A year in review, part 4

So, if there’s one thing that’s great about living in/just outside of a city is the close proximity to good food.  Given my particularly unrefined palette, I don’t even care about good food that much, and I can tell that there’s good stuff out there.  Plus I have Ruthie and some of the locals to provide more feedback.  Perhaps not surprising is the level to which the local cuisine is Asian oriented.  Of all the places we’ve tried in our neighbourhood, we’ve found a great Thai restaurant that delivers – and that’s usually the weak spot.  If I get home and Ruthie’s been out all day and she’s got nothing to prepare, it often ends up being Thai food delivered [which also means Thai food for lunch the next day, too].  Also on our list of local enjoyments: pho.  I feel like I’ve supposedly tried pho somewhere back in the States, but if I did, it certainly wasn’t like the pho we’ve had here. 

The pizza is different, too.  Everything about it is just a bit different, but mainly the pepperoni – there is no pepperoni here.  All “pepperoni” pizzas here come with a spicy sausage on them that just isn’t the same.  Unfortunately for us, there’s a Pizza Hut that delivers, and I’ve grown to like the pizzas here. 

Also, there is a dearth of Mexican food.  [Again, not surprising.]  There are apparently Mexican restaurants here and there, we’ve just not really had the opportunity to try them.  We did find the Chipotle equivalent though, called Mad Mex.  While the style and the service is very much like Chipotle, the food itself is almost more Mexican in nature.  I can rationalise this as Chipotle is much more Tex-Mex in nature, and that’s definitely a food subgroup that I wouldn’t expect to make it this far out into the world. 

Going back to the Asian influences on local cuisine, this also means there’s plenty of sushi around.  I can’t say I’ve had a whole lot mainly because Ruthie’s not so keen on it, but the sushi I’ve had has been pretty good.  Fortunately, we’ve had the help of some locals in finding good sushi joints.  We’ve also tried the experience that is dim sum / yum cha, where you get little containers of food brought around to you and you get your choice of what you want right then and there.  Often times, dumplings of various types and preparation are featured [or at least this is what we’ve noticed].  It’s definitely a dangerous style of eating because in the couple of times that we’ve done it, Ruthie and I both over ate and made ourselves sick. 

When it comes to food, the one thing that I am particularly excited about is desserts.  I’ve definitely got a sweet tooth.  Fortunately, things like green tea ice cream and bubble tea are readily available [well, within the city itself].  I’ll definitely miss those when we get home.  Other yummy goodness: lamingtons, vanilla slice, Tim Tams, and Anzac cookies. 

Oh!  And we’ve had kangaroo a couple times, too, which was on my list of things to try while down here.  As previously mentioned, we’ve ingratiated ourselves to some great local cooks.  So it’s thanks to them that we’ve had so much good food here.

Okay, so that’s been a pretty lengthy summation [6 pages in the Word document I use to type it all up] of our time here so far.  As it stands now, we’re over our half-way point.  So now it’s just a matter of making the most of our time left.  Fortunately winter, as long as it might be, is on its slow way out.  I can tell that the days are getting longer with the sun rise coming up a little earlier each day [winter solstice was on 21 June].  We haven’t quite shaken the cold on a regular basis, but it feels like maybe we’ve left the worst of the winter behind and soon the weather will be hot again.  Hopefully with the warm weather and sunny skies, we’ll find ourselves in different parts of the city [we’ve still got a lot of the city to explore, too!], state, or even country. 

We’re over half way done with our time in Oz, and my guess is that now that our time is on the decline things will start to feel like they’re moving quickly.  Especially looking ahead knowing that the last little bit will be so busy with getting everything ready for the move back home. 

So here’s to Oz 2012-2013. 

A year in review, part 3

Ruthie and I have discussed the pros and cons of roller derby in our lives a couple times since we started down that crazy path back in 2009.  What’s come up again recently in conversation both with her and with a couple co-workers of mine is the positive side effect of derby that comes in the form of an instant social network.  Savvy as she is, before we even left, Ruthie did some research into roller derby leagues in the Melbourne area in hopes that we might find and join a league.  Fast forward to now and not only have we found a league we like, but we’ve, once again instilled ourselves into the operations of the league.  Fortunately, this time, it’s much less draining.  The biggest relief to our system is that it takes 15-20 minutes to get to practice as opposed to the 55-65 it took at home.  With practices here running from 7-9p [as opposed to 8-10p], this means that even on a derby night, Ruthie can be in bed by 9.30p.  The other big non-stressor is the fact that this league has enough people who are actually interested in keeping it running [as well as very level-headed president] that it takes the stress off of any one person.  So even though I’ve recently accepted a nomination for the role of Head Coach of WestSide Derby Dollz, I can actually rely on a handful of people to help me get the job done. 

But all of that isn’t the point I’m trying to get at.  Instead, it’s the social side of roller derby.  It’s a hobby that provides quite the mixture of personalities, abilities, jobs, and socioeconomic statuses.  To that end, it’s pretty easy to find friends in such a mixed group.  And thus it’s of no surprise that we’ve become good friends a number of people on the league [although, let’s be real – as awesome as we are, not everyone can handle us, so we’re not friends with *all* of them].  It is this added benefit of derby to which I am most grateful.  Sure the exercise is good and all, but exercise won’t cook you a good dinner.  As it stands, we’ve currently ingratiated ourselves to two fantastic cooks.  So, with pretty regular frequency, Ruthie invites us over to their houses for a good meal.  Say what you will about her only working at riding the couch for months, she’s worked pretty hard at kindling some good friendships. 

Derby isn’t our only hobby though.  I managed to find a pottery studio.  I took a class, and lo and behold, it’s taught by a hippy.  While she’s pretty cool, it quickly became apparent that the thing I actually need for me to get better at my pottery is to find a more advanced session or something resembling more of a tutor.  After the first class, I’d fully intended to take the raku session since they are only allowed to have fires for certain times in the year, but due to being on a budget combined with being lazy, I never got around to it.  Maybe now that we’ve got a good hold on our budget and the winter is [supposedly] on its way out, I’ll sign up for another class.  Meanwhile, Ruthie’s found herself a pretty awesome sewing teacher.  Thursday mornings [if not Thursday afternoons and/or Tuesdays], Ruthie finds herself in the shed that’s been converted to a studio at the house of a fantastic Australian.  Ruthie’s also managed to become rather friendly with the other ladies in the class, which might mean that we’ll have even more cooks we can con into feeding us.  And, although I say this with hushed tones for fear of jinxing it, we might even have an in to the Australian celebrity scene through the wife of a Neighbours [daytime soap] actor. 

Since video games count as one of my hobbies, I’ll use them as the first example of the economic differences.  Currently, the average retail game opens in US markets at $59.99.  Here, it’s usually $100.  So take that one data point and extrapolate.  Don’t forget to factor in that for the majority of the time we’ve been here, the US dollar has been valued lower than the Australian dollar.  While we [meaning Ruthie] researched this before we left, we were still shocked by just how much of a difference existed the cost of living.  I’ve got two more examples.  Movie tickets here start at $18, unless it’s Tight-ass Tuesday, then it’s $11.  The cost differential between eating out and buying groceries back home is steep enough that if you’re on a budget, you rarely eat out; here there’re barely a difference, probably only about 10%. 

I think we’ve spent roughly three weeks to one month of total time with the American dollar being stronger than the Australian dollar.  This turns out to be a double-edged sword because I get paid in $US, but it’s based on a formula that reflects the differences in exchange between $US and $AU.  So in the times that the $US gets stronger than the $AU, my pay check drops a little.  Conversely, when the Australian market is doing better, my pay check goes up a little.  The fluctuations in the market also affect us when it comes to our rent.  We’ve been lucky enough to have the $US be stronger than the $AU when the rent was due once.  For that month, it was fantastic to look at the bank transaction and see less money than we paid actually withdrawn. 

Does travel count as a hobby?  We were lucky enough to spend the whole first week of being in Oz working our way from Sydney to Melbourne via Canberra and the inland route.  It was fantastic to get ourselves acclimated to the time difference, driving on the opposite side of the road, and the change in general environment.  Since our first night in Sydney, we managed to get back once when Lorraine visited.  That same trip to Sydney with Lorraine also involved a road trip along the south eastern coast of the continent, providing some lovely scenery of the countryside. 

We’ve also been out and about in the lovely state of Victoria to do some exploring of the country side around here.  A couple trips up to the Grampians as well as to the closer Dandenong range have provided us with some good motorcycle trips, hikes, and lovely views.  We lucked out in befriending a couple with a “country house” in a rural town about an hour outside of the city.  This has provided for a weekend or two of escaping to live in the country for a night. 

We’ve been down to Philip Island a couple times as well as to Queensland.  The problem is that this country is so big.  Ruthie and I have covered a good stretch of Victoria and New South Whales, and one city in Queensland, but that still leaves so much of the country untouched.  We both would love to traverse the centre of the continent [although Ruthie would rather do it in the style of Priscilla, just without the break downs] as well as getting up to the Northern Territory.  We quickly learned two things about travelling Oz.  One, Australia is the size of the US, so without a dedicated travel schedule and big budget to match, it’s hard to cover so much land.  Two, it’s expensive to travel around Oz.  More expensive, in fact, than travelling to some other countries, like Thailand. 

So while we’d both like to visit Tasmania [I mean, the ferry docks right outside our front door], the other states, as well as New Zealand … I just don’t know.  Time and money are now of the essence, and since neither grow on trees, I have my doubts we’ll be able to see a whole lot more before we leave this corner of the world.