Aussie Aussie Aussie Oi Oi Oi Dictionary

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

The Things a Rental Will Let You Know.

As you know, we are renting a furnished apartment in Melbourne.  We love the area of town that we're in, located very close to lots of shops, cafes and bars.  We're in the city, but not the CBD, so it's busy but not hustle bustle.  Port Melbourne was a rough part of town several years ago, but it is slowly coming up.  It's right on the bay and all-in-all a great location about 7 minutes from the CBD.

There are many great things about living in a rental apartment like:
  1. Location - it's great.  Awesome, in fact.  What sold us on the place.
  2. Windows surround the living room.  Lots of natural light.
  3. No yard work.
  4. The landlord pays for any services that need to be done - air conditioning fixed, TV fixed, etc.
  5. None of the stuff in it is ours.
But, there are some things that are not so great that I'm glad I know now, before I thought it was a good idea to put them in our own home, such as:
  • Shag carpet/area rug - looks great, but in reality, it's a harbor for bits of everything, and a PITA to vacuum.
  • Glass coffee table - one day we came home from the tennis, and there was a huge crack across it.

  • Black granite countertops - they look great, but they are impossible to keep clean.  IMPOSSIBLE.
  • High gloss white cabinets - again, they look great, but they are impossible to keep clean - especially behind the stove.
  • Oven the size of a shoe box - Not good for anything, let alone baking or cooking a turkey.

  • Black tile and grout in the shower - again, looks good, but difficult to tell if it's clean or dirty, and if you got all of the cleaning solution off of it.

Sunday, June 24, 2012

The Motherload.

When we returned home from work on Friday, we were greeted by this:
Ohhhh...a care package, what could it contain!
 A care package from our dear friends, the Bartlett's.  We were so excited to open it up and see what it had in it...

Rest assured, it was opened by the Australia Post and was inspected by Quarantine.  Luckily, it all got through!
Luckily, we passed quarantine, though with some of the food inside, not
sure how!!
Jeff and I have had to give up some of our favorite American foods because it requires a 45 minute drive and a 500% mark-up on the prices that we are used to paying...

Jeff was smiling ear-to-ear about the boxes of Grape Nuts...he had a HUGE bowl on Saturday morning - too many bowls like that and they will be gone in no time.
I broke into a pack of the Cheez-It's today, and they are as delicious as I remember.  They will be rationed out, otherwise we'll eat a whole box in one sitting.

In addition, we were gifted with some little jars, Mexican treats, hot sauce, and a black bean recipe.

And, the best part...pictures of the kiddos.  They are proudly displayed around the apartment!

Thanks, Bartlett's, what a great surprise, we love all of it!

Sunday, June 17, 2012

An International Epidemic.

Rewind to a couple of weeks ago...our friends over at SchwingeninSwitzerland experienced a machete-filled dinner; there was a brawl outside of the restaurant.  They had front row seats as one of the men pulled a machete out of his pants...then used it.  You can read about it here.
image from entertainmentearth.com

Rewind to yesterday...Jeff and I were going on a home inspection (if you recall, we've been evicted), and were a couple of minutes early, so we decided to stop and get a coffee and snack for takeaway.  Then we wandered into a new fitness center (since we will likely not have a gym where we hope to move), then started on our trek to the potential new house.  As we were walking, we noticed that there were several police cars around, which is pretty abnormal.  Then we go to our inspection and didn't really think much of it.  As we were walking home, there were police EVERYWHERE.  Seriously, you couldn't turn around without hitting one of them...and we noticed that our grocery store was closed and seemingly on lock-down.  A little later in the day, I googled to find out what was going on....MACHETES in PORT MELBOURNE.  

As reported on 3AW693 News Talk Radio
"Police are hunting a group of 4-5 machete weilding masked men who robbed a Port Melbourne supermarket in broad daylight this morning.  

The group got out of a silver coloured VY or VZ Holden Commodore on Bay Street, Port Melbourne before entering the Coles and demanding cash from a number of cashiers.

They are believed to have emptied a number of tills before also entering and taking money from a nearby Bakers Delight.
They then fled with the cash in the same car.
Senior Constable Andrew Mutch said during a press conference that they were in the process of interviewing distressed witnesses.
"Dozens of members of the public witnessed the incident. Obviously a number of them are quite distrought over what has happened" he said."
So there you have it.  An international epidemic.  Please tell me that you haven't had a machete experience lately...
**For any family members that may be concerned...WE ARE OKAY.  I repeat, we are okay and were never in any danger.  Just for the record, our friends at SchwingeninSwitzerland are just fine, too!**

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Happy Birthday, Queenie!

As a part of the British Commonwealth, we celebrated Queen Elizabeth II's birthday with a day off on Monday (thanks, Queenie!).  

We bought a deck of walking tour cards at the National Gallery of Victoria, and it seemed like a great way to celebrate a birthday - with the tour called, "The Future is Now"...the tour included the Eureka Tower and the Docklands.
I am well aware that we are huge geeks for buying these and for
taking the tours.
Each card has a map on the back, taking you through the whole tour...
no more lost maps.
Eureka Tower is 297.3 meters (975 feet), and is the 9th tallest residential building in the world.  Much of the design of the building was based off of the Victorian Gold Rush in 1854, with the top floors having 24 karat gold covering the windows, a red strip representing the blood spilled during the rebellion.
The Eureka Tower is the tall building in the middle (this was not taken
on the day we did the walk - this was a beautiful day in the summer, not
the cold, misty, rainy, foggy day we experienced this past weekend).
It has a skydeck on the 88th floor, which is supposed to have amazing views...unfortunately, it was cloudy and rainy, so the view would have been about 10 feet in front of us.  We decided to forgo the view and headed down to the Docklands area.

The Docklands area used to be a huge saltwater lake and swamp...it is now the home to national headquarters of National Australia Bank (NAB), Australia-New Zealand Bank, and the Bureau of Meteorology.  In addition, it is home to Etihad Stadium, Southern Cross Station, and The Southern Star (Australia's answer to the London Eye...blog post on this coming soon...).


The Docklands also houses a pretty big collection of outdoor art.  
An ancient rome exhibit...and the warrior.
Mona Laura.
I. O. U.
Giant Bunny.
A hummingbird sculpture.
The Bolte Bridge as seen through the art installation below.
Made of pallets.
Yes, that is a cow in a tree.  A famous art installation in the Docklands.
And, that VERY colorful building in the background - the headquarters
of NAB.
Weird mushroom inspired sculptures.

Welcome to winter in Melbourne.

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

A Tour of the Port.

Just wanted to take you on a bit of a tour of Port Melbourne, T-bull style.
Welcome to Port Melbourne.

About two blocks away is Gasworks Park...no surprise that it is Jeff's favorite park :).  In Gasworks Park, you'll find many dogs (often MAD's - mangy a$$ dogs), families, and on every third Saturday, a farmer's market.  As with most of the parks in Melbourne, there is a lot of outdoor art.

A boy and his dog.  In a canoe.  Stuck on top of a 15' post.
A reality show created this sculpture and the next...LESS is ...
MORE.  They are the same sculpture viewed from different
angles.  Pretty cool. 
Also, this weird Hannibal Lector piece.
Cool puppy.
Just down the street from The Gasworks Park (and our house) is this great little wine bar - part of The Graham restaurant.  They have a great wine list (obvi) and awesome appetizers - Pork Belly Skewers with Black Pepper Caramel...who thinks of these things?  We may or may not have spent a couple of Saturday nights here over the last month. 
People, both inside the restaurant and out,
get the etched glass confused with the door.
Which is behind that gate on the left.
This is a cool old church turned apartment building.  The turret up there on the top left - that's someone's balcony with ocean views.
Probably wouldn't do you any good to go to
confession in here...
On the other hand, just down the street is this church, where you can have confession.  And, there is a Sausage Sizzle on Saturdays.  And sometimes yoga.  And also movie night.  It serves many purposes.
Community church.
From the church, if you look towards the city, this is what you see:
View looking down Bay Street towards the CBD.
And if you look towards the beach:
View looking down Bay Street towards the beach.  I love all of the palm
trees.   
Walking towards the beach from the church, you pass many local haunts, such as:

The Pokie - open from 10am daily, and taking bets (with bookies) on pretty much anything.  Dogs, ponies, footy, soccer, anywhere in the world...
Every little neighborhood has at least one Pokie - gambling of all types
is legal and encouraged...therefore, they make it easy by having a Pokie
every couple of blocks.
The local tile company, which also doubles as a bar.
The City Tiler is awesome.  They sell kitchen and bath tiles by day, and
by night it's a bar with live music.  They have one of the best outdoor
areas in Port Melbourne.
Continuing down towards the beach you'll find one of the five local grocers - three of them are organic, like this one, the other two are large chains.
While Thomas Dux is closer to our condo, it has a pretty small selection
and much of it is organic, which means that instead of being 2X what
we're used to paying, it's 3-4X. 
Just a couple of blocks from our house and a block off of the beach, you'll find this beauty...it's a hot-mess on Thursday, Friday, Saturday evenings, and the afternoon session on Sundays.  By the way, Hotel doesn't really mean hotel, it means bar.  Not confusing at all...especially after a couple of beers.
This place is crazy after dark.  It's pretty much a
meat market.
Just down the block from The Exchange Hotel is one of the best things about Port Melbourne - Third Wave Cafe.  They have unbelievably good coffee, to die for panini's, and fantastic brekkie - we love this place, and are there at least twice a week.
Our favorite weekend cafe
 (and a Top 10 Coffee House in Melbourne).
Everyone has a "local" - a local pub that they frequent...kind of like Cheers, where everyone knows your name.  Well, ours is oddly called The Local.  We go there at least once a week for Parma & Pot (Chicken Parm and a pot of beer) or for their comedy night on Tuesday's...we have been to Comedy Night three times, and we've gotten free tickets each time - not sure how they are going to sustain that business model.
Our local watering hole - The Local.
Once you get to the beach, you'll find a running path that goes for a long, long way...you can follow it all of the way out to the opening of the Port Phillip Bay - perhaps 75km or more...we don't run that far. It's so nice to run on the beach - you get good wind resistance most days, but no hills. 
The running path by the beach.  Those lamp posts...
ignore those - they are never lit. 
View of the beach looking east.  It was 9 degrees and people were swimming.
As you continue down the beach, you'll run into a couple of cafe's and restaurants.  This one is in our Cheap Eats book, with apparently good coffee and opera.
They play opera music VERY loud.  All the time.  I came running around
that corner one day and almost got impaled by a guy carrying a table -
legs out.
You'll also see many of these 'row homes'.  They are traditional Melbourne style, with very narrow street frontage, but very long.  Many of them have their porches glassed in so that they can enjoy the balcony without the bitterly cold southernly winds.
Beach front Melbournian-style homes...many that have been there for
years and have been renovated.  
One of the few truly beach-front restaurants - and one without any vowels.  They have the best hamburger that we have found - it has a ton of toppings, including pickled beets.  Sounds odd, tastes delicious.  They also have the best french toast and lots of fresh squeezed juices.
Beach front dining.  But only from 8a - 4p.  No late nighters here.
 In addition to the running path, there is also a bike path...that has traffic lights.  I love this.
Go, go, go.
And, they mark which side of the bike path you should be on...bikes drive just like the cars, on the left.
It was an awesome winter day - most winter days
it's rainy/misty...but today it was all sunshine
and blue skies.
The Victorian is a cafe/bar that we just recently found.  Again, only open from 7a - 3p...and we just found out today that they are "temporarily" closed...not sure if that means that they are on holiday or if their limited hours limited their ability to succeed (oddly enough).
Love the building signs...
The Victorian.  They have/had a "coffee flight"
so that you could try different varietals of coffee.
Too bad we hadn't done that yet...
And, the Post.  I took a picture of mailbox because if I took a picture of the actual post office, it would be closed.  Again, they are very customer friendly and are open from 10a - 4p, Monday - Friday.  No  late evenings, no weekend work.  This is as much as we ever see of them...this and their closed shops.
Wonder if they actually make money...unlike the USPS.
Hope you enjoyed this little {read: long} tour of Port Melbourne...hopefully you will get to experience it when you come to visit us!  We'd love to show you around!

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Evicted.

This past Thursday we were notified that our condo is being put up for sale.  Seeing as we already have one house, we're not really in the market for another mortgage...especially not one that includes pictures like these:



I kid you not, I tell these pictures everyday how much I hate them.  

So, now we begin the task of finding a new apartment or house to rent for the next year plus.  As we have looked online, there are very few places that are furnished in our part of town, so we're keeping our fingers crossed that our real estate agent has some secret connections of furnished places near the beach.

We went on an inspection on Saturday (that's what they call Open Houses in Oz), and while I remember what it looked like it is only because I can refer to the pictures on the website - the inspection was from 11:50 - 12:00, and the agent was rushing us out of the house at 11:57...

So, wish us luck on this journey which will likely send us a couple of blocks back from the beach...