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This week started off kind of bad, but it got better, thank goodness.

I was feeling really sad and lonely. It’s hard being away from Rosemarie and the rest of my family and friends. And most of my old friends from Melbourne don’t live here any more. So… time to make some new friends, which is hard as a generally awkward and introverted person. Finally I decided to stop being a baby and follow Leslie’s tips about making friends in a new city.

So now I am a yes person.

I already met some nice people at an internet meetup the other night. And I stopped wearing my headphones at the gym. I think I’ll try and join some kind of board game group? Or maybe take some lessons in something. I dunno.

The other thing that got better this week is that SCOTT GOT A JOB!!! Woohoo!!! Things were getting a bit stressful in that department! He got the call on Tuesday for an interview A FEW HOURS LATER. And then that night they asked for him to come back the next day for a second interview. And then he STARTED the next day! SO FAST. It’s only a 3 month contract for now but at least he got something.

So now I have the house to myself to concentrate on my Netflix studying.

Scott is feeling much better these days. He is able to eat bad things without pain but he’s still not drinking alcohol and keeping the healthy diet except for Sundays. So that means I have to drink our trivia prize pitchers by myself, haha.

Weightlifting is going well. It’s so good to get back to it after six months off. I’m weaker, obviously, but I don’t get as sore… so I think there is still some memory in the muscle. Excited to get strong.

I did a little re-design of the ol’ blog. It should look a bit better on mobile devices now. If you are on a phone or tablet you can find the sidebar with the search, Twitter feed, links and stuff if you click on the little gear icon on the top left.

 

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Every avocado I’ve bought so far in Australia has been perfect. In Vancouver we always had to plan ahead and buy super hard avocados at least 4 days ahead of time, otherwise you’d probably be buying a mushy avocado skin bag full of brown yuck. Here you can buy a perfectly ripe avo ON THE DAY, with no bruises. It is incredible.

I think I’m up to about 70% looking the right way when I’m crossing the street.

I still can’t tell if trams are coming or going though. Why does the front and the back have to look the same??? LOL.

We’ve moved in to our apartment in St Kilda. We even have furniture and stuff now! Including my first real bed ever. How grown up. We also made sure to get a table big enough to play Agricola and 7 Wonders because we’re not actually that grown up. ;)

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After 3 months, 8 countries, 9 flights, 400+ km of walking, 1000s of km by bus and train, 4 ferries we are HOME. Our new home in Melbourne, Australia.

We had an epic time.

Highlights included:

  1. Meeting up with so many friends and family, especially the ones we hadn’t seen in years. (Kazue, Chris, Jono, Kirsten, Annukka, Shaun, Karen, Archie, Mirjam, Kees, Frank, Eveline, Rhiannon, Johan, Bonnie Mae, Lieven, Kai, King Ling, Isabel, Sarah, Daniel)
  2. Getting our ticket into heaven. More about this later.
  3. Wine. So much cheap Spanish and French wine. Until Scott got sick, then wine consumption plummeted.
  4. Cheese. So delicious.
  5. AirBnb. Most of them were just lovely, and so much better and cheaper than staying in hostels.
  6. FlixBus. Such a cheap way to get around Europe.
  7. Daily massages in Thailand. So good.
  • Things we lost: one pair of socks each, my (already quite broken) phone, one water bottle, skin, weight (Scott).
  • Coolest new food: goose barnacles
  • Best cocktail: Belt Buckle (passionfruit nectar + champagne)
  • Best museum exhibit: Picasso sketches of buttholes and naked ladies

Anyway right now we are staying with Scott’s parents. Scott has been applying for jobs like crazy, and I was looking for apartments. We just found out yesterday that our application for a place in St Kilda was accepted so I guess we are moving out soon! It’s just a 6 month lease so we can move closer to our future jobs if we need to.

I can’t do nuclear medicine for a while though. The committee decided I have to write the exam, at the end of October. I haven’t decided yet what I will do until then, possibly some temp office work or volunteering at a hospital, or something else part time while I study. Or 24/7 crafts?

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After 3 months, 61 episodes, 22 eliminations, (+ 2 days of complete social media ban) it was time for us to watch the Masterchef Australia Season 7 finale. We had Rosemarie and Lauren over for a 4 course team challenge finale watching dinner where we all made fancy things from the show.

Lauren made salad rolls with shrimp and a dipping sauce.

Rosemarie made sesame beef tataki with gochujang aioli, pickled vegetables and puffed rice. Plated up in modern, negative space style.

Scott made meat pie with homemade crust, and homemade tomato relish (ketchup, hehe).

And I made lemon & thyme ice cream sandwiches with a lemon thyme syrup. Let’s not talk about the TWO glass bowls I shattered while double boiling, or the ummm… XTREME DARK CARAMEL syrup that fused itself to the pot…

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For the first time in what seems like forever, Cassia and I were on the same continent at the same time. And conveniently in Adelaide, not smalltown W.A., so only a quick cheap flight away from Melbourne. (Scott went to Sydney at the same time.)

First I met up with Cris, (my maid of honour!!!) for dinner. We had 5 years to catch up on! He is one of those great friends where you’re right back where you left off, even when you don’t see each other very often. We had a great tapas meal with lots of reminiscing of the old days at the Vic Market.

Then Cassia picked me up and I spent the rest of the visit with her and Pablo, Pablo’s mum Annukka (who was visiting Adelaide for a month), and Cassia’s mum Jill (Joe was still in Africa). It was GREAT. We did so much fun stuff, ate and drank lots of good stuff, and did lots and lots and lots of chatting.

Annukka actually took most of the pictures in this post. She took so many pictures of her trip it was like having a professional photographer around all the time, so I barely took any of my own the whole time, heh. Thank you Annukka for letting me use them in my post!

The first day we all drove up to the Barossa for some touring, vineyard visiting, and good eating. It was a beautiful day out and we had a good drive. We stopped at a couple small wineries (more special than the giant ones) and at an old estate that Cassia’s great grandparents used to work at.

We had lunch at Maggie Beer’s Farm House. The property was beautiful, and the food was yummy. I guess since Maggie is one of the most famous cooks in Australia and they get tons of visitors every day they have to figure out a way to serve everyone quickly. So you order these picnic baskets where you just pick the type of paté and the side and they chuck it into the basket. I chose a mushroom paté with fresh cheese. It was nice but Pablo’s duck paté (I forget exactly which one though) was the winner of the day. Yum.

We also had amazing ice cream. Burnt fig, honeycomb and caramel, to be precise. The little crunchy fig bits were delicious.

Maggie Beer's Farm Shop Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

Another day Cassia, Pablo, Annukka and I went on a long walk. We walked from their house (which is just to the left of the above picture) to Semaphore, out the jetty, and then looped around a slightly different way back. That was pretty much the only exercise I did all holiday, haha.

This garden shop had weird pet chickens that were dyed (??) funky colours.

So I have shown this picture to 5 different Aussies and no one has been able to tell me what those coloured blobs are. Weeeeeird. I should have bought some and just tried it.

I bought this rosé on our Barossa trip. It was delicious and I’ll probably never get to have it again. :'( I took this picture on the 30 second walk from Cassia’s house to Jill’s house. Although C & P have moved now.

Jill prepared this amazing raclette meal for us at her house. What a great view from the living area, eh??!! There are even dolphins swimming by on the regular. Also raclette is great… melting cheese on everything?? Perfection.

The day I was leaving Pablo made a big paella in their new pan. We ate it out on Cassia’s patio with boats, dolphins, and tourists going by. And they fed me lots of wine so my hour-long flight back to Melbs felt like 2 seconds since I fell asleep instantly.

I know we did a lot more stuff than this but since I procrastinated blogging for so long I’m blanking on some of the details. Oops. Anyway THANK YOU Cassia and Pablo for having me over, I had an awesome trip and I’m so glad we got to spend time together.

I think I have one more travel post to go and then I’ll be back to more foodie things I think.