I have never lived anywhere that the trees (and apparently even some of the vines) turn such vivid colors! I love it, so I took a few pics while walking to the train station :)
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Wild Ways in OZ
So, its been a whole month since we moved down under! It's gone by so fast but also feels like yesterday that we left. The last month has been a crazy whirlwind of new experiences of being in a new country and I thought I would share some of the things that I find strange :)
1. Louie driving-- Brian coined the phrase for left side of the road driving haha! It's weird but not as bad as I thought, Im still nervous to get a car and actually have to drive around! On our roadtrip Brian tried to get in the passenger side for the first few stops and when I was out with the real estate agent I tried to hop in the driver side! Not quite used to the steering wheel on the right.
2. Food-- The menus are tricky because they call things different from what Im used to. First, they call appetizers, "entrees" and entrees, "mains". Second, they even change the name of food! Hot Chips and Tomato Sauce = Fries and Ketchup- whats really weird is when you see a bottle of tomato sauce (ketchup) and a jar of tomato sauce (for pasta) next to each other at the grocery store, Capsicum = Bell Peppers (I have no idea where this came from...), Prawns = shrimp- I already knew what that was but whats weird to me is why everyone thinks Australians say "shrimp on the barbie" when I have never heard it called shrimp (when I said it they even corrected me and said "prawns?")
3. Speaking of barbie... They shorten soooo many words! For example: brekkie = breakfast, bikkie = biscuit, arvo = afternoon, sunnies = sunglasses, uni = university, garbo = rubbish bin :) , bevy = beverage, chardie= chardonnay... seriously the list is endless and I think people keep thinking of new ones!
4. How are you going? - I am assuming this means "How are you doing?" so I answer "good... " Nobody has corrected us yet so we're going to keep going with it!
5. Measurements- kilo, kilometer, kilojoules (for calories), celcius, meter UGH Im sick of having to think so hard to convert these!!!!
6. We have had to fill out forms for different things so far and whats really weird to me is they ask for your surname instead of last name and everytime the date is written it is day/month/year which is constantly confusing me, especially when its 10/5/11 -- sure seems like October 5th but its actually today May 10th!!
7 Nobody says ANYTHING when you sneeze! No: God bless you, bless you, gazuntite- nothing, and its weird
8. Toilets- I don't want to call it a toilet, so far I have refused to but I know it wont last forever. If I ask where the bathroom is, they look at my like "Ma'am, why in the hell would we have a bath at this restaurant!!!" haha but seriously the word toilet is gross and I dont want to have to ask the waiter where the toilets are-- it might ruin my appetite!
9. Why change the name?
1. Louie driving-- Brian coined the phrase for left side of the road driving haha! It's weird but not as bad as I thought, Im still nervous to get a car and actually have to drive around! On our roadtrip Brian tried to get in the passenger side for the first few stops and when I was out with the real estate agent I tried to hop in the driver side! Not quite used to the steering wheel on the right.
2. Food-- The menus are tricky because they call things different from what Im used to. First, they call appetizers, "entrees" and entrees, "mains". Second, they even change the name of food! Hot Chips and Tomato Sauce = Fries and Ketchup- whats really weird is when you see a bottle of tomato sauce (ketchup) and a jar of tomato sauce (for pasta) next to each other at the grocery store, Capsicum = Bell Peppers (I have no idea where this came from...), Prawns = shrimp- I already knew what that was but whats weird to me is why everyone thinks Australians say "shrimp on the barbie" when I have never heard it called shrimp (when I said it they even corrected me and said "prawns?")
3. Speaking of barbie... They shorten soooo many words! For example: brekkie = breakfast, bikkie = biscuit, arvo = afternoon, sunnies = sunglasses, uni = university, garbo = rubbish bin :) , bevy = beverage, chardie= chardonnay... seriously the list is endless and I think people keep thinking of new ones!
4. How are you going? - I am assuming this means "How are you doing?" so I answer "good... " Nobody has corrected us yet so we're going to keep going with it!
5. Measurements- kilo, kilometer, kilojoules (for calories), celcius, meter UGH Im sick of having to think so hard to convert these!!!!
6. We have had to fill out forms for different things so far and whats really weird to me is they ask for your surname instead of last name and everytime the date is written it is day/month/year which is constantly confusing me, especially when its 10/5/11 -- sure seems like October 5th but its actually today May 10th!!
7 Nobody says ANYTHING when you sneeze! No: God bless you, bless you, gazuntite- nothing, and its weird
8. Toilets- I don't want to call it a toilet, so far I have refused to but I know it wont last forever. If I ask where the bathroom is, they look at my like "Ma'am, why in the hell would we have a bath at this restaurant!!!" haha but seriously the word toilet is gross and I dont want to have to ask the waiter where the toilets are-- it might ruin my appetite!
9. Why change the name?10. Take away- For some reason that I still can't understand, restaurants have to have a certain license to be able to take food to go (or take away as they call it) We found this out after we ate all of our "chips and tomato sauce" and saved most of our food which would have heated up wonderfully, then we were thoroughly disappointed when we couldn't take it home, something about how they dont want us to get sick from reheating food?! (needless to say I ate way too much- the thought of throwing away our delicious food was rough)
Ill update more strange things later-- I should start writing them down so I dont forget :) I just found out they have Cadbury Eggs year round and Iv'e been getting one everyday-- see, new things all the time!!!
Sunday, May 1, 2011
GREAT OCEAN ROAD-TRIP
We recently got back from our first Australian road trip down the Great Ocean Road and it was so amazing!! We left Easter Sunday and got back Wednesday afternoon. I had planned different things to do everyday but for the most part we were just leisurely driving down the beautiful coast without feeling any rush or stress, so it was a very relaxing trip!
Day 1: Wine Tastings :)
We left Melbourne and headed down to a small little wine region (they have a larger wine valley that we hope to go to soon) in the Bellarine Peninsula. The driving was a little stressful for Brian but I think he did a great job!! We were only able to go to 2 wineries but they were both great, especially the second one which had a nice view of the ocean, fields of grapes and sheep! It was so nice to sit around with our new bottle of wine and just enjoy the scenery.
After a while we decided we had enough wine and needed to get settled in our hotel, which luckily had a restaurant! While there we had the most amazing mussels I have ever had (also known as the only mussels I have ever had-- but seriously they were so good I can't stop thinking about them! haha) Finally, we headed up to bed in the oldest hotel I've ever stayed in... It was built in 1888 and looked it! The rooms were very old and we had to use the restrooms down the hall, which was strange, but it was still pretty neat to be a place like that- although I may decide to stay elsewhere if we ever go back!
Day 2: Coastline, Treetop Tour
We woke up and started off down the coast. It was so pretty with the cliffs and huge waves (sooo many surfers-- the water had to be only like 50 degrees (or 10 C!-- I'm still not used to the temperature, 20 degrees sounds pretty cold to me but apparently it feels wonderful!) It took about an hour and a half to get to the Otway National Park. This is a forest full of Eucalyptus trees, huge ferns, and a million other different types of plants! It looked very tropical to me, which was a little surprising since we were just at a winery! I had us signed up for a treetop tour where we could walk up as high as the trees... I decided that would be better than the zipline tour-- Brian would probably disagree :) It was fun, but I would much rather be on the ground (even if there may be snakes down there!) I must be scared of heights because I was pretty much the only one who looked terrified! Small children, elderly people and everyone in between seemed to think it was perfectly normal to be 100 feet off the ground on a small grated path that shook every time you took a step-- some even thought it was fun to shake the walkway-- I did not like those people!! GRR
After our forest fun, we started out toward to 12 Apostles--the whole reason we planned this trip! They are massive rock structures, 150 feet high on the beach (created by erosion-- I guess the huge waves do some serious damage to that limestone, forming caves, then arches, then- the 12 Apostles!! Thanks Wikipedia) They had a whole visitor center, pathways and great picture taking areas, which was crucial because so many people wanted to take pictures-- Including us, we took about 100 pictures of this same area, but at the end I think we got some amazing shots!
Brian wanted to head out early to see some of the coastline that was too dark to see the evening before and I'm so glad we did! We stopped at an area near the 12 Apostles and it was just as beautiful without all the crowds. The sea cliffs were amazing and the areas where the waves had created caves and arches were breathtaking! We could have spent a whole afternoon looking at all the views... here are a few...
Knowing what we had in store at our next adventure, we left to head to Lavers Hill where we were staying WITH the animals!!! I was so anxious to see kangaroos and koalas, so we specifically went down to this certain area on our way to see if we could see koalas up in the eucalyptus trees in the wild (Brian had heard about it from someone at work) So, down this whole road lined with trees we were both staring up the whole time, real safe. After I had practically given up, Brian spotted one so we pulled over, hopped out and got out our super zoom lens! There was not just 1 but 4-5 koalas! They were so cute, just snoozing, yawning and eating-- apparently thats all they really do. We took a ton of pictures because we were just in awe of them. When we finally decided we had enough, we left for the cabins we were going to be staying. They were very modest accommodations but it was worth it to walk out our door and get to feed, touch and of course, take pictures of the wildlife! We saw wallabies, pademelons (smaller versions), kangaroos, emus, flying squirrels, parrots, wombats, and my personal favorite, KOALAS! I loved being so up close and personal with the animals, they even let me go in the koala area and feed them leaves and pet them. I wanted to steal them! We also had so much fun feeding the kangaroos, pademelons and wombats.
Day 1: Wine Tastings :)
We left Melbourne and headed down to a small little wine region (they have a larger wine valley that we hope to go to soon) in the Bellarine Peninsula. The driving was a little stressful for Brian but I think he did a great job!! We were only able to go to 2 wineries but they were both great, especially the second one which had a nice view of the ocean, fields of grapes and sheep! It was so nice to sit around with our new bottle of wine and just enjoy the scenery. After a while we decided we had enough wine and needed to get settled in our hotel, which luckily had a restaurant! While there we had the most amazing mussels I have ever had (also known as the only mussels I have ever had-- but seriously they were so good I can't stop thinking about them! haha) Finally, we headed up to bed in the oldest hotel I've ever stayed in... It was built in 1888 and looked it! The rooms were very old and we had to use the restrooms down the hall, which was strange, but it was still pretty neat to be a place like that- although I may decide to stay elsewhere if we ever go back!Day 2: Coastline, Treetop Tour
We woke up and started off down the coast. It was so pretty with the cliffs and huge waves (sooo many surfers-- the water had to be only like 50 degrees (or 10 C!-- I'm still not used to the temperature, 20 degrees sounds pretty cold to me but apparently it feels wonderful!) It took about an hour and a half to get to the Otway National Park. This is a forest full of Eucalyptus trees, huge ferns, and a million other different types of plants! It looked very tropical to me, which was a little surprising since we were just at a winery! I had us signed up for a treetop tour where we could walk up as high as the trees... I decided that would be better than the zipline tour-- Brian would probably disagree :) It was fun, but I would much rather be on the ground (even if there may be snakes down there!) I must be scared of heights because I was pretty much the only one who looked terrified! Small children, elderly people and everyone in between seemed to think it was perfectly normal to be 100 feet off the ground on a small grated path that shook every time you took a step-- some even thought it was fun to shake the walkway-- I did not like those people!! GRR
After our forest fun, we started out toward to 12 Apostles--the whole reason we planned this trip! They are massive rock structures, 150 feet high on the beach (created by erosion-- I guess the huge waves do some serious damage to that limestone, forming caves, then arches, then- the 12 Apostles!! Thanks Wikipedia) They had a whole visitor center, pathways and great picture taking areas, which was crucial because so many people wanted to take pictures-- Including us, we took about 100 pictures of this same area, but at the end I think we got some amazing shots!
After our picture taking frenzy we left for dinner and rest at our new hotel in Port Campbell, only a few minutes down the road.
Day 3: Kangaroos, Koalas and Wombats, OH MY :)
Brian wanted to head out early to see some of the coastline that was too dark to see the evening before and I'm so glad we did! We stopped at an area near the 12 Apostles and it was just as beautiful without all the crowds. The sea cliffs were amazing and the areas where the waves had created caves and arches were breathtaking! We could have spent a whole afternoon looking at all the views... here are a few... 
Knowing what we had in store at our next adventure, we left to head to Lavers Hill where we were staying WITH the animals!!! I was so anxious to see kangaroos and koalas, so we specifically went down to this certain area on our way to see if we could see koalas up in the eucalyptus trees in the wild (Brian had heard about it from someone at work) So, down this whole road lined with trees we were both staring up the whole time, real safe. After I had practically given up, Brian spotted one so we pulled over, hopped out and got out our super zoom lens! There was not just 1 but 4-5 koalas! They were so cute, just snoozing, yawning and eating-- apparently thats all they really do. We took a ton of pictures because we were just in awe of them. When we finally decided we had enough, we left for the cabins we were going to be staying. They were very modest accommodations but it was worth it to walk out our door and get to feed, touch and of course, take pictures of the wildlife! We saw wallabies, pademelons (smaller versions), kangaroos, emus, flying squirrels, parrots, wombats, and my personal favorite, KOALAS! I loved being so up close and personal with the animals, they even let me go in the koala area and feed them leaves and pet them. I wanted to steal them! We also had so much fun feeding the kangaroos, pademelons and wombats. And, thats all folks! We woke up the next morning and headed home to Melbourne! It only took us about 2 and a half hours to get back. I realized while driving back that the Aussies are very against driving while fatigued-- strange I know, but there were signs all over saying to pull over and take a power nap if you were feeling sleepy. They even had rest areas to take a nap at! Our car even made a beeping sound (like the one that goes off if you dont have on your seatbelt) after we had been driving for 2 hours to let us know it was time to rest. Haha its really weird...
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