It's May; an Overdue Update

So it's been another month and a half and I'm going to try to get better at updates. We moved almost over a month ago and just got internet this week recently, so no more excuses! (As a side note, I'd like  to point out I started the first three paragraphs of this post last week and got sidetracked by Netflix.. oops!)

Our excellent luck has continued (haha), our moving experience was a struggle to say the least. We thought we had set up the electric to come on the day we moved in, but it turns out that was not the case. A huge difference here is the way businesses operate for holidays - in the states, you can pretty easily find places that are open even on Christmas, and here EVERYTHING, including major power companies closes for Easter, which is a four day holiday weekend here. So we had moved into a really nice apartment with absolutely no power for five days. It is also getting dark around 6pm since daylight savings just happened, so getting all our stuff organized took a bit longer than we expected. Luckily, we had a couple friends invite us to an Easter wine festival in the country, so that was a nice way to escape our unexpected predicament.

Regis' styling Easter outfit

My friend Kat and I on Easter

Furnishing our place hasn't been super easy since we don't have a car. We've basically been making runs to IKEA or Kmart via public transport, then Ubering home with as much stuff as we can fit into a stranger's car, then repeating. It'd be funny if Uber wasn't so expensive! It's also hard to have to re-buy EVERYTHING again. I've had to make random runs to the store to get once-off things I forgot we used, but our house is basically functioning like our old one now. Every three or so days, I'll think of something stupid I have to go buy to cook something, but it's definitely much better than squatting in someone else's house and we feel like we have a home now! I'll add pictures next time, since we still have a bit of unpacking left to do.

To add to my last post about housing, another big difference with housing here here is heat/air conditioning. Even though it doesn't get THAT cold here (I would say around 40-45 Fahrenheit), the heat here doesn't really get our place warm enough since it's just a wall heater. This has resulted in me getting sick twice now, which is pretty annoying. I actually called off work today because I woke up with an awful sore throat and body pains. But enough bitching from me, on to the fun stuff!

So, what exactly have we been up to? It's now autumn here, so we aren't down at St Kilda every weekend like we were a couple months ago, which I miss. We did head down there a few weeks ago just to walk on the beach and we saw another penguin!

Fairy Penguin!

We also went to an AFL (Australian Rules Football) game with one of my co-workers recently. I don't really know how to describe that, so I'll let Regis cover that is his next post since he's started playing in a recreational league recently. I will say that we have begun supporting rivaling teams though, haha.

AFL Game! (Western Bulldogs vs Richmond Tigers)

I'd also like to mention here that work culture is pretty different - it's quite acceptable to get drinks with people you work with, even if they are managers, etc. I think from what I've experienced, people are more than willing to do pretty late drinks nights with coworkers, which to me is quite odd compared to what I was used to in NC. I don't think I actually hung out with coworkers outside of work more than once or twice from my old office job. It's been nice actually being able to make work friends!

Other than that, we have been going out with friends, trying to recover some of our moving costs by having more low key stay-at-home weekends, cooking with fresh food from the Queen Victoria Market and brewing our beer! Lots of work, working out, and running errands in between, so not too much out of the ordinary for us.

The bottling process from the last batch

The final result!

The last batch, which was our first we have ever made, was a pretty big success. I wouldn't say it was exactly like Wooden Robot Brewery's version of my favorite beer, but it definitely had a nice coffee/vanilla flavor and was very drinkable for the weather we've been having. I think we're only down to a few more in the fridge, so we started another batch over the weekend. This one will be a pale wheat ale (sort of similar to Bell's Oberon), but brewed with about 12 pounds of oranges (the rinds and the juice from them!). It's been an interesting process for sure. I think it's a really interesting hobby since we both enjoy cooking so much. I've also spent a lot of time bartending, so I am a drink perfectionist by nature at this point. Regis is just particular about everything, so he's been a genius with figuring out how exactly to do all the minuscule things that can really affect the beer's taste. It's a very time consuming process, but it's worthwhile and something I think we will both stick with for a long time.

Regis and Scott in action

Adding the good stuff!

I don't really have much else to add here, but I wanted to add a comical bit to the end about food. My mom jokes around with me sometimes about Outback Steakhouse having "real" Australian food and I wanted to post some stuff I've had that is pretty typical here, since people here don't eat Bloomin' Onions all day. To be honest, I didn't really know what people ate here before I was here, either!
Pretty much the most common foods I've noticed restaurants having here are: fish and chips, pizza, burgers, parmas, and some kind of meat pie. There are obviously tons of options at any given restaurant, so apologies to the internet warriors that might feel like correcting me if I missed something :)

I've realized it's basically a given here that any restaurant food we get here is made with more quality and fresh ingredients. Seriously, SO GOOD. But anyways. Parmas are a typical bar food here. Think sort of like a Chicken Parmesan but the chicken is served on a bed of chips and salad instead of pasta.  There is usually also some kind of sketchy appalling meat hidden under the cheese that I usually pick out and give to Regis. It was a weird dish to get used to at first, and there are actually restaurants that serve nothing but Parmas! There are all kinds of varieties, such as Mexican, Italian, Spicy, you get the picture. Meat pies are pretty delicious too and are also usually served with some kind of chip mountain. So there you have it! Australian dishes 101. Sorry if this has been a hastily and poorly-written post (I blame my cold meds) but I'll at least leave you with some yummy pictures of food. Goodnight from the other side of the world!

-L

A chicken pie (and of course, chips)

Approximately 3X more parma than I can eat