A week of Beef part 2/2

Continued from this post.

Wednesday morning found us up again at a good hour to drive out through the rain to Healesville Sanctuary.  Wednesday’s Melbournian weather actually worked in our favour.  We got there just a few minutes before a guided tour of the Coranderrk Reserve was heading out, and since it had been raining that morning, not many people were there, so we had the tour to ourselves.  Even better, the rain was just tapering off as we arrived, so we didn’t even get that wet.  Despite this being Ruthie’s third trip to the Sanctuary, this was the first time the tour had been offered, so we were kind of glad that Beef decided we should do it. 

We had intended to only spend the morning in Healesville and then head out in that region to find some hiking, but by the time we were done with everything, it was time to head home.  This decision worked out because we ended up getting to a fabric store Ruthie had been drooling over 15 minutes before they closed.  Ruthie’s head exploded and Beef and I giggled as she ran around like a headless chicken trying to decide which fabric to get.

Wednesday night took us to the Suzuki Night at the Victoria Market.  It was my first time at the Vic Market ever, even though Ruthie’s been a couple times, and it was pretty cool.  I don’t really see the need to go multiple times, as it didn’t really seem like there were things worth repeat visits.  Sure it’s free, and there were some good food stalls, but other than that, the regular vendors don’t really warrant repeat visits.  [I say this only to contrast the regular morning market, where you can get grocery-type items, thus warranting routine visits if desired.]  And on the note of food, we did end up with quite the multi-cultural tasting that evening.  We started with Korean dumplings, then moved on to souvlaki, then crepes and milkshakes for desert. 

Thursday started off with our earliest start of the week to hit the road for a two-hour drive down to Philip Island for our second surf lesson of the week.  Yes, despite the battering we received on Tuesday, Beef was keen for another round of surfing, so of course Ruthie made that happen and I couldn’t miss out.  So off we went.  This time it went much better.  On the negative side, it was pretty damned crowded.  A lot of time was spent waiting for people to get out of your way / getting out of the way for others.  However, the instructors were much more personable and attentive, and the instruction was much better [helped me realize I was putting the wrong foot forward on Tuesday which made a big difference for me], and the ocean wasn’t nearly as rough.  Of course it still rained on us, but no one seemed to mind for the warmth of the wetsuits again.  And by the end, Beef had managed to land herself in a few pictures, ridden a couple waves, and even high-fived one of the instructors as she was surfing into the shore.  Simultaneously, while Ruthie and I weren’t quite the superstars, we did finally get upright on a couple waves.  So that was pretty cool.

Lunch in Cowes, the big little town on Philip Island was pretty good, and then we made the return drive back to Melbourne for a mostly uneventful evening.  We went to the restaurant at the corner of the next block over – a place we’d been looking to go but hadn’t made the effort until Beef arrived.  The food was pretty decent, but I don’t know if it was worth another visit.

Friday saw us getting up early once again for a 9.30a showing of “The Muppets”.  Ruthie had never seen a Muppets movie, which is partly a fail on my part since I love Muppet Christmas Carol, and really quite surprising as to how cultured she claims to be.  Additionally, Beef is a huge fan of the Muppets, claiming to be part Animal herself, so she was definitely up for a second viewing [while the movie had been out in the US for a couple weeks, it only came out here on Thursday].  After that, the girls had found some random place they’d wanted to find in the CBD, and we dodged rain drops to search for it, but failed in actually finding it.  We chalked it up to the guide book that they used being a couple years old, so perhaps said place no longer existed.  So we made our way to Chinatown for lunch and proceeded to make ourselves sick.  In the way that those Brazilian meat houses continue to bring you meat after meat after meat until you give in, this place continued to bring us dumplings and various things that we could barely identify [and couldn’t understand the servers].  Before we knew it we’d eaten too much and we all felt quite ill. 

We then tried to walk off our illness by heading to Federation Square for the indigenous art exhibit that is currently on display, but it helped little.  The art was good, but our stomachs were not.  We then continued our walking in hopes it would help by skipping the first leg of our public transit route home and walking the several blocks to the transfer for our homeward bound tram. 

A couple hours later, still feeling quite bloated from lunch, we made our way to a bar of a friend’s choice, where we introduced Beef to some more local Aussies, and proceeded to get some drinks and a touch of food for dinner. 

Despite it being Beef’s last night in the country, I think jetlag had finally caught up to her, and she [and Ruthie, of course] were ready to throw in the towel by 10p, so we wrapped it up and left the local socialites to it. 

Sunday morning we slept in just enough to say we’d slept in a bit, and then scoured the apartment for anything Beef might’ve forgotten to pack.  We headed off for some breakfast, and then off to the airport to send her on her way. 

It was quite the whirlwind of a week.  But it felt really good to get out there and play tourist again.  Ruthie and I had slacked off a bit, so hopefully this provided the spark we needed, and we’ll be out and about a bit more frequently over the remainder of the summer and into the fall months.

-EP

PS.  An hour after we dropped Beef at the airport, the clouds broke, and it was a brilliantly clear 80F.  The next day was just the same…

A week of Beef part 1/2

I feel like times go by where there’s not really much to blog about, and then everything happens at once.  This then puts me behind, one because I have like three things to write about at once, and two because I’m a slacker, so I don’t write about things as they come up.

So with that, let’s catch up on last week.  Beef visited for a grand total of six days.  She arrived Sunday mid-day and left the following Saturday mid-day.  I had intended to take only three days off work to run around with her and Ruthie, but I quickly realized I was going to need the whole week to keep up with them.  [Which was fine by me, for the record.]  I had intended to do something similar to my Sydney trip with Lorraine and Ruthie and write a bit about what happened each day, but I was so wiped by the end of each day, all I did was come home and go to bed most times.

Sunday while Ruthie was picking up Beef at the airport, I was online with Greg and Squirrel playing games.  Ruthie took Beef around a bit to get a small bite at the Vic Market, and then they came home to nap.  Sunday night I had purchased us tickets for a roof top showing of Beetlejuice.  Dinner was in an Indian fusion tapas style restaurant the floor below the cinema, and the movie was enjoyed on a nice cool partly cloudy night with a pitcher of sangria.

Monday found us up at a fairly decent hour of the morning to hit the road and drive out along the Great Ocean Road to the Twelve Apostles.  Shortly after Ruthie and I got settled in, we took a day and drove part of the GOR, but not the whole thing.  Ruthie and Lorraine made the trip to the Twelve Apostles on another day, but this was my first time. 

Let me interrupt here for a moment and point out that on the first couple days of January, we were experiencing the kind of summer I had expected while being in Australia.  As I mentioned in a blog post or two ago, the high had gotten to 104 one day.  But now that it’s the 2^nd week in Jan we were experiencing record lows – like highs of 65 for nearly the mid-point of summer.  Not to mention the clouds [one day had a total exposure of 3 hours] and rain [from rain to sun to rain to sun to rain to sun within an hour on the GOR, for example].  At least Beef got to experience true Melbourne weather.  Certainly not ideal since she likes to sit on the beach, but we still made the best out of it.

Right, so we make it out to the Twelve Apostles where the winds are so fierce and gusty you can barely hold your hands still long enough to get a good picture.  We fight through the tourists for a couple snaps before we head down to the beach.  With my little gorilla pod, we tried to get a few jumping pictures in front of one of “the apostles” aka rocks, but Ruthie and I totally failed on the timing every time.

I say “fight through the tourists” but really it was more of fight to not get pushed out of the way.  Two stories for this one.  Back in Apollo Bay at the memorial arch, we happened upon two bus loads of horribly mustached middle aged Indian men.  I was still at the car getting the Go Pro camera mounted to the car while Ruthie and Beef went up to the arch to get a picture.  While they were getting situated, one of them very rudely told them to get out of the way of his picture.  I didn’t see this one happen, but we mocked them regardless.

Then while at the Twelve Apostles, Ruthie was calmly enjoying the view leaning over the hand rail, with a couple tourists on her right and none on her left.  This time I happened to be standing right there and witnessed the whole thing.  The Asian tourist with her dSLR shoved her way in between Ruthie and the tourists on her right by means of putting her arms up and over Ruthie’s right shoulder.  Meanwhile the entire left side of Ruthie was wide open for someone to stand and posture for pictures.  Seriously rude people. 

Anyways, we returned from the GOR to get some Thai food from our local favourite and watched some Top Gear in our flat.  Then off to bed and up early for a trip back down to Torquay for our second ever first surfing lesson.  I feel like it’s safe to say that short of serious injury or death it might have been the worst time I’ve ever had in the ocean.  Something happened with the salt water and the sunscreen I was wearing and shortly after being in the ocean, I was finding it increasingly difficult to keep my eyes open for any length of time.  Even before that, while I’m a fan of short, concise instructions, our instructor gave us that and not much more.  A quick demo on how to get up on the board, and then we were off into the ocean.  [Oh, and it was raining a bit, but not that it mattered since we were in the ocean with wet suits – and the wet suits made a huge difference fighting what would be a brutal wind chill.] 

Our first first surf lesson was in Maui, where the waves were crystal blue, and consistently the same size and direction and speed throughout the entire lesson.  This time was nothing like that.  Proper waves [while not really big, mind you] with white water and I felt like there was a big difference in energy depletion due to the fact that we had to walk our boards out through the waves as opposed to ride/swim our boards out to where we’d catch them in Maui.  So after an hour and a half [out of two, total] I was pretty much done.  Ruthie was not too far behind me in throwing in the towel.  Meanwhile, Beef had managed to hop up and start surfing.  The upside to the whole thing was that there were only a few of us out there surfing, so it wasn’t really that crowded.  Plus, the conditions were right that if you could get up on the board, you could actually catch quite a few waves – which Beef seemed to do.

After that beating, we enjoyed some good food in Torquay and the made our way back to Melbourne.  Once we’d regrouped a bit from the morning’s activities and the drive back, we got ready to meet up with Ruthie’s local friends J&J for dinner – first time having Italian food since we’ve been here.

-EP

Let’s talk tunes

So let’s go back to 2008.  Ruthie, Kalli, and I head off to the west coast.  Our first stop is Seattle to stay with my old college roomie.  While there, we’re treated to what he considers basic radio – but it blows out radio programming out of the water.  I was so blind to how terrible central east coast radio is until I travelled.  Oh the horrors. 

Fast forward a bit and I’ve discovered WTMD, which is good in that it provides some good indie / non-top-40 material.  But it still felt like it was lacking something and so I still hold Seattle’s radio up on a pedestal compared to WTMD. 

Now catch up to today.  We’ve found the local “independent” radio station, Triple J.  [I say put independent in quotes because I really have no idea how radio is operated in this country, but it would be considered an indie station back home.]  It has always had a good mix of brand new / non-top-40 / old school / alternative tracks to top artists every time we’ve listened to it.  More and more lately I’ve been spending time in the lab, which means I’ve been able to listen to the radio more and more [sans car in my day-to-day, I have no other exposure to a radio].   The radio stays tuned to Triple J, and I’ve always been happy with what I hear. 

Apparently I’m not their target audience.  A coworker [who is 27] was lamenting that she’s out of the target age bracket of 18-24.  So apparently I’m and old head listening to current stuff – which brought up a separate conversation with Ruthie about how long will I attempt to keep up with current-ish music instead of falling into the pattern of older generations and staying tuned to only one era.  Anyways, tangent.

The radio station, just like any other, has their tendency to play a couple tracks more than others, and for that I wasn’t going to fault them, but I wasn’t going to let them steal the spotlight from Seattle.

Even when they played the theme song from Veronica Mars on the radio on two separate occasions, I wasn’t ready to be excited about how awesome the radio music was. 

Until last Friday.  It is time.  They played Pharcyde’s “Runnin’”.  It is a totally random song that I picked up somewhere along the way and have always loved it.  Apparently it was kind of a hit in 1995, but I have never heard it on the radio.  Ever.  Until last Friday. 

Boom. 

Triple J is full of win.

-EP

Who knew 2012 would start in a foreign country?

We are nearly half way through the calendar summer [1 Dec – 29 Feb] and honestly it barely even feels like summer.  Of course, I say this after we had a sweltering 40C [104F] high on 2 January.  But other than that 36-hour period of really bracing heat, it really hasn’t been that rough.  The past two mornings I’ve worn my jacket to ride into work against the chill in the air.  It’s hard to remember that we’re on the southern end of Australia and not be surprised when it’s not swelteringly hot multiple days in a row.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m totally grateful. 

I feel like, as time progresses, I begin more and more of my emails and general correspondences with people back home with updates about the weather.  I have no idea when I became “that guy”, but it makes me feel old.

Aside from updates on the weather, things in the land of Ruthie and EP are pretty chill [although I expect that will change next week, but more about that in a minute]. 

The good news is that I sprained my knee at the beginning of vacation.  The bad news is that I sprained my knee at the beginning of vacation.

For the week of Christmas and New Year, I got a taste of the unemployed lifestyle Ruthie’s been leading since we got here.  And I have to say it was sweet.  A little dry [read: boring] towards the end, but I only have myself and my knee to blame for that.

So I was all mentally prepared to have a super-fit time off.  I was going to get up every day and go for a run, and I was going to use our little dinky basement gym to lift some weights and it was going to be great.  Except on my first day of vacation I sprained my left knee.  With all the holidays and what not, I didn’t really get a chance to go see a doctor until the 30^th.  Got myself some x-rays and a CT scan, but everything came out as okay; which means I sprained my knee.  Doc sent me home with an anti-inflammatory and a soft knee brace.  But with all the time off, I just let the days blend together, relaxed on the couch, and let my knee do the healing thing.

The downside is that we weren’t really able to embrace the warm Christmas like we’d hoped and go beaching.  We’d wanted to head down to Torquay [pronounced tor-key] for a day and maybe go exploring along some spots we’d been recommended by a coworker, but that was a no go. 

Instead we watched Scrooged and Christmas Story [never got around to Christmas Vacation, unfortunately – but there’s still time!], all the Firefly episodes and Serenity, Battle Royale, and the entire Dragon Tattoo trilogy.  I played lots of video games and Ruthie spent her time reading and watching Queer as Folk.

But now it’s back to the grind.  For me at least.  The only thing Ruthie had for a grind was her sewing class, and that’s still on break. 

However, Beef arrives on Sunday.  Ruthie and I were discussing on NYE how after the first month of getting settled with the car, we’d stopped getting out and seeing random things in this country.  We hope that Beef will be the kick in the arse we need to get back on that horse.  She’ll only be here for a week and has more energy than the two of us combined, so Ruthie’s done her part to schedule Beef to the fullest.  I’m taking a few days off work so we can go surfing and who knows what else.  Fun [and busy] times ahead!

-EP