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HULLO AGAIN.

As you probably already heard, I passed my exam. What a relief. I still think about it sometimes and revel in the amazing feeling that I don’t have to become a taxi driver.

But funny (?) story, I got another email last week from my new case officer that said “as your application deadline is rapidly approaching and you still haven’t told us if you passed your exam, do you want to withdraw your application?”. WAT!!?! I did not think that I would have to tell THEM that I passed THEIR exam. But apparently I did, and then my registration was finalized a couple hours later. Ah bureaucracy, so fun.

And then speaking of silly bureaucracy… I got a letter from the Australian Electoral Commission saying that I was not registered as voter at this address. Umm duh. So then I had to send THEM back a form telling them that I’m not a citizen! WHY ARE THESE THINGS MY PROBLEM??

I wonder what else I haven’t notified people about.

Anyway so I’m finally able to apply for jobs. I applied for all three that are posted right now. I have absolutely no clue how much competition there will be. Hopefully it doesn’t take too long for me to get a job.

It was real hot today. 35ºC. And the forecast for tomorrow… 16. Melbourne, you crazy.

Some pictures:

We had some friends over to watch hockey a few weeks ago. I made Nanaimo squares for the first time ever! They turned out DELICIOUS! Although Scott and I agree that the middle layer should be the thickest, not the bottom layer, so I would probably adjust the ratios when I make them again.

I used this recipe, but had to use smashed up cookies instead of graham cracker crumbs because they don’t exist here.

L-R: Kathy (aunt), April (niece), Brett (bro), Beau (nephew), Vicky (mum)!

April had her 3rd birthday party at a park. It was watermelon themed. There was a bbq, and footy kicking, and presents galore! I think she had a good day.

We also went to Blairgowrie for a night, way down near the tip of the Mornington Peninsula, on the other side of Port Philip Bay. We stayed with Shaun and Karen and baby Archie, and the boys went golfing one afternoon. We got to try fresh abalone that their friend caught that afternoon. I didn’t take any pictures the whole time though, whoops.

That’s all I can think of right now.

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A couple weeks ago Scott and I went to Dexter in Preston for a BBQ dinner. The restaurant has a 4.9 rating on Zomato so I had very high expectations, and it lived up to them! It was delicious.

Coleslaw, brisket with bone marrow mash, pickles and slaw, pigs head croquette slider, and fried chicken slider. We ordered way too much, since I expected the sliders to be smaller.

The brisket was super duper tender and delicious. The bone marrow mash potatoes were soooooo rich and amazing, with crispy garlic on top. The slaw was fine, but we wouldn’t have ordered it if I had realized the meat would come with slaw too. Too much slaw. The pork slider was our least favourite, it was a little dry, but the fried chicken slider was a super crunchy flavour sensation, my favourite dish of the night.

If When we go back, I will order the fried chicken slider with a side of mash, and that will definitely be enough for me, as their sliders are almost full burger size!

Dexter Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

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Apparently Scott is not sick of papaya salad, because last weekend he spent $8 on a green (unripe) papaya. We used it to make a buttload of papaya salad, with basa filet mixed in. It was incredible.

It was easy to shred the papaya with our Thai vegetable shredder thingy. And I used our pressure cooker to perfectly cook the fish and green beans in 4 minutes.

I didn’t really have a recipe, I just mixed shredded green papaya, bean shoots, steamed green beans, cilantro, cherry tomatoes, peanuts, and the basa filets, plus a sauce made from lots of fish sauce and lime juice, and a bit of brown sugar, chili flakes, sesame oil and salt. It was great.

I made mango shakes to go with our papaya salad, to complete the holiday experience. Frozen mango cubes, mango juice, ice cubes, simple syrup and water blended up until it’s silky smooth. So good.

A 15 year old Melbourne kid named Morgan spends all his free time making doughnuts. School is out this week so he had a pop-up shop all week in Windsor, near where we live. I’d heard about him from a bunch of different sources so I went to check it out this morning.

I forgot my phone in the car so I couldn’t take a picture of the exact descriptions, but clockwise from the top: Cookies & Cream with custard syringe, Cinnamon Nutella, Lollies with strawberry filling, and Vanilla Chocolate Glaze with raspberry syringe.

The doughnuts are soft and fluffy, not oily at all. I liked that the glazes are made of chocolate. And the fillings are generous, there must have been a few tbsp of Nutella in the cinnamon one!! My favourite was the Cookies & Cream.

Bistro Morgan Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

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Last month I went to Sydney for a weekend for Rae’s hens party.

A brief timeline of our friendship: Became friends in Beijing in 2008. Visited each other lots of times in Sydney/Melbourne in 2009 and 2010. Last saw her the day we left Australia to move to Canada, at the Sydney airport on our stopover, in 2010.

So it was awesome to see her again and catch up after so long! The first night we stayed up way too late just chatting and laughing.

The next day was Rae’s hens party. It was Great Gatsby themed. We had food and drinks at a restaurant, played lots of games, and then went to a club afterwards. Her friends were really nice. It was fun!

She just got married last week in Germany. <3

The next day we got ramen for lunch at Ryo’s. She said that people come from all over the place to go to this particular ramen restaurant. Then we got there and a man came out and said that they were closing early because they had such a busy morning. But Rae told him that I had come all the way from Melbourne and I was leaving that night (lies! haha) and asked him to PLEASE let us eat! And it actually worked!

I had pork soy sauce ramen with egg and vegetables, and Rae had chicken ramen. My broth was rich and tasty and the pork was super tender and fatty (in a good way). The egg was great, and the noodles nice and chewy. A very good bowl of ramen.

Ryo's Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

After lunch we went on a long walk. We walked through Wendy’s Secret Garden, down by Luna Park, Milson’s Point, the place where Rae and Thomas got engaged, and back to her house. It was a beautiful day. Sydney is really pretty.

Then that night Thomas came back from his weekend away and we all had dinner together at home.

Monday I went to the zoo by myself. I had never been before. What a great location! I especially liked the gorillas.

Then Jessie picked me up after finishing work and we went to get Ava from daycare and hang out for a bit before my flight home. Ava likes to drag chairs around and eat cheese.

It’s too bad that Halloween isn’t really a thing here because I think Ava would make the cutest Eleven ever. All she needs is a pink dress, some Eggo’s, and a little facepaint nosebleed. :D

Thanks for a great weekend ladies!

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June 24th – June 28th, 2016

It was a bit of an ordeal getting to Lund, Sweden, due to a broken train track combined with a holiday weekend. We waited 5ever in Malmö for the replacement bus that never showed. Finally a very nice Swedish girl offered to let us share her cab, since she was going to be getting reimbursed anyway, so we finally made it to Lund, many hours late.

We found Sarah, and then got ready to go to a Midsummer party at her friends’ place. Lund is a university town, so there are a lot of students, from all over the world. We ate, drank, played games, jumped on the trampoline until the sun finally started going down (2 AMish?) and then caught the bus (yay public services!) back to Sarah’s dorm. It wasn’t long until the sun was already starting to come up again (4 AMish)!

Sarah took us around on a walking tour of Lund. I especially liked the fancy clock in the cathedral. It gives all sorts of information about dates and astrological signs, and other things that we couldn’t figure out. It does a cuckoo clock thingy too but we weren’t there at the right time.

I couldn’t visit Sweden without having a smørrebrød!

It was fun hanging out with Sarah. We marathoned the entire latest season of Game of Thrones so Scott could catch up and Sarah could watch the last episode. We cooked weird meals with all the things she had left in her food supply since she was leaving in a week. We went to sweet Swedish parks with hammocks and outdoor gym equipment and parkour structures. I tried Kalles Kaviar, new types of candy and ciders. We did NOT try surströmming, sorry.

We did a day trip to Copenhagen one day.

We went to a very hip street food market that I had seen on TV. I had a salad wrap where the wrap was made out of egg. We went to the Danish National Museum which was really cool (and free!) but only had time to look at the viking and medieval stuff before it closed. I would want to go back some day because I think there is a whole floor dedicated to Lego!

We took the bus (free with intercity bus ticket!) to the mermaid statue because we are tourists. There were a lot of people there. It reminds me of the girl in a wetsuit statue in Vancouver, although apparently that artist doesn’t think they are similar.

Copenhagen was cool but everything was SO EXPENSIVE! I tried to get over it, because YOLO, but it wasn’t easy! I liked the very photogenic canals, and that there is an amusement park right in the city. They also have the healthiest 7-11 I have ever seen, so many salads!!