Hello Goodbye

I say goodbye, and  you say hello......

After 8 months in the land down under, Motes has officially left for the US. A bittersweet moment for her as we will be apart for about 2 months after I return from the US in July, but she's wasted no time in reuniting with her 2nd favorite tied for 1st favorite being in the world:

While we both wish she could've stayed longer in Australia, it made sense for her to fly home as she could return to her old job and make some $. Plus, she was running out of re-runs of House to watch during the day.

We did celebrate her birthday the beginning of the month. I am notoriously horrible at keeping surprises, but I was able to play it off like we were just heading into the city for a regular birthday dinner, only to have some of our friends surprise her on the ferry into the city and join us.

Type of restaurant Motes would like to go to on her birthday.....

Survey Says:

Sushi, of course!

They weren't able to put a candle in her chocolate filled strawberry tempura. Nice improv though:

Everyone loves sparklers! Unless you're a communist

Unfortunately it was raining, but we were able to take in some of Vivid Sydney, which is a light show put on every year for about a month in the city. They play light shows on buildings throughout the city. 

Light display on the Museum of Contemporary Art in Circular Quay

A light show on the Customs House in Circular Quay

Unfortunately her stay didn't work out quite like we envisioned, but we both agree it was a once in a lifetime experience and well worth it. We made some friends whom we look forward to staying in touch with and will try to convince them to come visit us in the US. Well, as long as I don't botch up our relationships while running solo down under.

Don't worry, this love story has a happy ending, eventually. I'll be home soon for 10 days before returning to Australia alone for about 2 months where Mere will join me for a couple of weeks in Thailand.

Melbourne and the Great Australian Beer Spectapuar

So when I asked Mere if she wanted to go  to Melbourne the last week in May for a beer festival, she shockingly turned me down. Not to be deterred, I was joined by a buddy from work. We had volunteered to help at the Great Australian Beer Spectapular - a craft beer festival with 92 specially brewed beers from breweries all over Australia, New Zealand, as well as some from the UK, US, and Japan. We flew in Friday night to attend a session as consumers, volunteered the Saturday afternoon session, went to the Saturday night session for free, and volunteered the Sunday afternoon session. Needless to say, that's a lot of beer. Between my buddy and I, I think we probably tasted 80 something of the 92 beers (not sure if we should be proud of that?)

Melbourne is only a 1.5 hr flight south of Sydney in Victoria. Melbourne is known as a much hipper Sydney - with a booming bar/club and restaurant/cafe scene. I absolutely loved what I saw of the city.

Flinders Street Station across from our hotel

Degraves - one of many alleys in the city with restaurants/cafes on both sides and outdoor seating

The above ground trollies reminded me of Boston. Never thought I would ever say I miss riding the Green Line. (Ok, maybe 'miss' is a strong word)

Many of the alleys are also covered in ever-changing grafitti

The festival was held in the Royal Exhibition Center - a beautiful large building built in 1880, about a 20 minute walk through the city from our hotel.

A picture of the beerhall setup

We had to get RSA (Responsible Service of Alcohol) certified in order to help out -  which wasn't hard (half the people in our class could barely speak English and still passed) but ate up an entire Saturday. The bright spot is that I can always fall back on a new career if I need to:

We actually sampled more beers while volunteering - which made the late flight back on Sunday a little more bearable, at least for us. Probably not to those sitting around us as we smelled like a brewery (when the kegs kicked while we were pouring, it would basically explode all over us).

The festival was a great time and we met a lot of cool people also volunteering, and got to talk to a bunch of the brewers.

My 3 favorite beers:

Barrique O Kama by Feral Brewing in Perth: A Citra hopped Black Ale fermented in french oak barrels. This was delicious - a variation of their beer from last year's festival - Karma Citra, which is also very good.

Death from Above by Garage Project in Wellington, NZ: an Indochine Pale Ale brewed with mangos, Vietnamese mint, and chiles - my vote for best beer of the festival, they've actually bottled this to sell.

Acid Freaks by Brew Cult in Victoria: a Baltic Porter infused with craft balsamic vinegar (made by the brewer's brother). This was surprisingly good, although they said the end of the keg just tasted like salad dressing.

Overall, it was a fantastic trip. I'll definitely try to get back to Melbourne to see more of the city as most of our time was occupied by the festival.

A Little Slice of Home

You can only Tim Tams you can eat before you start missing some of the food from home. With only a month left until we make our first return to the States, you really start thinking and planning on where to eat. There aren't enough meals in a day. I like a lot of the food here, and most of it is very similar, but I really miss a few things; namely - bagels.

For a country with such a big coffee scene, you figure bagels would be a little more prominent. And I don't mean the 'bagels' that are basically a roll with the middle cut out (see Dunkin' Donuts), but real authentic bagels.

I had read about a pop-up bagel shop in the city: Brooklyn Boy Bagels - started by an ex-pat from Brooklyn who was tired of the lack of bagels in Australia. Open every Sunday for a couple of hours out of a laundromat-turned-bar:

Looks pretty unassuming, and I thought we had the wrong place

warmer.....

warmer.....

Mazel-Tov!

Went with the Everything with Cream Cheese (along with a dozen to go)

Speaking of things we miss back home, we've been watching the Bruins playoff games online on a couple of days lag. In the instant information age we live in, it's pretty hard to avoid the outcomes of the games, but we've made it to Game 5 of the Round 2 with the Rangers (which we are about to start). I had a couple of close calls (thanks Sean and Robby for almost spoiling the epic Game 7 comeback agains the Maple Leafs in round 1)

Now only if we could get Trader Joe's over here, we'd feel right at home. Yes, we've contemplated opening a rip-off version called Trader-Joeys (after the baby kangaroos. Clever, yes, we know).

I just got back from the Great Australian Beer Spectapular in Melbourne this past weekend and will blog about it soon. My palate is still in recovery mode.

Let's go B's!

CAIRNS

Last weekend we flew north to Cairns (pronounced with a Boston accent: Caihns) in Queensland to scuba dive the outer Great Barrier Reef since we were rained out during our Hamilton Island trip.

We hopped on a boat for 2 dives on Saturday. We skipped the 3rd dive for fear of decompression sickness b/c of our departing flight early Sunday morning - you're supposed to wait 18-24 hours after a dive before flying. Mere tried to convince me to do the 3rd dive anyways, which I found alarming giving her nurse practitioner background. Good thing we didn't try it since our return flight was rerouted to Brisbane for 2 hours because of too much fog (no joke) in Sydney and we only had enough fuel for the initial estimated flight time (super scary if you think about it). At least they gave us $8 food vouchers to use at the Brisbane airport, which bought us 1 muffin (thanks Jetstar!).

I was skeptical to come back out to the reef giving the poor visibility we had in the Whitsundays, but I'm so glad we made the trek:

Thank God we finally found Nemo! Mere now has nothing 1 less thing to obsess over

This turtle was awesome. He would swim right up to us. Maybe because the guide was ripping up stuff to feed him - which we found a little disconcerting since all they preached on the boat was about conserving the reef. Others on our dive were petting the turtle and one woman was sticking her hands in all the giant clams so they would close. Mere and I were the only ones not to touch anything. Let me rephrase that last sentence. Mere and I were the only ones not to touch anything...on purpose. There was a narrow cave-like corridor of coral to swim through - which I was unsuccessful as my O2 tank crashed against the overhang. Underwater I think I could her Mere's disappointment. I took video of our dive and it's easy to see when I smash into the coral as the camera turns into the Blair Witch Project all of a sudden. I won't post that video, but below are some Christmas tree worms - you can see a couple of them disappear as I approach.

Mere put the rest of the pictures up on her facebook page.

Good thing the diving was so cool, because as a city, Cairns was a dump. It felt like a mix of a backpacker hostel and the emptiness of Detroit (based on what I've seen on the news about present day Detroit since I've never actually been there, so this analogy may not be accurate at all). The hostel hotel Mere found for us on www.whereserialkillerslive.com Tripadvisor was right next to a strip club, which we both thought about going into to kill some time rather than spend any extra time in our hotel room.

Still a weird concept to get used to: heading north for tropical weather. It was still very warm in Cairns while the weather in Sydney is starting to turn as we head into fall/winter. It's in the 50-60 range in the mornings and nights and usually hitting high 60s-70 during the day. So far we've been lucky and not had much rain.

The past couple of days have actually been warmer in Boston -which will be a good thing when we fly home in June to visit. Well, at least I'll be visiting. I will be home for 10 days, and Mere will actually staying in the US until I come home in October. She will join me at the end of September to travel Thailand for 2 weeks.

Hard to believe we've been here for almost 8 months so far. Definitely looking forward to coming back!

ANZAC DAY

...Lest we forget

First, I just wanted to state how thankful and fortunate we were that none of our friends or family were hurt during the Marathon bombings and manhunt in Watertown. Our thoughts and prayers are with those affected by these tragic events. It was insane following the events online from so far away, and I couldn't imagine how scary it was for everyone to live through back home. It sounds kind of weird, but we have not been more homesick than we were last week. Something about the need to be back home and around friends and family during a time of crisis. Boston Strong

Thursday April 25th was ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corp) day, which commemorates all Aussies and Kiwis who have served in died in all wars, conflicts, and peacekeeping operations. While I didn't have to go into the office, I had to work remotely to cover the US, so we were unable to head to a pub to play 2 Up. 2 Up is a gambling game where one throws 2 or 3 coins in the air and people bet on whether it will land heads or tails. This game is illegal every day except on ANZAC day. So, while I missed out on 2 Up, I was able to hang out with 2 of my favorites over here, as we have been dog sitting for our friends for the past couple of days:

 The Dynamic Duo! Still up in the air on who sleeps more during the day

We've also been enjoying a nice Staycation the past couple of days as our friends have let us stay at their house while watching Dixie. They live in Balgowlah Heights, a suburb about 5-10 minutes from where we live in Manly Beach.

Balgowlah Heights is the purple shaded region on the left, Manly is directly across the Harbor just above the Map Key.

It's been nice to get away from the hustle and bustle of the beach/tourists. Plus this view from the dog park is pretty sweet

We've also been able to practice our driving a little more, and as a plus, I think I've convinced Mere on getting an SUV at some point when we get back (though probably not a BMW)

Let's try to forget the fact that it took Mere 3 drives to figure out the MPH (miles per hour) was not the KPH (kilometers per hour) and that I was totally justified in freaking out in the passenger seat as she was speeding

POINT BREAK

A couple of weeks ago, the world's most famous surfer - American, Kelly Slater, dropped by Manly Beach as part of the fundraiser Surfers Against Suicide. (Not Surfers FOR Suicide as I had been mistakenly calling it. That would be a terrible charity). I had gone surfing in the morning and overheard Slater was flying in to surf, so I came back down to the beach to get some photos and watch him in action.

Slater making his way through the crowd to get into the water

Wish I could take credit for this photo - taken by a friend of a friend

That's probably the best action photo I was able to get...should have brought the bigger zoom

The next day, my mate Steve and I headed out to do our best Slater impressions

Steve is significantly better than me, so I left out pictures of him ripping it as I didn't want to get shown up. This is my blog so I can do what I want

I'm keeping my hopes up for a small role in Point Break 2 (yes, they are actually making this!). I will waive my No Swayze, No Ways-ie policy once this movie comes out. I will, however, keep it in place for Dirty Dancing 2: Havanna Nights

What's on Tap

Next week I hope to get my RSA (Responsible Service of Alcohol) license in time for volunteering at the Great Australian Beer Spectapular at the end of May in Melbourne. I'm going with a buddy from work and Mere surprisingly turned down the opportunity to spend 3 days beer-geeking it out - http://gabsfestival.com.au/ 

Mere and I booked a trip for the 2nd weekend in May up to Cairns in Queensland to Scuba-dive the outer Great Barrier Reef, so we hope to get some sweet pictures from that.

Here's to a chill rest of the weekend:

Happy Birthday Jax!

Just want to wish a happy birthday to Jax. Can't believe that f*cker is already 3 years old. I still remember picking him up from the shelter at 8 weeks and 13lbs (and no behavior issues).

 This was a sign of things to come.....

 We've been getting our dog fix from our friends whom we met on the wine tasting tour during our vacation. They live about 5 minutes by bus from us in Bowgolah Heights and have a 120lb Leonberger (Newfoundland/St. Bernard/Bernese Mountain Dog mix) named Dixie. He's no replacement for Jax, but he'll do for now:

On another note, Mere worked Friday and Saturday of this week, bringing her grand total of employment contribution to a whopping 4 days! And, on Friday, she saw a pod of dolphins during her commute on the ferry. I've been on the ferry every day to work since October and haven't seen any dolphins. All I get is a delay due to the birthing of the cruise ships in the harbor - (when the tugboats push the cruise ship against the docks. This creates a delay as the ferry has a single bolt propeller and can't handle the whirlpool in the wharf created by the tugboats). The other day the tugboats completely botched the birhting, so we sat on the ferry in the harbor for 40 mins. Guess the tugboats didn't read the baby books!

Luckily, no birthing issues with the GreenPeace ship. With a boat like that though, maybe they will stop bugging me for $ on the street

Due to daylight savings in Australia last week (fall back) there is now a 12 hour difference b/w Sydney and Boston, meaning I am on the early work shift starting at 6:30am. To balance this, the plan is for me to leave the office early at about 3-330. Unfortunately I haven't left before 5pm yet, but next week looks promising. One good thing The only good thing to come of this, is that I am able to see the sun rise and set during my commute. 

Sun rising over the north head

Sun setting behind the harbor bridge

I'll leave y'all with another sun rise

More posts to come (and more frequent, this time we mean it)

Scuba Peeps

Hey Gang


We decided to skip church and the easter egg hunt this year and instead go hunting for some sharks. We booked a scuba dive on Saturday up at Magic Point to swim with some Grey Nurse Sharks. They were once considered man-eaters, but its been proven that they rarely attack humans and if they do, its only if provoked or attacked. We made sure to check this information before booking the dive and I made sure Mere was on her best behavior under water.

This is me giving the it's all good sign before the dive. Basically the opposite of how my March Madness Bracket turned out. First time ever going 0-4 in picking the Final Four.  Thanks Australia!

Magic Point is a coastal headland in Marouba - about 10km South of center city Sydney and has a large Grey Nurse population. We took a boat from Little Manly Cove out past Bondi Beach to the dive site, about a half hour ride. I use the term 'boat' loosely as it was more of an aluminum bath tub with a motor packed with 10 divers and all of our gear.

We dove down to 22 meters (about 66ft) and sat at the bottom to watch the colony of sharks swimming about. Grey Nurse Sharks can get up to 3 meters (9ft) but I'd say most we saw were around 5-8 ft.

Yes, even though they were no danger, the Jaws theme song still plays in your head as they swim around you.

After being under for 30 minutes, we surfaced and got on the boat for a break before our 2nd dive. Now, I've never been sea sick in my life, but the swells were pretty big and sitting in heap of crap didn't do much for me as I thought it would be a good idea to 'feed the fish' (puke) before the 2nd dive. Luckily for me, I somehow channelled college Mark and was able to rally and go on the 2nd dive. Also luckily for me, it wasn't the college Mark that puked on Meredith freshman year. I would probably still be in the ocean.

 During the 2nd dive, we returned to the shark site and got some pictures swimming above the sharks

In regard to that sardine can we arrived on, we're definitely going to need a bigger boat! And I need to finally learn how to spell definitely! Took me about 8 attempts. 

Here is a Wobbegong Shark, which are bottom dwellers that look like they are wearing Desert Storm camo. They were kind of upstaged by the Grey Nurse.

Here is Nigel, the massive Blue Groper who had a personal relationship with our dive master Sharkey. He let's people pet him as long as they hold up some sea urchins for him to open and eat.

A black polka-dotted nudibranch

American Moorish Idol - way better than Adam Lambert

We also saw a Sea Dragon, but didn't get a photo of it as the rest of our dive group got their asian tourist on and crowded around it snapping pictures until it swam away, but below is what they look like.

Next time, I'll have to figure out if the Grey Nurse sharks like Peeps. Happy Easter!