57 Reasons to Move to Australia

I recently posted the above picture on Facebook depicting the temperature in Calgary and the temperature in Brisbane. I called it "Reason #57 to move to Australia", conveniently because of the 57 degree C temperature differential between Brisbane and Calgary.   Then I was challenged by a coworker to come up with 57 actual reasons to move to Australia.  So here they are, in no particular order:

1. 25,000 km of beautiful coastline
2. Tim Tams
3. Butcher on every corner
Friendly people
5. Koalas
6. No pennies, cents are rounded to the nearest 5 cents
7. Nightclubs serve hooch until 3 am and remain open until 5 am
8. Delightful Australian accent
9. Bakery on every corner
10. Plastic money is waterproof
11. Roundabouts
12. Kangaroos
13. 3 different types of rugby
14. Pub on every corner
15. Byron Bay
16. Competition - wherever there is a Woolworths, there is a Coles (grocery stores)
17. Being addressed as "mate" by everybody
18.  Cheap prepaid mobile phone plans
19.  Moreton Bay bugs
20. 6% interest savings accounts
21. Everything can be and is abbreviated to end in "-ie":  pokies (poker machines), bikies (bikers), Woolies (Woolworths), uni (university), etc
22. Utes
23. Sunrises over the ocean (on the east coast)
24. John Butler Trio
25. Line drying your laundry
26. No tipping required at restaurants (or anywhere else)
27. Wine
28. Surfing
29. Drive through bottle shops
30. Lamb
31. 60 km/hr default speed limit
32. Crazy rainstorms
33. Sausage sizzles
34. Great Barrier Reef
35. Prawns
36. Tea
37. Triple J
38. Wallabies
39. Proximity to New Zealand, Fiji, Cook Islands, Indonesia, etc for holidays
40.  Wait a minute, Gold Coast is a holiday destination
41. Coffee shops on every corner and even 1 Starbucks
42. Beer
43. Avocados
44. BYO restaurants
45. Sydney
46. Riding a bike or motorcycle year round
47. Dolphins
48. Hilltop Hoods
49. Geckos
50. Meat pies (wide selection)
51. Palm trees
52. Boardies and thongs...that's right, all year round!
53. Barbecuing
54. Snapper Rocks
55. Mangos
56. Gardening - I'm currently growing basil, mint, parsley, thyme, coriander, dill, chives, oregano, strawberries, Roma tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, and chili peppers with relative ease
57. Brisbane is 57 degrees C warmer than Calgary (as of January 18, 2012)

Long Overdue Update

Sorry for the very long delay in posting anything new on our blog. I'm not sure how many people are still interested in following this blog but I will try to be better at posting updates. I recently discovered this cool social media network and have been spending more time on that than our blog. Now that we're all settled into our life here, I honestly don't have a lot of exciting stuff to post on our blog. And any remarkable things that happen to us are probably more easily shared as status updates on Facebook. But here's an update as to what's been going on with us.

Tara finished her exams on December 14 and had a party with her school mates that night. I had met a bunch of them already but had the chance to meet a bunch more. It seems like practically everyone in her class is from Canada! I'm sure there are a few Ausies and maybe some Europeans but there are tones of Canadians. Ever since then, Tara has been unwinding and enjoying her 1 month break between semesters. 1 down, 5 to go.

Christmas and new years was pretty low key. Tara and I didn't buy each other any presents, but chose to go clothes shopping for ourselves instead. For Christmas Eve supper we had planned on having some seafood: prawns, Moreton Bay bugs and sausage rolls. Not sure if I have previously explained what Moreton Bay bugs are, but they are basically a lobster tail with a head and not much else to speak of. Delicious! We ended up spoiling our appetite with snacks on Christmas Eve so we ate the seafood for lunch on Christmas day. Then we made an incredible turkey dinner with stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, carrots and turnips. We impressed ourselves with how good it turned out. On Boxing Day we went out and bought a TV and were surprised that all TV's on the market these days are 3D TV's so we bought a pretty nice TV and probably will not have the opportunity to actually watch any 3D content anytime soon anyway.

There was 9 foot swell on the Gold Coast during Christmas but unfortunately we didn't have the opportunity to go to the beach to check it out. I wouldn't have gone in the water anyway but it would have been amazing to see guys getting towed into barrels at my usual surf spot. I went surfing before work on December 28 thinking that the swell had died down a bit. It did, but it was still pretty huge. The waves were breaking way out the back about 100m from the shark nets and I had a pretty difficult paddle out on the longboard. When I finally got out, I didn't end up paddling into any waves until I had to leave for work.

I had a pretty slack 3 days of work after Christmas. On the first day back my boss threw a pool party in the afternoon so we split from work at about 1:30 and had a fun afternoon and evening around the pool. Tara came up from Gold Coast and joined us around 6 pm. I tossed a girl in the pool (the third time she had been tossed in) and unfortunately she had her iPhone on her at the time so it was ruined. I was going to buy her a new phone but somehow her friend managed to pull some strings at the Apple Store and she got a replacement for free. Thursday I put in a full day of work, and Friday morning I went surfing before work with my boss and a coworker.

For new years Tara and I went to a party at my coworker's house. It was actually his mom's condo (she was out of town). It was a really swanky condo overlooking the Brisbane river. Tara and I crashed there and drove back to the Gold Coast the next day. And I'm just coming back to work after taking a week of to spend with Tara around the Gold Coast. We picked a great week for it because up until last week, the weather has been less than ideal with lots of clouds and even some rain. But we got lots of sunshine over the week so we went to the beach a few days.

We went to Wet n' Wild watermark on Thursday but it was really busy due to the school holidays happening right now. Lines for the popular slides were anywhere from 45-60 mins. I waited about 1.5 hours to get on this slide called the AquaLoop. You get sealed into this nearly-vertical tube, standing on a platform. Then the floor drops out and you fall down, then go back uphill around a loop, and finally get spit out at the bottom. Some people don't make it all the way around the loop, and have to get out of a hatch halfway down and do the walk of shame back to the exit. I'm happy to report that I made it all the way around, although I was a bit nervous about it because quite a few people don't make it.

On Friday we went to Seaworld which was okay but way overpriced, we thought. We saw penguins, polar bears, sharks, stingrays, and dolphins. There was one dolphin in the nursery area who was playing with a volleyball. It would toss the ball over a dock and then swim under and toss it back over. Then it brought the ball over to the side where people were standing and it would toss the ball to people who would toss it back in the water. It was pretty cute. I have a few videos I'll try to post. Maybe via Facebook, so be sure to add me if we're not already friends.

This weekend we finally got around to putting up our art on the walls, and our place finally looks like a home. I'll take some photos this weekend after we have a chance to clean the place up a bit.

Christmas Party

Tara's done classes and in a week an a half, she'll be done exams too.  In the meantime, she'll be studying hard.  Last night she took a break for my work Christmas party, which was a good time.  I've posted a few photos below.  My herb garden is coming along nicely, and I've managed to get a couple fresh strawberries out of it. Not too much else going on at the moment.  I'll post a more interesting blog later.

All Moved In

Our container of belongings finally arrived on Friday. I took the day off so I could be around to tell the movers where to put stuff. Considering that it took a whole day for the movers to pack us up and fill the container in Calgary, I was a bit surprised on Friday when they were in and out of our place in about 2 hours. But they left most of the unpacking to us. It's been a busy few days, but we're pretty much all unpacked. I can't believe how many books we have though. We're going to have to buy a second book shelf just to house all of our books (school books, work manuals, etc). Attached are a couple pictures. The folding chairs sitting at the desk is where Tara and I have been eating all of our meals and watching all of our shows on the computer until now. Very uncomfortable. And the second picture is what our place looks like now, with our furniture. So much better now.
 
 

Tara's been busy busting her hump at school 12 hours a day, and I've been busy working hard and playing hard. I try to make the most of my weekends by getting out for a surf in the morning and then inevitably have some errands to run in the afternoon. On Saturdays and Sundays I've been getting up between 6 and 7 am and heading down to Burleigh Heads with my longboard for a morning surf. I wish I didn't have to get up so early on weekends, but unfortunately that's the best time to surf because you get the best conditions before the wind starts to blow onshore (which usually happens after about 10 am). Also, you avoid the crowds a bit, although there are still a lot of people who get out that early. I've been meaning to try to get out before work during the week because I don't expect there to be nearly as many people in the water at 5 am on a Tuesday, but haven't been able to drag myself out of bed that early yet. Also the surf has been pretty bad, which is apparently normal for the spring time. I'm looking forward to getting out kiteboarding now that my equipment has arrived, but I need to find a good spot for beginners.

I spoke to my buddies on the phone this weekend. They are all in Phoenix on Steve's baby stag: an ingenious idea my friends have adopted which involves somewhat of a free pass for you and your buddies for all of life's major events. At your wedding you obviously have a stag party. You have a baby stag prior to when you have a baby (in response to your spouse's baby shower). I had a going away stag prior to moving to Australia. I'm sure there are a few other scenarios when we could get away with throwing ourselves these stag parties, but the key is to not overuse this free pass. Its strength lies in its infrequency. I miss my boys. I would have loved to have been there in Phoenix with them, or anywhere for that matter. Apparently they were pretty happy to be in Phoenix as well because it was -20 in Calgary today.  It was +28 in Gold Coast this weekend.

We had a few of her school mates over for a barbeque this evening, which was fun.  We just bought a nice new barbeque a couple weeks ago and I've been cooking pretty much everything on the barbeque.  I'm getting to be a pretty mean barbeque-er.  So it was nice to have some people over (for the first time) and break in the new home.  We need to get some patio furniture though.

Herb Garden: Day 1

I decided to plant a few herbs in pots and see if I can keep them alive long enough to reap their bounty.  Basil, oregano, parsley, coriander, mint, chives, roma tomatoes, strawberries, and of course red hot chili peppers.  I was too impatient to wait for seeds to grow, so I bought the kind that are already started for you.  It actually ended up costing a lot more than I thought it would, so I'm really going to have to try to keep them alive.  I'll keep you updated on the progress.

Tara is FINE

No need to worry anybody. I thought a title like "Tara and the 4 car pile-up" might be a bit alarming. I wanted Tara to write this blog but apparently she doesn't like to blog so I can only give you my perspective of today's events.

After watching Community the other day, there several "timelines" that I can imagine could have existed today. When the alarm rang at 5:45 am, I rolled over and asked Tara if she would be driving me to the train station at 6:30. She told me to take the car and she would walk to pick it up from the train station later. I reminded her to pick up our package that was awaiting us at the post office, and got ready for work. When it was time to leave I decided to be a good husband and walk to the train station, leaving the car at home for Tara.  I'm sure you can imagine how many potential timelines could have existed here.

We exchanged a few text messages around 8:30 regarding the whereabouts of the car. Between 8:30 and 9:00 I was playing a very annoying game of telephone tag with one of my coworkers who is in the field, during which I discovered that my Blackberry is broken and can't make or receive phone calls. I did however receive a very cryptic voicemail around 9:30 from some American named Virginia who was calling on behalf of Tara, and she asked me to call Tara back as soon as I could.

A phone call like this is everyone's nightmare, so I called Tara back right away. She answered the phone sobbing and in hysterics, but I was able to glean a bit of information from her before she said she had to go and hung up: basically just that she was in a car accident, she was fine, and the car was slightly damaged. I later learned the rest of the details: she was driving down the middle lane of a 3 lane street behind a large truck. The truck suddenly swerved, revealing a large box in the middle of Tara's lane. In a split second, she evaluated her options: there were cars on either side of her so she couldn't swerve. She slammed on the brakes and stopped short of the box. The car behind her was traveling at a safe distance and managed to stop in time. The two cars behind him were neither following at a safe distance nor obeying the speed limit so the next two cars piled into the guy behind Tara, pushing his car into ours.

Everybody exchanged information, Tara went to the police station to report the accident, and then went to school to carry on with her day. I advised that she should see a doctor to get herself checked out, just in case. She went to see the nurse on campus who told Tara to go to the hospital. Tara phoned me at about 1:30 asking me to meet her at the hospital. Not a good day for me to bail out of work early, as my boss is away and I've got his delegation of authority and a bunch of stuff to do. I told her I would come as soon as I could, and was able to wrap everything up in an hour and then jump on the train for the 1.5 hour trip to Gold Coast. I got here at 4:30 and it's 8:00 now and Tara's just now receiving a clean bill of health. 1 needle, 1 neck brace, 2 panadol, 2 codeine, and 1 CT scan later...

Oh, and I found another spider in the house.  Not nearly as big as the last one, and dead when I found him which made it easier to catch.

Fascinating....

Yesterday was Melbourne Cup day, which is pretty much the Australian equivalent of the combination of gold medal hockey game in the olympics and the prom. It's known as The Race that Stops the Nation. Part of it is because Australians are degenerate gamblers who will bet on anything for which odds can be calculated. But mostly, it is a reason to get cleaned up in your Sunday best and be seen.  Guys rock suits and girls get all dolled up in fancy dresses and crap in their hair. I'm referring of course to "fascinators" which are these contraptions usually made of feathers and lace that women feel compelled to attach to their heads. The clever name may be derived from the fact that you "fasten" these things to your head, or maybe because they are designed to catch the attention of males of the species and fascinate them in an effort to better their chances of reproducing. Or maybe I'm thinking about peacocks. 

In any case, I think it's fascinating to imagine that if a prominent Australian started wearing dog collars around her neck, all the birds would be wearing them by the new year. But I guess that's just fashion.  Speaking of birds, it is also fascinating to note that despite all the apparatuses resembling birds nests that women were so happily wearing in their hair, I never once saw a bird trying to make itself at home in one of them.  No to worry though; I hear fascinators are out and hats are in (I suppose we have the royal wedding to thank for that one), so next year they'll all be rocking trilby's, fedoras and pork pie hats.

Of course I had so much exposure to these fascinators (not a bare head as far as the eye could see) because I was right in the heart of the action at Brisbane's Eagle Farm Racecourse.  My company's social club took part in this lawn party that the racecourse was putting on which involved buffet lunch and all the booze you could consume. They had local races on, and of course screens showing the other races that were happening in the country, including the great Melbourne Cup which was a 3200 meter racwinn which 24 horses race for the prize of about $4 million.

Needless to say it was a fairly loose day full of piss (beer) and punting (gambling). I only bet on 3 races and didn't win anything but my boss picked the winner of the Cup and won some beans.   From there a few of us went out for dinner and I jumped on a train bound for Goldie around 9 pm. 

Unfortunately Tara wasn't able to come, as Tuesday is her busy day at school and she couldn't get out of it. The Race that Stops the Nation apparently doesn't stop academia. If Tara and I hadn't had supper with my boss and colleague when we first arrived, I think people would start to question whether or not I actually have a wife or if I just made it up. But we have a Christmas party coming up at the beginning of December that we can go to and I can show off my awesome wife to all my work mates. Everyone is dying to meet her. 

This next tidbit is more amazing than fascinating...Halloween was the other day. This fact may be obvious to you people in North America, but in a country like Australia where Halloween isn't really celebrated, I would have been surprised to see even a handful of trick- or-treaters. I was amazed to find TONNES of them!  And houses done up like haunted houses!  I haven't seen this much effort or participation in Halloween for a very long time. But I think this phenomenon may have been focused locally on the Gold Coast, or maybe even just to Azzurra Island, because my work mates said that they didn't see many trick-or-treaters in their neighborhoods in Brizzy.  And if they did, they would have turned the hose on them.