sure if I invited people over if we would even have room to hang out without shutting ourselves in our room like we're freshman in the dorms or something is a huge downside.

Well we aren't moving just yet, but we do keep scouring ads online, and I've gone and looked at 2 places already. The first one was absolutely foul and the whole building smelled like cigarettes and what I assume sleazy Vegas motels smell like. The 2nd one was actually pretty nice but didn't feel just right, and they would have wanted us to stay for about 6 months, which I wasn't sure I wanted to commit to just yet. But we're still looking!

During our little search we've noticed a rather odd trend on many postings in the CBD/Ultimo/Haymarket area: FREE RICE. And the proof is below:

I'm not quite sure why in the listing rice was listed under bills... but interesting none the less. Please keep in mind that these are not just a few ads that have this, if you search "free rice" on Gumtree (it's Australia's version of Craigslist. Yes, Craigslist has an Australia section, but no one uses it) there are 4 pages of listings with that phrase included!

Odd housing situations are nothing newsworthy in Sydney. Our friend Kelley went to at least 30 houses looking for good accommodations when he got here, and could probably write a book on the odd living arrangements/situations he encountered during his search. (Actual example: His own ROOM! Although he would have to step over the 2 people who live in the living room and sleep on an air mattress to get to his room.) But the idea of including free rice in a housing arrangement is just too weird to me.

Aside from looking for a new place to live we've both been busy with lots of work (Stefan is in the middle of 16 days straight without a day off), and getting Christmas presents ready to ship off. We still need to do a post about what we did for my birthday (Stefan planned a really fantastic night that deserves it's own post, and I got lots of lovely presents from the family), but that's for another time! And Stefan fully intends to write a post soon, which will probably be much more funny than anything I write, and possibly contain Simpsons references.

But here is a picture of Darling Harbour taken last week to leave you with. :)

Introductions

noreply@blogger.com (edith kate) — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 10:50:00 +0000

This is the first post! I don't know how religiously we'll update this, but we both felt like this would be a great way to really share our experiences here with our friends and family. Not just words but images too! (Be excited...). We would both like to give a lot of credit to James Garritson, who gave us the idea for this blog (Thanks man). Now is a rather odd time to start doing this as we've been here for quite awhile (over 5 months for Edith and 3 for Stefan), but better late than never right? Nonetheless this does mean we have some catching up to do, so this will be a bit of an introduction to our life here.

We both go to the University of Sydney, I (Edith) am halfway done with my Masters of International Studies, and Stefan will start his Masters of Mechanical Engineering in February. A lot of people expressed confusion over why I got here 5 months ago, had school, and now have summer break, but I'm not done yet.... So just to clarify I started at Sydney Uni for what was their Semester 2. Because we're in the Southern Hemisphere summer break is still in summer, but this translates to mid November to mid February. So I had one semester of classes, now we're on summer break, and then I will finish my second semester for my program next July! My first semester was really great, the professors for the most part were very engaging, and the topics covered were very interesting. I definitely was lacking on my knowledge of Australian politics compared to many of the other students, but Sydney Uni is an extremely international school so I wasn't alone in this deficit. The international factor also hugely benefited the discussions we would have in class because you could get first hand perspectives of views held around the world. It was a bit like being in a selective UN meeting where we were just discussing ideas and concepts. There is also a very strong emphasis placed on the Asian-Pacific region, as that is Australia's nearest region, which I enjoy as I focused on the Pacific Rim in my undergraduate studies.

Sydney Uni! We call this building "Hogwarts" for obvious reasons

But much more needs to be introduced and I will stop droning on about my studies! We live in Glebe, which is a short bus ride from CBD (stands for Central Business District, aka downtown), or you can walk in 20-30 minutes! (That's 20 if you're Stefan and 30 if you're Edith.) We're a 10 minute walk to Sydney Uni campus, and 10 minutes from about 20 cafes and a few book shops. We're definitely in the right place! We even have a thai place on our street where you can get Pad See Ew or Pad Thai for $5! There is also a great market on Saturdays on the main road with lots of vendors who sell old books, handmade jewelry, screen printed T-shirts, vintage clothes and bags, pictures, really all sorts of things!

The Study

Our House!

We live in a share house which has 6 other bedrooms, most of which are inhabited by couples, so it's definitely a full house. (The Tanner Family really had it easy in comparison.) But we have a nice big room that even has a separate small room for the bureau and dresser and a desk, so it's like a separate walk-in closet/study! None of our roommates are Australian, but we've developed quite a strong French contingent, as well as some Italians, a kiwi, and some Irish folks!

The Room

We both have jobs, and because it's summer we're definitely in the busiest time of year for our places of employment. Stefan works at a super fancy seafood restaurant in Glebe which has a spectacular view. He is one of the two bartenders so he makes all sorts of fancy drinks and has even learned to make coffee drinks! It's a fantastic restaurant and he absolutely loves it, even though he works almost 60 hours a week right now. I work at a moving company, although they don't usually call them movers, they call them "removalists". This is not a real word as any spell checker will tell you, and I think it sounds rather ominous. (I always think of Leon: The Professional for some reason....) But it's a good job, my co-workers are nice, and it's only 1 bus ride away, so I get a lot of time in to read! (I've turned the BBC Big Read list into my reading list until school starts again if that gives you an idea of how long this bus ride is.)

Stefan's restaurant

But when we both have time off we try to explore the city and visit new places. Sydney has a big beach culture, so a few times when the weather is pleasant we head to Bondi Beach, and we've been to Manly Beach once. But there are still many beaches to explore, along with neighborhoods of the city we've never even been to!

I don't quite know what else to introduce... we've been through where we live and what we do...

So guess what... today was STEFAN'S BIRTHDAY!! He had to work tonight starting at 3pm, so we had a morning celebration consisting of sleeping in, presents and a birthday brunch with milkshakes at the cafe behind our house. Here's the birthday boy enjoying his day and our breakfasts (I am truly my father's daughter...):

So that's all for now! Keep checking back for new posts, or if you want to receive new posts via email just click that button on the left that says "by email" under the word Subscribe, or Follow us or add us to your blog Reader, or something if you like.