To you, Canada

Day 4 of the Olympics, and still no medals for the Canucks. Come on, it's getting a little embarrassing to show up at work and face all of the gloating Aussies (not to mention eating lunch with people from China!). Even Mongolia has a silver. Maybe it's really not that bad for us-- it's probably more frustrating to watch it all on CBC... all those "almosts" and "close calls". So we were thinking maybe Canada just needs a little encouragement. As long as we kick ass in Vancouver in 2010, who cares, right?

Our Olympic thoughts of the day:
- How about that performance from the Chinese gymnasts!? Wow. And so much controversy surrounding their true ages. Wonder how that will all turn out...
-The horse-jumping surely had the cutest course ever- we heart pandas and dragons!
-We still really, really don't understand judo. Or fencing, for that matter.

*Thanks to Encouragement Kitten for providing a much-needed pep talk.

Olympic fever and other things

We might have mentioned we've been enjoying having a TV lately... perhaps a little too much. And just when we were starting to go for evening walks and not watch cop dramas all week, the Olympics began... and we're pretty much glued to the set again (maybe you guys are back home as well?). It's definitely a little weird watching the games in a country that's not your own-- all of the television coverage is extremely one-sided. (Though the Aussie are pretty good) We managed to catch the Canadian guys play field hockey-- but only because they were getting whipped by the Aussies. Luckily we have the internet and can check the medal standings... and we're sad to see that Canada has absolutely zero medals. Come on! Even North Korea has a couple; who cares if it's for shooting?! How about Friday night's opening ceremonies though... completely amazing!

We're getting excited to head to Tassie on Friday-- for one thing, it's about time for a holiday already, and for another thing, we were burned by the Melbourne cabbies on a bitterly cold, pouring-rain Saturday night when they turned our business down presumably because we don't live far enough from the CBD for our fares to be worth their while (though it's a good hour's walk back to our apartment!). It'll be great to explore a new place, and we're going to indulge a little in some confy hotel rooms (very cheap this time of year!) and hopefully lots of local cheese. Yum! We've booked our first night right on the waterfront in Hobart at the historic Customs House Hotel... might as well head to the Antarctic in style! Apparently there's no snow in Hobart itself but there is on top of nearby Mt Wellington, so it's going to be quite weird to encounter the white stuff after so long, especially in August. Since we bought the super-cheap flights to Tassie, we have to pack all of our gear into small carry-on bags-- we love a challenge!--so we might just end up wearing most of our clothing onto the plane if it doesn't fit in the bag. Many photos to come! (Speaking of, we've uploaded some new ones from the past few months just now)

Perhaps the biggest highlight of the week was watching The Dark Knight in "Gold Class"-- the posh way to catch a flick. Before we left Toronto there was something similar at the cinema at Bay & Bloor-- basically, you pay a lot of money to get a really comfy seat and to get waited on while watching the film. Since we're definitely too cheap to pay the $30 or so for Gold Class tickets, we were pretty happy when each of us received a pair of the tickets from work. We kind of thought it might be a little lame, after all, who really needs a waiter when you're in the cinema? We figured it was mainly just for prima donna types. But it pretty much rocked-- we got to hang out in this flashy VIP-ish lounge until the film began, then got led to our seats-- these giant ultrasuede Lazyboy chairs with a little table in between us and a button to summon the staff. We stupidly ate a big dinner before going-- we had no idea of the giant menu-- and wine list-- they had. Next time we'll go for the gourmet salads and desserts... maybe even the $400 bottle of Dom Perignon. But for this time we stuffed ourselves on popcorn and beer, which was brought to us, of course! Not to mention that the movie was pretty awesome too. It's been booked solid for months since all the Aussies want to see Heath Ledger's last appearance (don't know about "Oscar-worthy" though).
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Favourite Olympic moments so far:
- The womens' 129km (?) bike race in pouring rain. We watched all 3 hours of it in amazement, quite possibly for the wipeouts. Reminded me of the day I got lost on my bike in rural Cambodia after taking a wrong turn from the 29km Angkor Wat circuit... (a story I promise to share someday!- D.)
-The opening ceremonies. Yes, the fireworks were spectacular. And we're sure they really helped the Beijing smog problem, too.
-Lastly, we think the Germans should win a medal for their horse names- especially for Mr Medicott and Butts Leon!

Victorian times...

Today there were a few tears, a little bit of shock.... it was only today, while unscrewing license plates in the parking lot of the VicRoads office where we finally had to say to our trusty travelling companion-- "Daisy, I've got a feeling we're not in Queensland anymore."

I suppose it's hard to deny that we're no longer Queenslanders... we once again wear socks AND shoes when we go to the supermarket, possums outnumber cane toads here immeasurably, and while we can be happy there will never be any cyclone threats in our present home, we continue to freeze our butts off in the Melbourne winter. Daisy's been living in our covered garage for a while now, her "Sunshine State" plates just a tad ironic (though there was a fabulous late-afternoon rainbow visible in Richmond today). So it was only a matter of time before we had to switch our van's Queensland registration (that's "Rego" in Aussie) to the state of Victoria. Daisy's taking it well-- true, "The Place to Be" is a bit of a lame slogan to bear, but we weren't shelling out the extra cash for the "European"-style plates. We don't know too much of her history, we do know she came from Melbourne before her move to Port Douglas, and her window-stickers like "I played Apollo Bay Music Festival 2000" (a big annual concert held on the nearby Great Ocean Road) give us some clues to her past. So maybe she's happy to be home! Not to mention this whole rego thing saves us a car wash if we can just trade in our bug-encrusted and bird-poop-splattered old plates for sparkly new ones.

We haven't told her too much about our future plans, but we're planning a great deal of quality time together in the coming months. Time on our visas is running out but there's a lot of road to cover and sights to see before we take off in February. We've found a fantastic website, Roadmap Australia, which has eliminated our need for a ruler & map to guesstimate the mileage we hope to cover (about 15,000 km!). Since we rushed down a good chunk of the east coast to Melbourne and missed a lot of the classic sights in New South Wales-- the Blue Mountains, outside of Sydney; Nimbin, the hippie mountain village; legendary surf spot Byron Bay; and Bondi Beach, to name a few spots-- we've got some backtracking to do. Then there's the highway up the centre of the country which will take us to that giant red rock, Uluru, underground opal-mining town of Coober Pedy, and Kakadu National Park in the Top End. And last but not least is the gorgeous west coast- endless beaches meeting outback, Ningaloo Reef (from what we've heard, better than the Great Barrier Reef and way closer to shore); swimming with dolphins, and camels and wildflowers everywhere... well maybe not everywhere, but close to it. We figure we'll start the big trek in December, since we have the apartment til then. We'll just have to tough out a bit of the wet season up north-- maybe learn finally what "Going Tropo" really means-- and might have to share the beach with a few screaming brats (school holidays, ugh), but the thoughts of being on the road again are exciting!

In the meantime, we've got a mini-trip booked to visit Tasmania finally in August. It's possible it'll be really cold and rainy, but then again, the environment's so unpredictable everywhere that who really knows?! Flights cost next to nothing from Melbourne ($49 there and $29 back) and if it's rainy, we'll just spend more time in the museums, on brewery tours, and perhaps wandering the Cadbury chocolate factory. It's supposed to be gorgeous, and full of old buildings and colourful history. We take off on August 15 and return on the 19th... as there's no way Dayle's going to work on her birthday. Fingers crossed we'll see a Tasmanian Devil!

Catching up!

Hey everyone! It's been a busy and chilly couple of months in Melbourne (yup, we're still here!) and we thought, geez, it's about time to update the blog. Sorry for being such blog-slackers... here's the wrap-up on what's been happening (more details to come):

The Big Move: Back in May our nutty Kiwi housemates told us they wanted to break their lease (it was too expensive somehow suddenly) and move out of the house on Canning Street sometime in July (it was something new every week with those guys!). We were sick of freezing in an increasingly-crowded house anyway-- the one chick's freeloading 18-year-old brother and his friend had moved over "temporarily" from New Zealand and had already overtaken the 1st floor of the house for six weeks, and we were getting sick of eating our meals in our bedroom-- so we started a quick n' dirty apartment hunt. Over two weeks we saw some flashy, grungy, huge and tiny living spaces, until we came upon The One. Just like we met Daisy, we knew we were meant to be, we knew we had to have the fabulous one-bedroom apartment on the banks of the Yarra River. The current tenant, an interior designer, had been assigned to work on a fancy Shanghai hotel but didn't want to give up her gorgeous gem of a place from June to December. She'd met a couple other potential subletters before us and so naturally we were ecstatic when she let us know she wanted us to have the flat! And after so much hellish share housing, hostels, camping and rustic cabins on cow paddocks, needless to say we've been thoroughly enjoying the bliss of having our very own space-- kitchen, balcony, gas heater, views of the city and more :)
Happy birthday to Adrian: Last week Mr Rogers got a little older. And though he continues to creep toward the big 3-0 (a wee bit faster than Dayle, I must add!), the part-ay spirit has not left him, and so we celebrated the big event last Saturday night with many beverages and three hours of karaoke in our own room at FM Karaoke on Bourke Street (in the CBD). It took a little bit for voices to get warmed up but soon enough the initial shyness was lost and everyone was enjoying a good selection of karaoke favourites like Queen and Aerosmith set to excellent and very dramatic Asian love-story videos. The staff at FM were fantastic and put up with our jolly group of songbirds (thanks to everyone who was brave enough to get onstage!). When everyone was hoarse we dashed down a few alleys and made it to the Croft Institute just in time* (* Note: Despite protests, Melbourne has just begun a citywide "lockout" policy where you can't enter a bar after 2am, no matter how late it stays open... something to do with curbing streets violence or something...) for some more hours of dancing. Fun times for all! Adrian also joined the trendy Melburnian crowd and got himself a real authentic Crumpler bag, straight from the Crumpler HQ in Collingwood. He hasn't stopped grinning since.

We'll have more updates soon... complete with the grand photo-tour of our awesome apartment, our thoughts on Australian television (something we haven't seen in ages before moving in to our new place!), and updates on our future adventures as they materialize. Now it's time to get back to watching one of many generic cop dramas which occupy weeknight TV... :)

Playtime in Melbourne

It's been a busy few weeks, but though we've been working a whole lot lately, we're trying our best to make sure there's still time for fun. Although it's gotten chilly and the streets are no longer filled with summertime tourists, and the festival-a-week season is long over, there are still plenty of fun things to do in the city. Here are a few of our recent highlights:

- The Game On exhibition at the ACMI (Australian Centre for the Moving Image): an art show all about video games. How cool is that? We went a few weeks ago and found it to be all about nostalgia, and surprisingly not full of gaming nerds as we had suspected. There were multiple interactive exhibits (sooooo many games to play!) which highlighted just how much video games are part of our generation's (and so many others) growing up. There were write-ups on game genres, historical timelines, international games, music, pivotal characters, and more. And we especially had a good laugh when we noticed how many arcade games had a dad at the controls while their little kid waited anxiously to get a turn! It was kind of a all-you-can-play buffet of games-- definitely worth the $15 admission. Some of our favourites at the exhibition included Street Fighter, Lemmings, Chicken (a much-pixellated game where a chicken/yellow blob has to cross a busy highway and not get run over by trucks/speeding square blobs), Galaga, Wii table tennis, Way of the Exploding Fist, and a Japanese game which simulated driving a slow-moving train.
- Dining out: We are big fans of the Italian eateries on Lygon Street (near our house), as well as the $9 Indian dinners at Funky Curry on Bourke Street (CBD), and most recently ate delicious Chinese cuisine under giant Chairman Mao posters at Post-Mao Cafe in Chinatown (apparently the chef used to cook for old Mao). We've found excellent Japanese fast food in the food court at Crown Casino and some really interesting Japanese treats at Kazen in Fitzroy. Oh... and then there's Chocolateria San Churro (a strange and interesting chocoholic paradise which specializes in, yes, everything chocolate, in drink and in solid form in a cafe setting; although the white hot chocolate is great at first but soon feels like you're drinking a cup of butter). And then there was that lovely multi-course pancake dinner at the very charming and old-school Pancake Parlour... Melbourne has not been disappointing our appetites!
- Drinks at cool spots like the Croft Institute, a science-lab/school-themed bar hidden deep in the alleyways of downtown, past smelly wheelie bins and lots of graffiti; the overpriced but heaps-of-fun Mai Tai, a kitsch Polynesian-themed bar which serves its most popular cocktails by the giant bowl; and at Spleen, a shabby-chic and laid-back sort of place in the CBD which we end up at a lot.
- Possum-feeding in Carlton Gardens: For some reason this activity never gets old. Especially after a few overfilled glasses of wine at the Post-Mao Cafe.

Still to come:
There's still so much to do here (it's starting to look as though we may stay in Melbourne til November or December!)... including checking out the rooftops from the Rialto Tower, the Melbourne Aquarium, dining at a Greek restaurant (the city has something like the second-largest Greek population after Greece itself), and perhaps doing a little shopping for artsy trinkets at the weekly St Kilda Esplanade Market. Not to mention a trip out to Phillip Island (an hour or so away) to see the teeny fairy penguins march in the Penguin Parade!

Working for 'the man'

Yup, that's right, the news is out. We're now BOTH bank monkeys, typing up files and looking at data and following protocol (kinda like CTU but a bit less glam). Although she was getting lots of annoying errands done, 3 weeks of 'vacation' was enough for Dayle-- and she's landed herself a temping job at ANZ as well. Although we're in different ANZ bank offices, in different city suburbs (Adrian's in the heart of the downtown business area and Dayle's building is in Richmond, nestled in between a Ferrari dealership and countless wacky interior design showrooms), we're both part of the same bank family now. Dayle got the call last Tuesday and began work the very next day in the "Travel Card" section, processing forms for this cooler version of the travellers' cheque. It's amazing to see how many people have 12,000 Euro to slap down in card form, and also sad to see people's Aussie dollars get decimated by the British pound. But there's plenty of folks heading out on vacation now, that's for sure... and it's making our poor little (constantly growing) team work really hard. But nice people, decent pay -- ah, a job's a job. And way better than fruit picking! Luckily we've just discovered our company email address book, so we can chitchat under email subject lines like "Further information needed re: application". Too cool.

We went on a little shopping spree this past week, finally giving into the chilly Melbourne weather and buying ourselves winter coats. And of course, now it's 18 degrees in the day! Nonetheless, we are very excited to wear our new coats. We're learning some tips on how Melburnians stay warm, living in old houses without insulation- layer, layer, layer! We've actually even turned on the furnace lately (it's freezing at night!), something that led to great debate and a week's worth of household tension between us and our New Zealander housemates; we've since learned that in New Zealand, people simply DON'T heat their houses, and if they do, it's with a fireplace/wood stove. (Reminds us of our rustic cottage in Stanthorpe!) And they consider heat "a luxury", which was equated to owning a dishwasher in the 'heated' discussion. Ha! It was getting so cold in here that we were feeling like we might as well been sleeping in our van outside, and we were beginning to wonder if we'd just acclimatized so much to the tropical weather (not that it's been tropical here for ages) that we can't take the cold anymore. We are so sick of hearing "This is nothing! You're from a cold country!" And then we went out for drinks with an Irish and an English couple and discussed the philosophy of heating-- and as it turns out, they've all been using the furnace for weeks now. Sure, we're from countries which get cold, but you know what? We heat our houses to make it bearable. It's just how it works in the northern hemisphere. We felt much better after that.

Last weekend we also did a little exploring, and checked out the insides of the Hotel Windsor, a grand old 19th-century hotel which is on the edge of the CBD, right across from the state parliament building. Apparently many Aussie prime ministers have stayed there over the years since it was built in 1883, and it reminded us of the grand old CP hotels in Canada. The chandeliered lobby is beautiful and it was cool to read through the historical blurbs & photographs, including how a politician (a premier?) took ownership and sold booze there illegally for years. One day when we're rich and visiting Melbourne again, maybe we'll stay here instead of good old Miami Hotel (our Xmas abode). It's funny how there's so many buildings one might take for granted in their own city, passing them every day without any notice or understanding of their history. It's fun to be a tourist in your own town! Next mission: read up on the history of Melbourne. We'll relay what we find!

We's famous Mama!

Among other greats who frequent this blog; Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, Keanu Reeves (the list is mighty). We happened to get an email from a corporate representative from 'Schmap' who loved our photos and wanted to know if they could use them on their interactive map. Naturally we said yes, and they used 2 of our photos here and here. Which makes me think about how we could land a job that looks for other peoples pictures on the web.

Makeover time!

It's funny how sometimes the laziest weekend can fuel a lot of creativity (and we were trying to avoid going outside, where it keeps getting colder). Our faithful blog readers may notice a few changes on Big "?"s- enjoy and tell us what you think!

Here's what's new:
- Our banner: Adrian got inspired to recreate us in cartoon form! Too bad we aren't this cute in real life.
- Slideshow: We just realized we could feature a few of our most recent photos in a slideshow on our blog. Fun fun! But don't forget to keep on visiting our Flickr site for the whole collection.
- This week we love...: We keep coming across really fun websites that we want to share, so we'll try to update this section as often as we can. Let us know if there's one you want to share, too.

Plus, we've got a few more exciting things to come in the near future. Thanks for reading and commenting! xoxo, d&a "?"

Meet Pax

He's very cute, furry, and purry, and he's the newest and most entertaining addition to our house. Pax the kitten arrived two weeks ago and was nameless for quite a few days, going by everything from "cat" to "little boy" to "kitty" to "Vladimir Putin" (Adrian's choice) until he finally received a real name.

Our roommates adopted him from Lort Smith Animal Hospital, a huge place which is even the setting for local reality TV show "Animal Emergency". Pax is about four months old and was a real squirrelly one to begin with, first getting his paw stuck in one of the holes in his cardboard box before we could even take him home (the nurses had to open the box and rescue him). We were a little worried about what kind of terror this little kitty was going to be...

But Pax has been all cute, charming our visitors and most of all, charming us. For a kitten he can be pretty lazy at times, but he's always a good sport and will always go for a playwhen someone gets out the pingpong ball. In fact, if there was a cat volleyball league, Pax would be their star player, as he is quite good at lobbing and spiking the ball across the kitchen, and he always lands it in the goal (under the fridge, or in Adrian's shoe).

Pax also works very hard on de-carpeting the stairs and is determined to chew all the way through an electrical cord one day. He likes to give high-fives (with claws!) and can be a little squeaky. We've found he can also be a bit of a perv, stealing pairs of girlie underwear from the clothes drying rack. We've been trying to get him to write a guest blog for us, but he unfortunately has a very short attention span. At least he's a fierce fly-hunter and he has also rescued us from a kitchen spider... so he is pulling his weight around here! And we haven't seen a mouse since he's moved in.

We sometimes wonder if Pax were to meet a cat from another country, would they would speak the same language? We've been listening for an Aussie accent, but we haven't heard any "G'Day's" or "Bloody Oath's" yet. Someone surely must have done a scientific study on this! Ah, never mind. Time to get him ready for a first appearance on Stuff On My Cat... now, if only he'd sleep a little more soundly.

Costumes, crepes, and kitty fun...

It's been a busy few weeks but plenty of good times to write home about. Adrian's been Mr. Corporate lately ("Buy, buy, buy! Sell, sell, sell!" he likes to say)-- well, maybe he doesn't work on the stock exchange but he sure loves dressing the part. You've gotta have a little fun at work! Adrian has been working downtown in an office tower of one of Australia's major banks (ANZ) for almost 3 weeks now, and has gleefully discovered a games floor in his building. So every Friday he and his co-workers sit in those video-game cars and race each other. Word is there's a beer cart that comes around the office on Fridays as well- now that's the life!

As for me (Dayle), I've been blissfully unemployed since last Monday, enjoying another wave of sunny, 25-degree autumn days. This week's been a little colder, so I'm not spending as much time doing crayon drawings under the old trees in beautiful Carlton Gardens (the nearby park where we sometimes chase possums at at night). It's been really nice to enjoy some "me" time, exploring the nearby neighbourhoods and shops, and running all of those little errands that have been neglected for months (and fixing tattered clothing and shoes!). The work will come soon enough-- but it's just nice to relax a bit for now. It's a "working HOLIDAY visa", as we say here, not a "working slavery visa"!

But actually, I'm not totally unemployed. On Saturday afternoons I get paid to play dress-up at this wonderful, humongous costume hire (that's Aussie for rental!) shop called Costume Factory. I applied for the job way back in January but only recently did they decide they still needed another staff member for busy Saturday afternoons. It pays great and the staff are all quirky arts students, painters, writers, and theatre enthusiasts, and we basically just help people piece together costumes for the unbelievable amount of costume parties that happen in Melbourne. (For a country that doesn't do much for Halloween, I have been shocked). My first day consisted of fixing up wigs and dressing mannequins as tacky tourists, gladiators, cowboys, and even a 'gay sailor' (that's a sailor suit with sequins!). And ever since I've dressed people up as flappers, Prince, Tina Turner, Alpen yodeler and even an Indian chief and Pocahontas. It's been a real exercise in creativity because a lot of customers walk in without any costume ideas, and it's also easy to get lost in the huge shop/showroom. But it's a nice place to spend a weekend afternoon and I do wish we were staying long enough to see what Halloween brings. And apparently the company's been around for ages, evolving over the years since the Gold Rush days! For that reason we have an amazing amount of gorgeous medieval wear, etc., which we rent to a lot of theatre productions too.

In other news, our roommates got a kitten last week! Pax is rambunctious and lively, and he's completely adorable (but more about him later!). He's also a great entertainer of houseguests--we've just finished a multi-day goodbye party for our French friends Stephane and Jenny, who came to stay with us after working in Tasmania. There was lots of wine-drinking, reminiscing, and a final crepe feast... and we definitely caught (me more than Adrian I think) a bit of the travel bug as we chatted about their plans to travel Southeast Asia. Our friend Bianca's also off to New Zealand now and we're possibly the only people left in Oz from our original Echuca crew. We can only wonder on which continent we'll all meet again... we'll miss you guys! xoxo, D.