Her Majesty

   We visited the Queen Victoria market today. Quite an amazing place, endless stalls selling just about anything and everything. Much like the OC Swap Meet, but thankfully most of it was under shade, as it was 39° C today.


Queen Victoria Market

   The kids got gifts for their friends back home, and some cheap fans for themselves. (Tip: Have the kids do the haggling, or at least have them hold the money. Vendors caved in twice to Aliya, saving $1 each time!) We also picked up some postcards and produce. The girls were hot, so we looked for ice cream, and headed to the food court. We found a place that had advertised milk shakes. I know what you're thinking, Ben and Annie, but we knew better! Milk shakes here are really just flavored milk. We asked for "thick shakes" with extra ice cream. $11 later, we got to drinks that tasted, at best, like melted chocolate shakes. Oh well, live and learn.
   While Andy got the girls some croissants, I wandered down the organic section nearby. I paused at a section of organic wines and a friendly lady immediately offered to let me taste them. Who can say no to that? I had a lovely chocolate port, a very sweet blackberry-type wine (would have been better with some mineral water as a spritzer I think, especially if it was really cold), and a very smooth Shiraz.
   Keeping with our motto, "Quit while the quittin's good," we left much sooner than Andy and I would have liked. The girls were good sports on the tram though, since Andy invented a new way to enjoy the tram:


Tram Surfing

   Our other big activity for today is conquering the great laundry pile. It grew substantially because although we had a washer/dryer set that we purchased from some expats moving back to the States, we didn't have the hoses to connect them. Andy made a trip to Bunnings (think, Home Depot) and came home $50 poorer, but ready to install them. While putting laundry soap up on a shelf a bit later that night, what did he find on a high shelf? The very hoses needed. I suppose the good news is we have spares if we ever need them.     The machines are a stacking set of front loaders. Very efficient, and very small. It's taking a lot of loads. Australians rarely use dryers, so when in Australia....    

Look ma, I'm line drying!

   We're still enjoying exploring our neighborhood. On Friday we walked to a local restaurant, Sabatinos. Alas, no relation to that fabulous place on Lido peninsula. Still, there was some yummy, if thin-crusted, pizza. We almost didn't either. We sat down, found out it was cash-only, and realized we didn't have enough cash on us. We started out the door, and the owner stopped us. He asked us if we were local, and we said yes, and pointed to the girls scooters. Long story short, we ate there and promised to drop off the money later. Don't think that would have happened back home!
   We learned that we need to talk to the servers, or read the menus a bit closer. We ordered some spaghetti with a side of marinara sauce. What arrived was a bowl of seafood in a tomato sauce. Makes sense, I suppose, when you consider the derivation of marinara. But it wasn't going to work for Alanna, who wanted a basic meatless tomato sauce.  Fortunately, omnivore Andy polished off the marina concoction and we ordered a Neapolitan sauce for Alanna. (Alanna's comment: "I thought Neapolitan was a type of ice cream!")
  We are also venturing out a bit. We headed out of Melbourne on Saturday and went to Lake Cairn Curran to meet up with my friend Annie. She visited me in 2003 for a reunion of our online moms group, and now I got to visit her! Even Alanna thought it was ironic that last year we sent her Flat Stanley to Annie in Australia, and now she lives her! The kids and Andy had a great time swimming in the lake, cooling off, and even kayaking a bit. I enjoyed catching up with Annie, her husband, and her really nice friends.
   Well, see ya next time. Cheers!

You Know My Name, Look Up The Number

   Technology has arrived at our new home. We have cable TV and more important, we have Internet. Thanks Al Gore!  And because we have Internet, we can Skype a bit easier, and we can use MajicJack. It's a pretty cool device that plugs into our PC via USB, and connects to a telephone. We get a US phone number, and can accept incoming or make outgoing phone calls. Our PC needs to be on, but at least we can call other people's land/cell lines for free, and others can call us without needing Skype. Email us if you want the number.
   Skype is still our favorite, since nothing compares to video. It was great to be able to see Pap and Gram's new dog, Ubu. Think: Sit, Ubu, sit! And as I type this, Aliya and Amanda are reading books to each other on Skype. Yesterday, the girls took turns Skyping the Ransoms. First Aliya had a laptop in her room, then Alanna got a turn in her room. We were even able to give them a virtual tour of the house by walking around with a laptop.
   All of this is so important to us because the females in the house miss their friends desperately. Andy is too busy with work to miss much, though he's happy about the Internet service because now he can work from home occasionally. While the trams is within walking distant and therefore convenient, the trip to the CBD (Central Business District) can still take an hour depending on the timing. He's quite anxious for his motorcycle to arrive, so he can take that to work. Unfortunately, the container hasn't left the States yet. Andy missed an email from the shipping company that said they needed the original title to ship it. We weren't aware of this until we were in Australia. Andy spent $40 to ship it via 2-day Australia post on the 12th. It's the 28th and it still hasn't arrived. He spent another $60 to get a notarized power of attorney, which he scanned and sent to his mom. She went to AAA to pull a title, which has to be mailed to our old address, which has to be forwarded back to his mom's, which then has to be sent up to Seattle to the shipping co. headquarters. It's a race to see which title will get there first. All in all, it's a disappointing 3 week delay in getting our container.
   Enough of the sob stories. What other interesting Aussie tidbits can I share? One thing that takes getting used to is the outlets. They call them power points here. Because 220 V is nothing to mess with, all of the power points are switched. So if you plug in your electric kettle (love that thing--heats up water so fast!) and turn it on, nothing will happen unless you remember to turn on the outlet switch. And speaking of switches, they are reversed. To turn something on, you press the button downward.
   Speaking of 220, I was thrilled that our PCs (two desktops) and monitor work on 220/50 Hz. Just needed to flip a switch on the back of the PCs, and use plug adapters for everything. We bought two used step-down transformers, but  probably won't use them until we get some of our small kitchen appliances on the aforementioned container.
   School starts on Feb 4th, a week from Friday. We're all anxiously awaiting that day. The kids are a bit bored, and can't wait to make new friends. I'm also a bit bored and can't wait to start doing some work. But before that can happen I need to register them, and to register them, we need immunization cards. The school application said we needed to contact the Medicare offices. I did and got a long complicated explanation of what I needed to do for each kid. It was different for each kid because of their ages, but the big issue was I'd need to find and go to a GP, general practitioner I assume. The next day though, we had a play date with two other expat moms, and they told me to go to the local city council instead.
   Fortunately, our city council offices are in the same building as our local library, which we had visited two days before. Alanna plowed through the suitcase of books we'd brought, and she needed more. So yesterday we went back for more books, then went to the city offices. We met with an "immunization counselor" who reviewed the girls vaccines. They met all of the requirements except the meningococcal one. She asked if I wanted the girls to have it and I said yes, if they needed it. I expected to have to go find a doctor but instead, she handed me a schedule of where I could get it. They have several sessions in various locations in our local city, several times a month. There was one nearby last night, so we took the girls to get their shot. Easy peasy, and surprisingly, it was completely free. We have private insurance through Andy's company, but they didn't ask any questions, just gave the girls the shots. They must be serious about immunizations here to offer them so easily, and for free.
   See ya next time, Cheers!

Birthday

   It's not my birthday here anymore, but it would be if I were back in the States. While this year was just slightly lower key than last year (celebrating with my family, the Fenians, and 100 of my closest friends) I still felt the love from far away thanks to all the messages, emails, Facebook greetings, videos of singing kids (thanks Ben, Katie, Patrick and Michael!), and virtual parties via Skype (thanks Buis!)
  How did we spent the day? With the rest of Melbourne, so it seemed, at Costco, the only one in Australia, though they're building more. I don't think the developers really understood the draw of Costco, because the parking garage was woefully inadequate to handle the crowds. It did have one of the largest elevators I've ever been in, since you need to take it up to the store. After braving that trip to get a few "necessities" and my bday present (an iPod docking station/radio), we figured we'd go for double-or-nothing and hit up IKEA. Probably the most reasonable place in all of Melbourne that we've seen. We hit the cafe for meatballs and pasta-- a kid's meal for only $3?? Score! Then we stocked up on some more goodies for the house.
   Errands done, we headed out to a wonderful Italian/pizza place for dinner. Oddly enough, pizzas are measured in inches! We thought he was just converting it for us, but he really didn't know how many centimeters that was. I have had someone "translate" for me when buying the girls croissants. After placing my order, the guy at the counter asked if it was to go. I asked him why he didn't say "take away" instead of "to go." He said he worked for a time in Canada and they didn't understand what he meant.
   Which brings me to another story. Seems Aussies, when they hear a North American accent, assume the speaker if from Canada. That's for two reasons. One is apparently more Canadians come to Australia than Americans. Second, Canadians are offended by being called American, whereas Americans aren't offended by being called Canadians. So it goes...
   We're settling in nicely to our new house. The girls are truly thrilled with their rooms, and we even really like the rental furniture. So much so that we're considering buying it and dumping the stuff that's in our container (somewhere near Seattle...but that's another story.....) Andy would actually be fine if only the  motorcycle showed up, and the rest of the container was lost at sea, because he's really enjoying the minimalist lifestyle we're leading. Very little clutter. Everything has it's place. I'm starting to tire of the 7 shirts I brought along though :-)
   I'm feeling more comfortable with driving here. It's much harder than just being on the left side of the road. It's also driving on the right side of the car, and dealing with roundabouts and narrow streets (zig zagging back and forth to avoid parked or right-turning cars) and even dealing with trams. But I'm getting used to it, and ventured out to find the local library branch. Got the girls library cards, and Alanna quickly found a large stack of books to read. Yay! The next stop was to find our new local supermarket.
   I found it and parked, no problema. But the carts, er, trolleys were all chained together. Upon inquiry, turns out you need to insert a dollar coin into the handle. When you return it, and attach it to another cart, the coin gets pushed back and you get your deposit. A bit of a nuisance, but it does ensure there aren't carts, er, trolleys left all over the parking lot, which is a good thing. Once you get a trolley, that's a fun challenge just to steer them, as they're four-wheel drive, and want to go in any/every direction.
   As expected, grocery stores are a bit different. Weights are in kilograms. so when asking for deli meat, I was wondering do I ask for 1/8th of a kilo? No, gotta love metric. I just asked for 300 grams. The stores are smaller, so the selection is smaller too, though I expect it would be smaller even in a large store. One surprise was the coffee section. I'd heard so much about the great coffee, and yet the shelves were filled with many varieties of instant coffee. What the ??? I was looking for ground coffee to make my cold-brew concentrate, and didn't have much luck. 
   Other differences include the meat section. In addition to a lot of lamb products, which was to be expected, there was also a decent selection of fresh meat for dogs! Aussies must really love their pets. The cereal selection was a bit lacking by our standards. They have what they call Cheerios, but not the good ole regular version. And though the logo looks the same, they're co branded with another logo and look/taste different. Nothing wrong with that of course. It's all about trying new foods. We're working on that, slowly, but admittedly sticking with favorites, esp for the girls sake. The biggest issue is a serious lack of ranch dressing. Oh, they have something labeled "ranch" but both bottles we bought, even the Paul Newman brand, tasted more like slightly flavored mayo. How are we ever going to get the girls to eat their veggies without ranch??? On the plus side, because we gotta be fair, they do have Paul Newmans Southwest dressing, hooray. Now I'm not sure what "Southwest" means here in Australia, but I do know it's one of my favorite dressings, that I thought was only available when I purchased McD's Southwest Salad. Quite happy about that find.
   That's all for now, gotta rescue the girls from the Wii, which we were able to set up yesterday. They're back in Just Dance business! Cheers!

Our House, in the Middle of our Street

  We thought we'd be signing the lease today, but alas, that will have to wait until tomorrow. Many of you have already seen these pics, either on Facebook or good old email,  but for completeness and/or posterity, here are some pics of our new home. 

View from the street

Family room

Kids bathroom

Kitchen

Dining room/kitchen

Master bath, love the big tub!

View from kitchen, looking out to street. Steps lead upstairs to three bedrooms plus loft area.
Fourth bedroom downstairs will be our office, but plenty of room for visitors!

    We're excited about this house not only because it's light, bright, open, and has plenty of space. We love the location. It's easy walking distance to the school, to a large nearby park, and even a YMCA. They don't have a Father/Daughter program like Indian Princesses, but Andy and I are going to join their gym. Membership even includes a trainer and a nutritionist. We can also walk to a tram stop, for easy access to the city and the beaches.
   Speaking of commuting, I've taken Andy to the train station near our temporary accommodations. Once in our house, he'll probably take the tram into the city until his motorcycle arrives on the container. Parking a car in the city is prohibitively expensive, $18 or more, but for a motorcycle, just find a spot on the sidewalk and it's free!

At The Zoo

   Today was a day just for the family. Anxious to see real live roos and koalas, we visited the Melbourne Zoo. We even met up with the other family on our plane who moved to Melbourne from the States. It was fun to compare notes and complain about the shocking prices. Apparently you can get Dr. Pepper here, if you go to Costco, and it's about $30 for a 24-pack. I thought that was almost reasonable compared to the kids sunglasses I saw at Toys R Us for $23!! In case you're wondering, the US dollar is almost at parity with the Aussie dollar. While at the Gladstone Mall yesterday, we checked out a Target store, but it was just as expensive as everything else here, and a very limited selection. No Cliff Z-bars either, much to the kids dismay. They also charge $0.10 for a bag, so I'm glad a brought a bunch of my Trader Joes bags with me.
   And now, some pics if you're interested. We're really loving the zoom lens on the camera, if you couldn't tell.

Not an Opto EMU, but an emu nonetheless

Fun fact of the day: Their tongues are dark, not pink, so they
don't get sunburned while spending 9-10 hours a day eating

      On the way home, we stopped to find some bike helmets for the girls. We also picked up a sun hat for Aliya. At the same shopping center, we found another interesting difference. They have escalators that are moving walkways, or maybe I should call them moving walkways that are escalators. They came in handy for people using shopping carts and then need to take the cart trolley down to the parking garage in the next level. To the girls, they were a source of great entertainment as they liked walking up the down walkway, treadmill style.
   Okay, I just found out the girls' school can't access YouTube, so I'm going to post a video or two here.

Baby You Can Drive My Car

 Yep, Andy let me drive his (company) car. Fortunately, I had him in the passenger side to help me navigate. Because, as my guidebook says, it takes two people to drive the first few times in Australia. One to actually drive, and one to yell "Hey, you're on the wrong side of the road."  But he mostly just kept telling me I was way too far to the left.  I felt quite proud that I was successfully able to drive him to the train and make it back alone without any damage to the car. Of course, when I went to pick him up later that day, the girls got a good laugh when I climbed into the left (wrong) side of the car, and had to switch.

   And now, if you don't mind, I'll backtrack a bit to cover the past few days. First, I thought you might be interested in seeing the container where most of our worldly goods now reside. 

Loading up the container

    Our last day in California was spent doing last-minute packing, and mostly trying to get out of the way of our renters, who were determined to get in as soon as possible! They were moving in as Andy (actually Roger) was cleaning out the fridge! We managed to get it all boxed up though, and enjoyed an impromptu farewell party on our driveway. Thankfully our good friends were there. See that red truck in the background? Roger and his truck saved the day (again!) by taking us to the airport when our scheduled shuttle service (say that ten times fast!) showed up and proved to be severely inadequate. The poor driver actually loaded a box or two in the back of his normal-sized shuttle, but he wasn't fooling anyone. We sent him away and loaded up Roger's truck instead. Then it was time for lots of hugs and lots of tears. The girls and I cried quite a bit up the 405, but the A-team was on its way.

Friends together

Do you think I brought too many shoes?

   Traffic was light, and we made it to LAX. The 14.5 hour flight was actually over 16 hours, because the Homeland Security computer system went down, and they had to process passports by hand. So the plane waited almost two hours for about 30 people.  Fun fun. Thanks to the in-seat entertainment and the girls iPod Touches, we survived the flight. And that ordeal was nothing compared to getting the aforementioned bags and boxes (which came to 18 actually, when you counted our carry-ons) through customs! Unlike LAX, they didn't have large carts, so we had 5 of the baggage trolleys. Customs was kind enough to X-ray our bags instead of opening each one. We actually packed extra rolls of tape though, just in case they did. They even helped us wheel the carts out to the curb. The Customs Agent refused Andy's tip, and instead gave us one: "Get out of the habit of tipping while in Australia." It is a hard habit to break though. We actually asked a waitress about it, because it feels so wrong not to tip.

Hanging out in the baggage claim area on one of our 5 carts

   Andy drafted his co-worker Mike to pick us up, and thankfully the rain wasn't too bad so our bags piled into the back of the pickup truck didn't get too wet. We headed out to our temporary townhouse accomodations. They're a bit of a dump, but have a full kitchen and two bedrooms, and will work just fine. 

  The first few days have been productive. A bit boring for the girls, as we drive around from place to place getting situated and taking care of errands. The first day we drove to one of the neighborhoods we were most interested in, and on the way back, we saw a rainbow. A good omen I think! We are managing to fit in some fun things for the girls. Twice we went swimming at Mike's apartment building, and today I took the girls to a huge swimming complex complete with a wave pool. Earlier in the week, while Andy worked, I took the girls to the Melbourne Aquarium, where the highlights were penguins and hammerhead sharks.

Melbourne Aquarium

   So, all in all, we're hanging in there. We're getting used to the strange foods, the language--the girls even corrected us when we said there was a line (it's a queue, of course.) Today the girls Skyped their classroom, which was a huge treat! They had a whole presentation prepared, showing off props such as the box of Rice Bubbles (think Rice Krispies), coins and bills, and a list of different Aussie words. Then there was a Q&A session, where mostly the kids wanted to know how many kangaroos and koalas we've seen. Answer: none yet! They were also quite jealous because it was Saturday here and only Friday there. All in all, it was really fun for the kids to see their classmates, and I'm so thankful to their teachers for coordinating it. 
   One more thing. The big news here is, of course, the flooding. It's mostly in Queensland, far north from us, but the state of Victoria, where Melbourne is, has seen some mild flooding. It's a huge disaster, and country will be feeling the effects for quite some time. Although it's rained every day since we arrived, thankfully we haven't seen flooding. Our thoughts and prayers go out to those affected by the devastating floods.
   

All Our Bags Are Packed, We're Ready to Go

   All packed up. Won't even tell you how many boxes and suitcases we're taking, since the container might not arrive for 2 months.
  Good news is we have rented our house. They've already repainted it and want to move in today! In the weird coincidences department, her name is Alexa, she went to the same college as I did, her daughter is named Alanna, and her mom lived near my mom. Weird.
  We also were accepted for a rental house in Melbourne, in our second choice school district. Of course, Andy found one last night that looks suitable in our first choice district, but we'll wait till we get there to do anything more.
  The shuttle comes in a few hours, then off to LAX and a 15 hour flight to Melbourne. Another family I met online is also relocating and will be on the same flight with their two daughters! Another weird coincidence.
  Anyway, the kids finished up swimming, off to last lunch at Haus of Pizza. So much more I wanted to share about the last week, but I'll have to do that down under. It's been a stressful week or two, but so thankful for all the friends and family that helped us. Love you all!