Waking Up in Oz

‘Member how much I used to complain when I first got here? Looking back at some old posts, I did not shut up about things that irked me during my first few months here. Getting settled here was ridiculously complicated and at times felt like the entire universe was working against us, but once the good luck started rolling in I fell in love with Sydney.

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To put it bluntly, I fucking love it here. I love it here so much that I’ve proposed to at least 30 Aussie men as a means to stay for longer. Shockingly no one has said yes and I have less than 4 months to arrange a sham marriage. The game plan at the moment is to focus on one particular gentleman who has caught my eye.

Well hello there

Have you seen this man? This is Curtis Stone, Aussie celebrity chef and hot piece of meat. I used to watch him daily on his show Take Home Chef. Fast forward a few years later, and now I’m living in his home country and in search of permanent residency. It just makes too much sense. He’s the spokesperson for Coles supermarket and you can’t walk down an aisle without seeing his face (this is obviously my grocery store of choice).

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Curtis Stone, if you’re reading my blog, let’s do this. Make me an honest woman. I will even be in love with you for real so the marriage won’t be fraudulent. Plus, I’m fairly confident I’m a better cook than you and could teach you a couple of things. Remember that one episode of your show when you stopped and picked up sushi at a restaurant? And then you served that as the main course? The premise of your show is you’re supposed to be cooking for people in their homes. Don’t think for a minute your pretty face distracted me from you totally phoning it in on that one. Also, fruit is not a dessert. Marry me and all will be forgiven.

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I just called someone out AND proposed in the same paragraph. Perhaps this is why no one has said yes yet…

We spent Easter weekend driving along the Great Ocean Road. Rather, Mandi spent the weekend driving and I spent the weekend being a passenger. She did an awesome job driving on the left side of the road, no thanks to these signs…

The night before our flight to Melbourne, we had a rather big night out. We ended up not waking up until 6:55 a.m. and our flight was leaving at 7:45 a.m. We somehow made it to the airport by 7:30 a.m., but then security decided to search Mandi (TERRORIST!). We then ran through the airport Home Alone style* and they were even calling our names over the loudspeaker. I should mention we were also still drunk from the previous night. Our first stop once our flight arrived was Maccas, and then all was right with the world. (*Does this require further explanation? I believe this is universally understood)

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It was an amazing weekend and one of the most beautiful regions I’ve ever visited.  We spread the drive out over 3 days but it’s doable in one if you drive all day. We did the drive in reverse, so instead of starting from Melbourne and heading west, we drove along back roads from Melbourne and picked up the G.O.R. at Warnambool and worked our way along the road heading west. We stayed one night each in Apollo Bay and Lorne. I particularly loved the little beach town of Lorne and wish I’d get a chance to go back. This was definitely not a wild and crazy party holiday… we were in bed with lights out before 9 p.m. each night.

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I’d also like to point out that, despite being horrible at math, I noticed the 12 Apostles are more like the 7 Apostles. They’re crumbling into the ocean and are expected to be totally gone pretty soon, so get your ass down there ASAP if you care to see them. Highlights of the trip included seeing a wild koala crossing the road (!!!), non-stop breathtaking scenery, and not dying (thanks to me never taking the wheel).

The only way to travel

The very famous "not exactly" Twelve Apostles

Kangaroo: cute AND delicious

Bay of Islands

Surprise! I haven’t been deported. So much has happened since my last post that the thought of updating my blog has been completely overwhelming. I’d like to start posting on what I’ve been up to the past 4 months sometime this weekend. I’ve put together a little teaser of what’s to come, by all means hold me accountable and bitch in the comments section.

Stuff that has happened which I need to write about in the very near future:

• Road trip along the Great Ocean Road over Easter weekend
• Had a new girl start at my job who I gave the very deserving nickname of Dumbass
• Moved out of our old apartment and into a swanky Eastern Suburbs hood
• Became a groupie of the greatest DJ of all time (but not a hipster DJ… this one plays the worst music ever and clears out the entire bar)
• Experienced Anzac Day, my new favourite holiday. Crazy drinking holiday based around gambling on a coin toss, also lots of men in uniform running around
• Went to Byron Bay and Surfers Paradise. Went to bed at 7 p.m. on 2 out of our 3 nights there. Party animals.
• Lived off of 68 cents for 2 weeks
• Fell deeply in love with Curtis Stone, which spawned the creation of my 2-item "bucket list"
• My parents and brother visited and my mom brought an entire suitcase full of stuff for me, including Snuggies for Mandi and me (winter + no heat= dire need for Snuggie)!
• Went skiing in the Snowy Mountains over 4th of July weekend. Keeping up with the tradition of our trip to Byron we went to bed at 8 p.m. one night
• My contract ended at my job and I snuck out of my own farewell party
• Bollywood is now MARRIED
• Mandi just started working at my old company on the same floor (small world!)
• And oh yes, how could I forget… our old apartment tried to sue us and we got a first hand experience of the Aussie justice system

Things I won’t be writing about but I want to torture everyone:

• Had the MOST crazy thing EVER happen but I can’t write about it here or even tell 99.9% of the people I know about it but just believe me when I say it’s the craziest story ever

Ever heard of one of those investigative news reports on the local homeless guy making like $75 grand a year? I’ve always been skeptical of that until I moved to Australia. The homeless guy I pass by every day on my way to work asks everyone for $4. I’m so horribly amused by this, it’s the perfect reflection of how damn expensive this city is.

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We’ve had a constant supply of Reese’s peanut butter cups in recent months thanks to an abundance of care packages. Is there anyone who hasn’t heard me complain Reese’s are outrageously expensive here? If you bitch, you shall receive.

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We went out for a friend’s birthday a few weeks ago to the Lowenbrau restaurant in The Rocks. It’s a really fun German beer hall with old dudes playing polka music, huge piles of meat, and lots of drunken shenanigans. Kind of felt like we were in Epcot. And my metric conversions are still pretty shady, but turns out 3 liters of beer = drunk.

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Bollywood is now engaged. Yes, we stalk him on Facebook. I’m almost as shocked someone wants to marry him as I am that he even knows how to use a computer.

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We’re driving the Great Ocean Road over Easter weekend. This will be the first time Mandi or I have driven here, and we’re choosing to do so on a weaving cliff-side road. There will definitely be video footage. And lots of screaming.

It doesn’t take long after touching down in Australia to become aware of the Sydney vs. Melbourne debate. Aussies are extremely proud of their country, so I’d expect them to brag about other Australian cities instead of talking crap. The rivalry between the two cities that borders on obnoxious. A few weeks ago Mandi and I spent a weekend in Melbourne and we LOVED it. When I got back to work on Monday and was telling people about how much I loved Melbourne, they’d shoot back “yeah, but Sydney’s better.” Don’t get me wrong, I love Sydney, too. I have yet to meet an Aussie who says they love both cities. For me, comparing the two was inevitable but also a true case of comparing apples to oranges. I was amazed at just how different they are, I was expecting a smaller scale Sydney, but Melbourne has a very distinct vibe about it that is completely unlike that of Sydney.

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I knew almost nothing about Melbourne before we arrived. It doesn’t have the tourist attractions that Sydney has: no Harbour Bridge, no Opera House, no breathtaking harbour views, no world-famous beaches. The thing that got me about Melbourne is you feel like a local there. When people asked what all I did there, I couldn’t really think of anything. We did nothing out of the ordinary. Our nights were spent drinking and our days were spent eating and shopping. I’m not kidding, one of the highlights was going to a food market. The whole time I kept thinking “I could totally see myself living here.” It’s no surprise Melbourne is ranked #2 on The Economist’s Most Livable Cities in the World list.

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One of my favorite things about Melbourne (besides the food, ohhh the glorious food), was the bar scene. There are so many  discreet little bars tucked down alleyways. There would be a doorway, sometimes unmarked, down an alley that you would never know led to an awesome, intimate bar. Our first night was spent wandering around to some of the little alleyway bars and drinking five too many cocktails. This was also the night of the McDonald’s mystery. We’re pretty sure we ended up in Hungry Jack’s (Burger King, just a different name) around 4 am. It’s all quite blurry, but my in my drunken haze I remember my double cheeseburger coming in a wrapper, not a box like they do at Macca’s here (and believe me, I have eaten about 20 since being here, so I should know). Well, the next morning we woke up to find a McDonald’s cup in the kitchen. Did we follow up our Hungry Jack’s pig out with a McDonald’s pig out? What the hell happened?

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The next day we went to the Prahran Market and had a huge breakfast then wandered around the market. From there we walked along Chapel Street which is a popular shopping area. This was when I noticed the clothes in Melbourne are cheaper than in Sydney. Apparently there’s so much competition among local designers that the prices are cheap. After that we headed back to our friend’s apartment, then we walked to the Royal Botanical Gardens and into the city. Along the way we stopped at this pretty cool war memorial in the gardens that had great views of the city skyline, definitely worth walking to the top for a good view. From there we went into the city, whined about how hungry we were, then ate some Chinese food and headed back to the apartment for some quality lounging time. I was skeptical when my friend said the pizza place down the street from her place is insanely good. RANT: So far, I’d been extremely unhappy with pizza in Australia. They totally neglect what, in my opinion, makes the perfect pizza: amazing sauce, and a good sauce to cheese ratio. No, instead the Aussies just load up their pizza with a ton of toppings and neglect the basics. END RANT. Anyway, that night we went to Pinocchios for pizza and it was outstanding. By far the best pizza I’ve had in Australia, not that there’s been much competition, but I’m still craving this pizza and it’s been several weeks since I had it. After our late dinner, we jumped on the tram (Melbourne has trams going down the middle of the streets, I could definitely never drive there) to head out in the city. While on the tram we met a bunch of boys heading out as well so we joined them for the night. We ended up at the Crown Casino, which was much nicer than I was expected. It was more Vegas-style than Indian reservation style. The night ended with me lamenting that we once again missed the 3 am closing time of Lord of the Fries, a late night fry joint which claims to have the best fries you’ll ever have. I’m going back just to eat there.

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On our last day we went to Fitzroy, Melbourne’s equivalent of Sydney’s Newtown – but with way better shopping. Have I mentioned how good the shopping is in Melbs? Apparently there are so many designers there that competition makes them keep the prices pretty decent, I was amazed at how much more affordable, quality clothes there were compared to Sydney (where you’re lucky to find a dress for under $100). We had an awesome lunch at Vegie Bar, a funky vegetarian place, where Mandi and I split a burrito and pizza. Two of my favorite things, yum yum. From Fitzroy we headed to St. Kilda, Melbourne’s beach suburb. The poor beach itself was a joke compared to those in Sydney, but the town was cute. There was a street full of restaurants and shops that reminded us a lot of Florida. While we were there I ate a very yummy Pinkberry-style frozen yogurt topped with berries. Unfortunately I can’t remember the name of the place, but it’s along the main stree in St.Kilda (Auckland St?). By then it was time to get to the airport, and that was the end of our 48-hour trip to Melbourne.

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Anyone have a super strong opinion on Sydney vs. Melbourne? Anyone love them equally, like I do? Curious to hear the non-Aussie opinions on each versus the Aussie opinions…

The following may or may not have occurred where I work. The good part doesn’t happen until about a minute has passed. I know this is probably old news for anyone living in Australia.

I almost peed my pants twice this evening. The first time was when I spotted Goya black beans at the Metro Grocer in the Marrickville Shopping Centre (make a note of that, fellow Sydney black bean enthusiasts). So yes, I nearly peed myself over the sight of can after can of that glorious blue label I thought I wouldn’t be seeing for another 9 months. I barely blinked at the $3.49 price tag and ended up buying 4 cans, then squealed to Mandi for the next hour about it. It’s the little things, people.

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Incident number two of almost peeing my pants happened while we were walking home from the above-mentioned shopping centre, swinging my bag full of black beans, when a dark SUV pulled up next to a car right in front of us and four guys in bullet-proof vests jumped out. All four of them had huge automatic weapons which they pointed at some poor guy in his car. It appears it was the wrong dude though (10 to 1 odds that guy shit himself), because as soon as we processed what was going on, they jumped back in the SUV and sped away. Mandi and I just stood on the sidewalk making uneasy noises while we watched this whole thing happen. We were the only other people on the street. We didn’t run, we didn’t duck, we just stood there being completely useless in the face of danger. All I could think was, “I THOUGHT SHIT LIKE THIS DOESN’T HAPPEN IN AUSTRALIA!” When we got home, Mandi called the police station and they were just running some sort of exercise (!!!!). I’m gonna be so pissed if I get shot before I eat these black beans.

Mandi and spent our first Australia Day participating in the age-old Australian tradition of going to the movies. What? I know, we’re lame. I spent my day off from work watching a Meryl Streep movie instead of participating in any sort of  activity in the sun with the rest of the country. Oops. No one we knew really had concrete plans and since Tuesdays are known as “tight ass Tuesday” here in Australia, movies are only $10. Sidenote: Speaking of barbequess, it seems like there’s a common rule of “bring your own meat” to a lot of  these gatherings. I find that odd.

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Now that we have jobs and are getting paid (so nice to see money going IN my account and not just out of it… at one point I had $2.78 in my Aussie bank account. Yes, the decimal is in the right place.), we’ve started planning trips around Australia. We just booked a flight to Melbourne for a weekend in February. We’re going to try and cram in as much stuff as we can in 2 days. I seriously know nothing about Melbourne, so I’m sure I’ll be researching like crazy for the next month. If any of you living in Melbs have some “must do/must see” recommendations (particularly involving food!), send me an email or a comment.

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We’re also looking into a weekend getaway to Gold Coast in March. I keep hearing it looks exactly like Florida, and after looking on the Gold Coast tourism site, I can definitely see the similarities. Between the high rises and canals, it looks a lot like Fort Lauderdale. I don’t plan on doing much there other than laying around on the beach.

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I also went to my first cricket match last weekend and saw New South Wales play South Australia. Mandi and I enjoyed it way more than we were expecting! It’s so much easier for me to understand a sport after seeing it live. I had tried watching it on TV a few times but always zoned out within 3 minutes and had no idea what was going on. Granted, the match we went to wasn’t the traditional 5-day match and was only a few hours. Not sure if my attention span could handle anything longer. Also, one of the interesting things about work life in Australia is they have sports on in the office. The sound isn’t on, but every day there is cricket on, and the past week the Australian Open was on. The TV is right in the middle of the office positioned so everyone can see! Work life in general is really laid back, totally my speed.

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As far as the latest Bollywood drama…he’s gone for good! His departure included our flatmate getting home last Sunday  at 8 a.m., seeing him sitting out on the couch with a possible hooker and drinking red wine (sooo random), and yelling at him when she saw how badly he destroyed her room. Turns out he stole about $100 worth of change she had on a bowl on her nightstand and has yet to pay rent. I’ve never met a bigger loser. He’s certainly not missed… which means we’ll most likely run into him somewhere around Sydney.

I’m employed! Oddly enough, Mandi and I were both offered temp gigs yesterday and we both start tomorrow. My bank account was rapidly depleting and I was afraid I’d have to return home if I didn’t get a job before the end of this month, so it was definitely perfect timing. Adjusting back to 9-to-5 life is going to be a kick in the ass after more than 2 months of being a lady of leisure.The best part is our offices are walking distance from one another so we can have lunch dates and meet for after work drinks, woo hoo! Which reminds me, in one of the job descriptions of a job ad I saw online, one of the job duties listed was “organising Friday drinks.” Only in Australia. Unfortunately I was already interviewing for the job I just got when I saw that ad, otherwise I would have sent my resume.

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After being offered the job, I immediately began fantasizing about planning a few trips now that I’ll be making money. First up, I’d like to make a trip down to Melbourne sometime in February to visit our American friend Kathryn who stayed with us over New Year’s. That’ll probably just be a quick weekend getaway since I may still be working then (the length of my temp assignment is kind of up in the air). Next up, our friends Bri* and Trout are gonna make the trip over from the States sometime in April. We’d like to go on one of the sailing trips around the Whitsunday Islands while they’re here. Has anyone done one of those? The boat we’ve heard is really good is like $450 for two nights which is insane, so I’d appreciate any suggestions on a cheaper boat. We just want to do a 2-or 3-night sail since they won’t have a lot of time here.

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Our flatmate gets back on Sunday so the countdown is on for Bollywood to be out of here. His new thing is smoking in his room (both cigarettes and pot), which is really pissing me off since the smoke smell is filling the apartment, not to mention our flatmate’s room is really gonna reek. I’ve been a straight up bitch to him all week and I’m on the verge of slipping a nasty note under his door telling him to stop smoking/go to hell. There is seriously a steady stream of smoke coming out of the room. I came home from an interview at 10 a.m. the other day and the whole apartment reeked of pot. I guess that’s an improvement from when he was sleeping until 4 in the afternoon, at least he is getting up at a decent time now. I’m pretty sure he was raised by wolves, and not very competent wolves at that.

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* We got awesome Christmas packages from Bri and Kelly. Bri even sent us Hidden Valley Ranch. The next day I ran down to the gyro shop to get some fries to dip in ranch, a favorite pastime of fat asses everywhere.

New Year’s Eve on Sydney Harbour was a blast. We spent the day/night at Yarranabbe Park in Darling Point, one of the only parks that allows you to bring your own booze. It was great to wear a tank top and shorts and not worry about looking like crap. Normally New Year’s Eve means buying a new dress and is the most dressed up I get all year, so this was a very welcome change for me. We celebrated with just about every nationality imaginable and only one Aussie (who was our visitor Brad from Adelaide). I guess the Sydneysiders want nothing to do with the chaos of trying to claim a spot around the harbour. There were tons of people wearing flags as capes… Ireland, Canada, Italy, Iceland. I can only imagine the shit we would get if we draped ourselves in American flags.

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We spent the rest of the weekend showing our visitors, Kathryn and Brad, around Sydney and doing all of the touristy stuff. It was weird playing tour guide, but made me realize how familiar I already am with the city. I’ve only been here 2 months but I feel so comfortable getting around. It’s starting to feel more like where I live and not just where I’m visiting. Of course, some people still look at me like I have two heads when I open my mouth, so I suppose I’ll always be a bit of an outsider.

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I think another reason I’m feeling more like a resident and not a visitor is we’ve made a few different groups of friends. Granted, only one of those groups are Aussies, the other two are Kiwis and American/Irish/Scottish. Our social calendar is filling up nicely, which is good and bad since both Mandi and I are still unemployed and a night out is easily $100. My New Year’s resolution is to make more girl friends. As much as I like hanging out with dudes, sometimes you just want to sit around and gossip with girls. The only girl friend we have here is Teneal, but she doesn’t count since I knew her before I got here. We have plans to meet up with fellow expat Kate this week, but that’s sort of cheating since she’s American. How the heck do you make female friends?

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In true Kerry and Mandi fashion, Murphy’s Law has continued to apply to anything we touch. My mom sent a care package a few weeks ago containing mostly practical things: dryer sheets (which you can’t get here!), a huge supply of Dunkin Donuts coffee, Reese’s peanut butter cups, an umbrella (not sure why she sent that, must think they just walk around in the rain here), and Downy wrinkle release (Kelly, this probably comes as no surprise to you). The day the package arrived, our dryer stopped working, rendering my jumbo supply of dryer sheets completely useless. We’ve had to line dry our laundry, which feels very Little House on the Prairie. The only plus is the entire apartment smells like clean laundry while the clothes are drying. Since EVERYTHING here shuts down for weeks over the holidays, we couldn’t even put in a maintenance request with our leasing office until yesterday when it reopened. Which brings me to our next problem…

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I woke up in the middle of the night with a cockroach crawling on my arm. I’ve always heard there are all sorts of bugs crawling on you during the night and you just don’t realize it, which is bad enough to think about, but to be jolted out of slumber with a cockroach the size of a fun size Snickers bar on your arm is terrifying. We’d noticed cockroaches partying in our kitchen a few days ago and immediately launched an assault on them with a time-released bug spray. After seeing a few dead cockroaches the next day we thought it had done the trick it appears there are still roaches chilling in my room. Which is not only disgusting, but also reflects poorly on me and I’m sure you’re all wondering what kind of filth I’m living in to have cockroaches roaming on my body at night. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that since our nightmare temporary roommate moved in we’ve noticed roaches. We came home on New Year’s Eve to discover he’d apparently had a fiesta and made tacos, leaving uncooked and cooked ground beef all over the place and it looked like he used taco seasoning as confetti to ring in the new year. The mess sat there for 48 hours until Kathryn wrote him a note to clean up after himself. I think within those 48 hours an announcement was made to all of the roaches in the neighborhood that there was free Mexican food in our apartment. I’ll once again direct you to Mandi’s latest post if you want to catch up on the latest of Bollywood’s shenanigans. He committed the ultimate crime and stole our last roll of toilet paper. It’s war.

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EDITED: I have a special/somewhat desperate request. I’m dying to make twice baked potaotes but can’t find anything resembling a proper potato for making a baked potato. I can’t find anything with thick skin similar to a good old Idaho potato. Any idea what type of potato will suffice and where I can find it? I also need any tips on where to find black beans. This is clearly a major crisis and I’ll appreciate any and all help!