When you actually realize you made the right decision.

Going to keep this short and sweet,  and unfortunately I don't have any photos to add. I have been traveling for work the past week. I'm up in singleton, a small town in NSW about 90 minutes west of Newcastle. It's basically a mining town, the sign says 25000 people but I'm calling bullshit. This place is only slightly larger than my hometown of Strasburg which had a population of 2500. I'm assuming that they included everyone within a 25km radius.  The town only takes 20 min to walk across the long way, has 3 pubs, and a handful of restaurants. There is basically fuck all to do except get piss drunk at the pub, which is a hard pass when you have to get 0.000 on a breathalyzer at 6am the next morning.

The point of this is, I miss Melbourne.  I traveled a decent amount when I worked in Charlotte and I never missed Charlotte. I missed people and my stuff but not the city.  I still miss laci and my friends, my stuff (don't have much) but now I also miss the city.  I miss my coffee shop, the quirky trams, my footy training sessions, the city skyline, Albert park, Chapel street and all its weirdness.  I'm really looking forward to flying home tomorrow afternoon and being home.  I think I can truly say Melbourne is home.  That is until laci and I get board of this city and decide to move to either Mcmudo station or Tristan da Cunha.
















Ps.  Mom don't worry, that last bit was a joke.  Mcmudo station is a science outpost in mcmudo sound Antarctica and Tristan da cunha is the most remote inhabited island in the world.  We are not moving there.

Oz Wintertime

As people I've met here would say, winter is pretty "full on" here now. I'M FREEZING.

I think this weather is supposed to keep on until about September, but literally every single person I ask tells me something different; some say July is the worst and everything after is fine, some say it's completely awful until the end of August, and some people have told me that the weather we've had recently (about 45-50, gloomy, windy and rainy) is the worst it gets. So... I guess we will find out shortly since July is next week!

It's pretty weird being in a completely opposite season than everyone back home, but I guess now I know how all my friends felt when I was posting beach pictures in January - sorry, guys! Anyway, we at least have a decent amount of sunny days where it's still around 50, so it's still really beautiful at times. Honestly, the way I feel about living here is 90% 'super surreal I can't believe I actually made it here, this is awesome' and about 10% the mood I was in when I wrote my last blog - 'holy shit what were we thinking, I'm so lost here and so sick of people telling me I have an accent'. Hahaha. But hey, life experiences, right?

Also, the occasional warm weather plenty of time for hooping in Albert Park, which is right across the street.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention I've been taking hula hooping classes since around February. It's so fun! My term ended, so I might take private classes to brush up on some stuff I want to learn eventually. I have actually been hooping for quite a while, but could only do a few basic things and mostly kept it to our old living room so I wouldn't embarrass myself publicly. Moving basically flipped a switch in me - now I could care less! It's not like I know anyone, right? Here's a link if you want to see what it actually is I'm doing. There's more to it than expected and it's an awesome workout. That video is NOT me, it's just a good video that shows some fun hoop stuff!

I haven't really been on my bike too much, besides last Saturday after my hoop session, the wind is pretty cold and I struggled to make it as far as I did! My game plan is to start biking to work once it's warm - it will supposedly only take around 30-40 minutes, which isn't bad at all. The point of my ride Saturday was to do a trial run to check the distance and directions. The entirety of the ride is along the beach, which will definitely not be a bad way to spend my mornings and evenings! Plus, hopefully it will make up for my weekend beers!

Speaking of beers, we recently had a housewarming party to have our friends we have met so far come over and try our second batch of beer! It's the first time we have had people over and we had a really good turnout - around 10-15 people! Everyone that tried our beer loved it and I'm 99% certain they weren't just being nice (mostly because all of it's gone except for the ones Regis stockpiled in our cupboard beforehand)! I've coined it "St Kilda Squeeze" because of our neighborhood we live in and all of the oranges I excruciatingly squeezed by hand. Also, one of my favorite beers is Harpoons Big Squeeze, so I guess I kinda stole a little of that as well! Anyway, here it is in all its glory.

It pours pretty nicely, but it's a little under carbonated - we're thinking it's because it's been fermenting in a cooler climate than the last batch since we don't use our heat when we aren't home. It tastes like a nice pale ale with some citrus tones. I'd like it to be a tinge sweeter because I wanted it to be almost shandy-like, but it's super drinkable and we're pretty proud of it. For the next batch we are doing a Christmas in July beer! Since it's cold, it'll be pretty appropriate. I'm sure we'll keep you all posted.

Anyways, I'm going to go cook something super warm for dinner (or maybe order my new favorite - pho!) and chill on some Netflix. Seriously, if any of you guys want to Skype (my username is Lacijallday) or video message via Facebook or WhatsApp, just let me know. The time difference isn't too bad!

-L

I Wouldn't Call it Homesick But...

I know, I know.

It's been about a month and a half or something since I've taken the time to update this with what's been going on.

I have what I consider to be a couple decent reasons:
1 - I haven't really been up to much outside of the work/social life/staying alive realm
2 - I've been generally kind of bummed out about some things I sort of miss and can't put them into definitive or entertaining, blog post-worthy phrases

THIS DOESN'T MEAN I WANT TO MOVE AGAIN, so just get that idea out of your head right now before I get into this! ;)

Moving this time was definitely a different experience for me. When I left Ohio, I was so damn happy to get out of there I didn't (and haven't!) looked back since. Most of my good friends had moved away, I had goals to leave there forever and it is generally somewhere I'm not too thrilled to go back to.

I consider Charlotte to be my first real home - it's the first place I made true friends with similar interests (not people I just hung out with because we happened to work at the same place or go to school together). I felt like I truly made it to where I wanted there and really loved it. I just didn't want to stay there because of the limitations that come with living in a smaller city in the US nowhere near the coast (or really anywhere else that matter).

There are just certain things about being somewhere familiar that are very comforting - unfortunately, when you move to the other side of the planet, you kinda lose pretty much all of that! I would love to do any of the following right now (please keep in mind it's winter here and I am going crazy from it getting dark at 5pm and being inside all the time!!):

• Go on the Plaza Midwood Tuesday Night Ride and chat it up with two of my closest friends all night.
• Walk to Wooden Robot Brewery and drink $5 beers all day with friends (oh - and actually having friends to text to hang out on the weekends is pretty sweet too).
• Play sand volleyball at VBGB with my friends I used to work with there.
• Go to an electronic music show at the Fillmore that I can walk to from my apartment and get in for free because I used to bartend for the security people.
• WALK TO WORK. BUT SERIOUSLY, THOUGH.
• Know where the hell specific items are in the grocery store without having to walk around like three times like a clueless idiot.
• Know how to get effing anywhere without using my phone. 
• Not to be basic, but Trader Joe's was a way nicer grocery store than the ones here.
• PUMPKIN BEER.
• Fried pickles, Chick-fil-a, glorious Southern Food, etc. Also, if you live close to a Chipotle please go for me and eat a mountain of guac. The Mexican here is basically non existent. :'(
• Music festivals!!

Sorry if it seems like I'm bitching, but I miss all of the above and a whole lot more - and it's going to be a minute before I can enjoy any of it again (if ever!). Positive upbeat people need to vent/complain sometimes too! 

I'll post something better soon, but I'll leave you all with some cool memories I had from Charlotte:

Seriously, if we were friends at all there, I miss and love you guys all so much. 

<3

Until next time (I'll be back to my chipper self, I swear).

-L

Footy!

Well we are fully in winter now so it seems reasonable to dawn a tank top and some short shorts and go run around outside.  Thats right, I've picked up a new sport and it's called footy.  In order to properly tell this story I'm going to have to take you back a couple months.  Back in mid April I decided that I wanted to give footy a go, so I started looking to see if there were any clubs near our house.  I was in luck, there are 3 teams that call Albert Park home.  So I sent each of them an email expressing my interest and only one got back to me.  The club was the South Melbourne District Football Club.  They said "come on down and give it a go", so I did.  I showed up to the Tuesday night training session with a brand new pair of footy boots and no idea what the fuck I was doing/getting into.  I learned very quickly that its not very easy to kick this stupid ball and that even though I'm in pretty good physical shape, I was by far at the back of the pack.  I had greatly underestimated the game that I showed up to play, but I was not discouraged.  I showed up to every training session (Tuesday and Thursdays) eager to learn, improve, and almost puke my guts out from exhaustion.  Bruises, muscle pain, general aches, these have been the norm for me now for almost two months and honestly I wouldn't have it any other way.

So what is footy?  Well its short for Australian Rules Football but it would be easier to call it Australian No-Rules Football.  It truly is a game that you learn what you can't do rather than what you can do.  I think of it like a combination of American football, hockey, and soccer.  There are no pads, no helmets, brutal tackles, fast pace play, and lots of running.  Its said that some midfielders run a marathon every game.  Its Australias biggest professional sport and Melbourne is home to 10 professional teams.  It has an absolutely massive following and attendance to some of the games at the MCG reach upwards of 95,000 people.  Thats college football numbers in the states.

MCG - Richmond vs Essendon

Etihad Stadium - Richmond vs Western

I have now been playing for just over 2 months and have actually played in 5 league games.  I'm still learning and improving my skills but I have made great strides at a quick pace.  Most of my teammates have been playing since they were about 10 years old.  To put that into perspective, imagine someone trying to play baseball on a league team who has never thrown a ball.  I am actually quite astounded at how nurturing and supportive my team has been of me.  They don't look at is as "this kid sucks, has no idea what he's doing" but rather they help me learn from my mistakes and truly want me to become a better player and bring value to the team.  So for the moment I have hung up the hockey skates and dawned a pair of neon green footy boots at least until the season ends in mid September.

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

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