2.5 Months In: Some Updates

Hey guys!!

I was making breakfast this morning and realized I haven't updated this thing in forever! I've survived exactly four weeks of my new job as of Friday and it's been good. The stuff I'm learning is finally starting to stick, I have started with client work and I've even made some work friends. Not bad!

At the end of my second week, they had a morning tea for me and gifted me an entire bag of Australian goodies I've never heard of or tried, which was super nice! All the candy is great (minus the Cherry Ripes, I don't like coconut flakes!) and the existence of Tim Tams is going to basically going to completely destroy my diet. Haha. Also, I'm terrified of Vegemite. No one I've asked can definitively tell me what it is, so it's a NOPE for me.

TIM TAMS. <3

We haven't been up to much outside of work and getting back on a schedule that doesn't involve drinking beers and going to the beach every day (sounds terrible, right?). We went to the Australian Grand Prix last weekend, which was pretty awesome and WE FOUND OUR OWN PLACE FINALLY!

It's the perfect distance between the beach and the city, and has a huge balcony. It'll be a nice change from our condo in Charlotte; it's on the second floor vs. the 30th, and there's a pool on the roof of the building! Check out the views!

Motivation for Visitors? 

I'm honestly thrilled we found somewhere - the apartment/real estate process here is completely different than what we are used to, and to be blunt, is a total pain in the ass. It's insanely competitive and there are tons of weird rules:

• You have to go through a specific website to look for apartment availability
• Once you find places you're interested in, you have to book an 'inspection'. The inspections are at set, often very inconvenient times (think weekday mornings or afternoons when normal people work) and they're only 10-15 minutes long. If you show up late because the public transport is never on time, you're out of luck
• The market is so competitive, you can't request your own time to show up. Sometimes 10 people can show up at a single inspection, so if you want the place, you have to put in an application ASAP
• You put in an application; your application has to contain basically everything about yourself and like five references
• A normal sized apartment anywhere around the city is 2,000 - 3,000 a month, and the rent is quoted as weekly vs. monthly - you also have to pay two months of rent to secure the apartment if you want it. I am SO glad we saved up a lot of money before we moved!
• If someone else offers to pay more (it actually happens a lot), you're out of luck and have to start the process over

Sounds super fun, right? Unless we end up hating the place, I'm not trying to move any time soon!

We have started to get some real fall weather, which is kind of refreshing and also gave me a good reason to go shopping - both of us pretty much only brought summer stuff with us since we could only check a couple of bags each. Compared to Charlotte, the shopping and fashion here is AMAZING. There are tons of shops everywhere, and they actually cater to people with different styles. Charlotte had zero retail in the city and if you don't like dainty, florally crap in easter colors, then you have to do all of your shopping online. I got some really cute, locally-designed stuff that I love and I'm so happy I can go back to wearing 90% black clothing!

I really love living in a bigger city - it's really cool being able to experience different foods and cultures. People here really embrace diversity. I'm sure there are still racist redneck-type people (unfortunately they're everywhere), but from my experience thus far, people are much more laid back about the blend of cultures. Graffiti is also legal in certain places in the city, making for really neat pictures. There are tons of little hidden places in the laneways, some of the coolest bars we have been to in them are basically impossible to find without Google!

Hosier Lane Street Art

This weekend, we didn't do anything too crazy - we saw the Lego Batman movie and tried a new restaurant. Today, we're going to Hofbrauhaus in the city because Regis is fiending for a pretzel and a giant beer. April should be a good month, since Easter is a 4 day weekend. We don't really celebrate religious holidays, but hardly anyone in Australia seems like they do, so we're going to a wine festival with some friends. Also, Regis' birthday is coming up! Someone, help me with some ideas?

Yarra Valley Wine Region

Last Beach Day of the Season

Until next time.

-L

What Regis has been up to

Believe it or not, since we moved here we haven't been on vacation the whole time.  Most of the posts so far have been about short little road trips and what not but that has only made up about 1% of our time here so far.  With Laci starting work this week, I thought it would be fun to show you how I have been spending a good amount of my time.  FULL DISCLOSURE: This is going to be quite nerdy.

To most people the idea of not working for over 3 months seems like a dream.  I can't believe I'm saying this but I cannot wait to start working.  I am actually jealous of Laci being at work right now.  You might be thinking, "didn't you accept a job a month ago".  You would be right, but HR being HR has still yet to process my offer and thus I won't start work until Monday the 13th at the earliest.  

So in my vast amount of free time I have been doing the usual things like running, long boarding on the beach esplanade, going out with friends and so on.  Thats not what I'm going to discuss in this post.  What I am going to talk about are the various projects I have taken up due to my boredom and just the fact that as an engineer I get pleasure from engineering shit.  So far I have taken on two large projects;

1) Designing and building a Sim Racing Rig

2) Brewing Beer

To those of you unfamiliar with a Sim Racing Rig its basically a cockpit you sit in with all the normal vehicle controls to play racing games.  You can buy pre made ones, but wheres the fun in that.  For mine I have designed my own steering wheel with a 4.3 in lcd display in it, a fully modular 80/20 aluminum chassis that is fully adjustable and flat packable.  The wheel base, the thing that provides force feedback will be an industrial grade servo motor capable of producing 32Nm of torque (Has the potential to break children's wrists).  And lastly a custom built pc to run it all. 

This project is in its infancy as it is quite large and expensive,  two things that I cannot deal with at the moment but I have some screenshots for those of you who give a shit.

                           

Here is a video of the dash in action when it is all finished

The second project is almost complete.  Beer here is quite expensive, so I have decided to start brewing my own beer.  I have all the required equipment now and the ingredients for my first batch arrived the other day.  The first beer I am going to make is going to be a clone of Wooden Robots "Good Morning Vietnam" which is a vanilla coffee blonde ale.  This just so happens to be Laci's favorite beer from Charlotte.  I plan to make this project its own post but the steps behind it are pretty straight forward.  

  1) heat water

  2) put grain in and wait 1 hour

  3) remove grain

  4) boil water & add hops

  5) cool water

  6) add yeast

  7) wait 2 weeks

  8) bottle

  9) wait 2 more weeks

10) drink

Like I said, I plan to document this process start to finish, so be looking for that post in about a months time.

Im sure the next post will be more of the same from Laci, i.e. cool photos of stuff and things and probably something about her first week of work.  

Check back soonish,

Regis

Laci is Employed; A Celebratory Road Trip Ensues

As of a week ago today, I’m officially employed! So, clearly a celebration was in order for my final week of unemployment, and since Regis should be starting his new position soon as well. This week is also the last official week of summer (the first day of fall here was the first), so with the amazing sunny weather, we decided to re-do the Great Ocean Road. We did a little tour when we were here last year but had cold, rainy weather. It was much more enjoyable this time around. Thanks to Scott for letting us borrow his car! :)

Before I get into that, I’m pretty excited to land a job! I actually started interviewing with this company while we were still in Charlotte – the first time they called me was a little awkward; it was 1am my time because they didn’t realize I hadn’t moved over yet, but we moved past that and I think it will be a pretty good fit for me! I’ll be doing communications and project work for a financial communications company. Is it my dream job? Probably not, but I will have 6 weeks of paid time off per year and it will give me great project management experience. It’s also a huge step in the right direction for me in the fact that my degree will be of somewhat good use since it's in my field - I can sort of justify my huge amount of student loan debt. Haha. To be honest, other than being a travel writer, photographer, or bartender on an island somewhere, I don’t really have a dream job anyway.

So, our road trip! The Great Ocean Road is a 243-kilometer-long road on the Southeastern coast of Australia in Victoria. It starts in Torquay, which is an internationally-renowned location for surfing, and ends in Allansford. For the entire stretch, there are gorgeous views of the forest, the Great Otway National Park, beaches, and windy roads. Regis loves driving on fun roads and I like looking at everything, so it works out pretty well for both of us. There are cute beach towns and breathtaking landmarks every so often, so it's a pretty fun weekend trip. 

Torquay Beach

We started out by driving from the city to Torquay, which takes about an hour and a half. We stayed there overnight in an Airbnb I found the day before (yay, tax return money!). Our parents think we are nuts for staying in random peoples' houses while they're home, but it's pretty interesting and also great if you're on a budget! The host made us breakfast and everything, and it was a really close walk to the beach and restaurants in the area. We ate more seafood than I have ever consumed at a time that evening. It was glorious.

<3

The next morning, we packed up and headed out. We stopped in Apollo Bay for some lunch and a little shopping. We went to a cool little brewpub for lunch and walked around on the beach there, which is really beautiful. We didn't do as much exploring as we could have last year since it was absolutely freezing and we were ill-prepared for the weather, so this was really nice.

Apollo Bay

After that, we continued driving and decided to stop at a wildlife park along the road for some kangaroo and koalas! I was pretty disappointed there weren't any koalas, since the animal sanctuary last year didn't have them either, but there was no shortage of cute animals! We got to hang out with some goats, sheep and wallabies in a petting area, and there were other ones outside of there too. I fed some goats and got chased after by an intimidating emu. Emus terrify me and this one was no joke! He scared me so much I dropped the bag of animal food I was carrying around, then he proceeded to eat all of it. What a jerk!

After that, we drove along the road and checked out a few of the amazing landmarks. We skipped the 12 Apostles, mainly because we saw them last year and because there were about 10 tour buses full of people there that we didn't feel like dealing with. Since we live so close, this trip will probably be a more regular thing for us, so we aren't worried about missing out! We checked out the London Bridge and Bay of Martyrs this time around - two landmarks we missed out on last time since we were in more of a hurry. They did not disappoint - these photos hardly do them justice! We hung out on the beach for awhile and watched some very brave paddle boarders before packing up and driving back to Lorne, where we stayed for the night. 

London Bridge

Bay of Martyrs

We had planned our final day to be our chill beach day, but it was pretty overcast, so after we had some breakfast, we headed to Erskine Falls, which is right outside of Lorne. This was the second waterfall I have ever seen in person and it was so amazing. In our typical fashion, we ignored the "do not climb over the fence" signs so I could get a better photo! 

Erskine Falls

After that, we stopped at a winery before heading home. Victoria, along with many other parts of Australia, is extremely well known for producing great wines. I actually know nothing about wine, other than the fact I like white wine and Regis likes red wine, so going to wineries and doing tastings is pretty fun and informational for both of us. I also had my first spider encounter while exploring the vineyard!

Ugh. :(

All in all, it was a great way to spend some of our last few days of unemployment. I start my new job on Monday and Regis is starting the week after. We probably won't have much time off before the end of the year. Hopefully this inspires a few of our friends to visit! :)

-L

We Aren't Living Out of Our Bags Anymore! Exclamation!

So I realized I haven't updated you guys in a while. We've officially been here a little over a month, which is pretty exciting and also a little terrifying, haha. I actually am starting to feel like I live here - it just felt like an expensive vacation for awhile. Also, we forgot to mention in previous posts that after the disaster of flying here, the airline actually LOST all of our bags, then ended up delivering them to us a few days later.

It's been mostly really good. Regis is excited he will be starting work soon, which is awesome. We finally got to unpack our crap after almost two months of living out of our suitcases and sleeping in friends' or family members' spare bedrooms (Shout out to Scott, my brother Luke and Regis' parents!). We finally have our own bed - FYI, Ikea pillows are no bueno! The neighborhood we live in is really nice and it's close to a couple train stations and tram stops, so getting around is super easy. Another great bonus is a beautiful park is about a block away and we are REALLY close to the beach. Did you know the beach is my favorite thing ever? It basically is - Regis is a close second :)

Caulfield Park - Complete with a cool duck pond!

St Kilda Festival

I have almost gotten used to biking on the street here - it's absolutely something I never did in Charlotte, mostly because of the lack of both bike lanes and NC driver skills. Now I can bike to the beach in about 15 or so minutes, which will be great! I really like getting the cool beach vibe along with living in a huge city - Regis and I are both super ADD people that need lots of activity options and this place has not been disappointing thus far. Plus, PENGUINS! (Don't worry, there's a penguin picture in this post!)

I think the only issues I have (and probably will for a while) are the loneliness factor and the fear of the unknown. I have pulled out my phone a few times to text one of my friends from Charlotte to hang out without thinking before quickly realizing they're about 10,000 miles away recently. We only know about five people here, which is a great beginning (I knew one person when I moved to NC) but it is definitely lonely going from a large group of friends to this. It's obviously something I knew we'd have to deal with and I'm sure will subside eventually. Our new roommate seems cool, which is a good start! All 3 of us went out for Valentines Day the other night, and it was a blast.

Valentines Day drinks!

The fear of the unknown thing is a bit more difficult to put into words and is something I'm a bit hesitant to share - basically it's been something I have been dealing with since several months before we left. I'm going to start off by saying I am generally a super relaxed person and my motto has always been "worrying doesn't accomplish anything, so why bother".

I developed some pretty bad anxiety during the fall. I always used to think it was something that people made up for attention, but it is something a lot of people silently struggle with, and to be frank, kind of sucks to deal with. I had a few panic attacks at work, then a few outside of it that gradually got worse - it was quite miserable and I was terrified of how they were affecting me. To make a long story short - I went to the doctor, got a short term solution in the form of a medication I would normally never take and thought everything would magically go away when we got here.

It mostly did, but comes back every now and then when I worry about someone not calling for a job, or thinking of possible short term plans so I have some kind of backup, or our place STILL being on the market, or basically just freaking out in general about uprooting all of our shit and moving here - and everything I hoped went away will just start. I think until I begin and am adjusted to whatever job I'll end up with, it's going to be something I'll have to deal with. I guess I just wanted to vent about this because I'm sure my Instagram posts and snapchats of the beach make all my friends back home think everything is always perfect. Nope!

We chose to take this outrageously insane (but VERY planned out) risk, and I'm absolutely positive we're both going to look back at these struggles a year from now and say that this move is the best decision we've ever made.

I mean come on... PENGUINS, right? :)

Adorable.

Regis here, been a minute

So Laci called me out for creating this blog that I haven’t really been posting to.  I guess this blog post is to appease her and say “hey look I wrote a couple”.  The real reason I haven’t wrote anything is that I haven’t really had anything to write about.  Life has been pretty much wake up, apply for jobs, do something outside, drink a beer, sleep, repeat.  Up until this point we have been living as cheaply as possible due to the fact that we have no income.  We have actually become quite good at finding dinner and drink specials to lessen the blow.  But that’s about to change, very soon!  Quite simply, I accepted a job offer!  And Laci should know shortly if her or the other candidate got chosen for her job to.  But enough about Laci, back to me! 

I was offered a job at Monash University in the Maintenance Technology Institute.  I know that sounds like I’m going to be fixing shit that breaks on campus but that’s not at all what I will be doing.  The MTI is a research and development standalone on campus that works with around a dozen mining companies across Australia, China, and South Africa.  Their job is to implement sensors and data acquisition onto excavators and drag lines to monitor the performance and stress that the machines see.  My job will be 2 fold, first I will have to travel to the different mining sites to install these systems and troubleshoot any problems.  Second, when I am not traveling I will be analysing data back at the Monash Clayton Campus.

To those of you who know me through FSAE this probably seems kind of comical and to be honest I agree with you.  For everyone else, this whole "lets move to Australia" thing started due to an alliance between my FSAE team and the one at Monash.  Long boring story, but you can all blame Scott Wordley for Laci and I moving to Oz, and now I can thank him for helping me get a job here. 

Things are starting to finally seem like they are going our way, especially after the disaster of traveling here.  We will be moving out of Scott’s house on Saturday into a flat share apartment we found on Flatmates.com.au.  Now if only someone would buy our lovely 1-bedroom condo on the 30^th floor of a prime residential building in Charlotte.  Its furnished and has amazing views from the floor to ceiling windows and balcony.  It even has a pool and a car parking space.  It could be yours for the price of $260,000.00.  Please feel free to find it on Zillow.com and if so inclined schedule a viewing. 

Just in case you weren’t clear, that last sales pitch was supposed to be funny, unless your actually in the market.

Regis

Ps. I don’t have any cool photos to share.  I’m not Laci, I don’t take photos.