My Birthday Part II

So thanks for all the Facebook wishes.  Loved being remembered by so many people.  Say what you like about time wasting, I've seen the upside of Facebook - birthday wishes and mutual friends living in Australia.

Larry, Nicole and I celebrated my birthday on March 16 with dinner at a Japanese restaurant in Kirribilli.  Kirribilli a town under the Sydney Harbor Bridge with winding streets and lots of town houses.  It reminds me vaguely of San Francisco.  Nice dinner.  Lovely gifts, too. An aboriginal design ceramic vase, some coasters with aboriginal art, and a gorgeous wrist watch.  On top of the lovely champagne lunch, turning 45 was a memorable birthday indeed!

Standing on the Sydney Harbor Bridge footpath

It's My Birthday - Part I

It's my first birthday in Australia.  People have asked me, with concern, how I will be spending the day.  Well, I am having a GREAT day.  I just got in from my 2-1/2 hour champagne lunch where I celebrated turning 45 with five absolutely lovely ladies - three Australians, a Brit, and a South African.  I left with an armful of flowers, cookies, a gorgeous scarf, and Bill Granger's Sydney Cookbook.

We dined at the Ad Lib Bistro in Pymble.  What a fantastic meal.  Spaghettini with chili, parsley, and hand-picked crab meat.  Why does "hand-picked crabmeat" sound so much yummier than just, plain, crab? I picked the restaurant out of the Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide 2011.  Really, really good.  If you are in the Sydney area and haven't eaten here, I highly recommend it.

I have dinner with Larry and Nicole to look forward to tonight at a Japanese restaurant in Kirribilli.  Can't wait!

A Lovely Sunday

Spent a lovely Sunday afternoon with my husband.  We walked around Lane Cove (for those of you in CT, think West Hartford Center) making notes of restaurant locations and shops.  Larry stopped for a milkshake.  Milkshakes in Australia are not the thick, foamy shakes of the US.  They are more like thick milk with flavoring.

After our stroll about Lane Cove, we headed home with a side trip for afternoon tea to a lovely outdoor cafe in Roseville near the tennis courts, Sous le Soleil.  Larry had his cuppa, and I enjoyed an Australian favorite, the Lemon Lime Bitters.  We shared a Berry Financier, which is not a banking professional covered in berries but is an almond cake with blue berries served with strawberry sauce.  This was just enough to tide us over until dinner after church.

It was quite a warm weekend, lots of sun, so it was good to be outside.  We'd gone to the beach on Saturday for about an hour.  From this scenic overlook spot, you can see three beaches:  Manly Beach on the far left, Freshwater in the middle, and Curl Curl on the right.

Sometimes I have to pinch myself when I realize I live in a place of such stunning beauty.

WHEW!

Whew, we are nearly done arranging all our worldly goods.  When we woke up on March 2, our house looked like this:

And then, just a few hours later, it looked like this!

We had just the one living area with monochromatic rental furniture - serviceable but boring.  Because we'd bought a refrigerator, the rental became a fixture mid-way between the dining and lounge areas.

The relocation movers arrived promptly, and somehow, they managed to maneuver the double lorry in reverse to park in front of our house.  No idea how they did it, since street parking is the norm in the area.  Driving a regular car is sometimes taking your life in your hands as you dodge oncoming cars by slipping into the spots between cars parked on the street.  The lorry driver, Adam, must be a miracle worker.

When the truck doors opened, there was our stuff, wrapped in brown paper and packing tape, and we began the effort of truly moving into our new home. The moving crew were wonderful.  They unloaded the truck in record time and placed each item in the designated room (more or less).

Larry and I worked on unpacking and putting away.  It was joyful to see our things again; however, having lived with the bare minimum for so long, we both felt like we'd shipped too much.

It feels like we've been unpacking for days, and not everything is completely settled.  But it's darn close!

A Few Additional Observations

I hit the grocery store early today, Monday morning, because the Oscars are on at noontime here.  That's one of the first observations of the day:  watching award shows over lunch instead of late at night.  On the plus side, I don't fall asleep mid-way through.  On the down side, if I get dressed up in my own living room, it's not as much fun.  And there's no one to compare ballots with.

Second observation is about shopping carts, or trolleys, as they are known here.  I don't know how they do it, but Australian trolleys are like hovercrafts.  They not only go forward and reverse, they can go sideways and diagonally.  Makes controlling them around corners an interesting type of exercise.

The grocery store I go to is in Lindfield and not tucked in a huge shopping centre.  It's not the greatest store, but it's conveniently close, and I don't have to fight the shopping crowds.  It has its own small carpark with its own narrow parking spaces.  That's observation three.  Even though the cars are more or less the same size, parking spaces are smaller.  And the poles that hold up the carparks are often part of the spaces.

I've finally gotten used to driving on the other side of the road, although I do still get in on the passenger side of the car instead of the driver's side.  Just every once in a while.  I've also started to build the "mental map" of how the roads connect to each other.  Hurray!

Our ship has finally come in, and all our personal goods will be delivered on Wednesday.  It's feeling a bit like Christmas!  I have no idea how the truck with the freighter crate is going to fit in our driveway or even on the street.  People in Australia park along both sides of the street so that driving can become a bit like playing chicken as you dodge into gaps to avoid oncoming cars.

Larry displays his parallel parking on a regular basis - going out for dinner, going to church, going to the beach.  I only parallel park if I can pull in front first.

When next I write, I will be sitting on my own couch with my feet up on my own coffee table.  And just maybe I'll be sitting in one of the rooms currently unfurnished and uninhabited until this week!

New Mums

Friday was a great day here.  I headed off to the New Mum lunch at Pymble.  What a fantastic event!  Within minutes, I'd met a woman from San Francisco who's been living here 6 years (married an Aussie).  Then we started chatting with a woman from Capetown, South Africa who'd just arrived.  We must have been giving out vibes, because we attracted the attention of a lady from Oxford, England who had also just arrived and whose husband works for Microsoft.  When we sat down to lunch, we sat next to a recent arrival from Hong Kong, originally from England as well.  After a flurry of comparing our experiences in house hunting (expensive) and school selection (many of the same considered), we settled down to a really delicious lunch.

Long story short, from noon to 3:15, I had a great time with a great bunch of women, many of whom are in the same situation.  And now I have a birthday lunch to look forward to in just a couple of weeks!

Weekend in Review

We had a very busy weekend.  Friday night, Nicole attended a Full Moon Party at the home of her youth group leader.  Since it was her first party, regardless of the agony caused, Larry walked her into the house and scoped out the goings on.  As she left the car, Nicole whispered to me, "You're my new favorite," before stomping along behind Larry.  She had a great time from start to finish and has made some nice friendships with the young men and women in the youth program.

Saturday dawned bright, sunny, and HOT.  Nicole prepped for and took her US Latin Mid-Term for most of the morning.  Once she was done, we headed off to the beach at North Curl Curl.  It was a perfect beach day.  The breeze kept the heat manageable. The beach wasn't too crowded. The water is crystal clear in Australia, and it is warmer than it ever gets in CT.  We lounged around in the sand and waded in the water to cool off.

Nicole picked out a movie Saturday evening, so we headed into Chatswood for a sushi dinner, a visit to Borders, and the movie. At Borders, we had one of the WORST customer service encounters of all time.  A few days ago, Larry had purchased a gift card for Nicole for Valentine's Day, and she was excited to use it. Turns out, they are selling gift cards but not telling the purchaser that they can only be redeemed when the total sale is twice the gift card amount. In other words, to use a $40 gift card, your sale has to be at least $80.  Nicole ended up paying cash for her books before we learned about this, and when we tried to return the books she's JUST BOUGHT, they refused to issue a refund.  We hadn't even left the store!  ARGH.  Australian Borders is OFF the list for us. 

As the situation was escalating, because even Larry was getting irate, Nicole hissed, "Don't make a scene."  And she left the store.  So we went to the movie, I am Number Four.  Very good, recommend it.

Sunday morning was HOT HOT HOT and Humid.  We headed off to brunch at Echo on the Marina.  Here is where we had brunch with new friends from St. Andrews Church:

Monday morning is cool and a bit rainy here.  Larry and Nicole have left for work and school, respectively.  I am blogging and listening to the news, which is a bit scary, to tell you the truth. What's going on in the Gulf and Wisconsin???