Leah & Drew's Adventures in Australia: May 2017

Well it has certainly been longer than I intended before my next blog post. We have been travelling quite a bit, and when back in Sydney we’ve had some very full weekends.

It feels like we are finally starting to settle in, and I think that is due to a number of factors. The main contributor is that we have finally sorted out our housing situation. It’s a rather long story, mainly centred around renovations that were dragging on for over a month that limited access to certain rooms, and our inability to access the attic room for over three months. We diligently tried working with our rental agency, but only received resolution to our issues when we promised them a trip to the tenancy tribunal. Thankfully, that major stress is behind us, and importantly we’ve now been able to fully unpack and relax in our house more. I no longer wonder what problem I’m going to come home to, and it is truly nice to feel relaxed at home.

Another major contributing factor to settling in is meeting new acquaintances, and, hopefully, soon to be new friends. Both Drew and I have very nice coworkers, a few of whom have had us over for dinner, which has been really nice. We also finally met our relocation agent, as she had a wonderful dinner about a month ago where we met a lovely couple she had settled in about two years before.

We have started to attend the Uniting Church in Paddington, and so now it feels like we have a faith home. Mainline churches in Sydney are very interesting, as they tend to skew quite socially conservative, which is a bit odd for such a progressive city. In addition, the inner-city churches have tiny congregations, but apparently the farther out suburbs have the bustling congregations. We attend the evening worship at our church, and we like it because it is participatory in the sense that we are invited (but not forced) to share our reflections on the scripture or sermon. We also really like that our congregation is an affirming congregation, which means that is inclusive of all people regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.

The last thing that has really helped with settling in is having enough of the basics, so that we don’t have to constantly run out and buy things. Mostly, this is relevant to the kitchen, as we love to cook but didn’t have enough of the necessities (ex. Pyrex containers or dishes), which made cooking frustrating. Now that we have the kitchen stoked appropriately, it is much more enjoyable to cook.

Drew with our Thermomix

In the not a kitchen basic, but totally awesome, department, we recently bought a Thermomix. It is a multi-cooker; instead of buying a bunch of small appliances, we chose to buy one appliance that did most of the functions of the others. We just had it delivered on Thursday by our consultant (they’re sold via in-home sales), and I was really impressed, as she unpacked it with us and explained in detail how to use it and helped us make a vegetable stock paste. When she left we made an amazing butternut squash (or as the Aussies call it, pumpkin) risotto, and last night we made a beef stew with dumplings that was delicious. We highly recommend watching the Thermomix episode by the Katering Show, as it is a pretty hilarious comedy show that featured the Thermomix on an episode. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yr_etbfZtQ

We’ve also bought a few hobby items, which has been nice, as we couldn’t bring any of that with us due to space constraints. In March I bought a sewing machine, so it has been very nice to be sewing again. I bought a Janome, which made me a bit sad because I love my Pfaff machines back home. Unfortunately, Pfaffs are prohibitively expensive here, and not very popular, so it’s hard to pick them up second hand. I also had intended to buy a machine on Gumtree (Aussie Kijiji), but the prices were just ridiculous, and I didn’t want to buy someone’s lemon. So far the Janome is doing well, and I’ve made some cushion covers with it.

April & May were big travel months for us. We went to Adelaide one weekend in April for a conference Drew was attending. We had a great time on the Saturday as we started with an amazing breakfast; I had a beauitful, and more importantly tasty, waffle. Then we went on a McLarren Valley bike tour, which saw us biking in the forest, and biking to two wineries. As we were driving to our first stop we quickly realised the other people on the tour were also attending the same conference as Drew. They were a lovely group from Melbourne, and we really enjoyed our time biking and visiting cellar doors with them. They even invited us to Jamie’s Italian for dinner, which is Jamie Oliver’s restaurant in Adelaide. Apparently, they had made the reservation two months prior, just to make sure they could get in. I did some touring in Adelaide on the Sunday before coming home, and Drew attended the conference for a few more days.

Drew biking

Overlooking the McLarren Valley

My tasty and beautiful waffle

Over Easter weekend we went to Jervis Bay to take in the famed white sand beaches and to dive for the first time in Australia. We tried Airbnb for the first time, and it turned out to be great. We saved a lot of money on accomodation, and our hosts were very friendly and welcoming. We had an amazing shore dive with an independent dive instructor, who operates out of her home/garage. We saw 29 stingerees (very similar to stingrays), octopi, wobbegongs, and a grey nurse shark (an endangered species). The dive instructor was extremely knowledgable, and even had a hot shower at the back of her dive van! The white sands also didn’t disappoint. The sand was so soft, and squeaked when we walked on it!

Leah at Greenfield Beach

Leaving Jervis Bay (far behind Drew)

Fitzroy Falls on the way home from Jervis Bay

The most amazing donuts! This is in Berry.

Last weekend we went to Brisbane, and had a great time. I took the Friday off, so I could make a long weekend out of it. I went on an excellent walking tour of Brisbane on the Friday, and learned a lot about Brisbane. I took in other sights by walking, and I also did a fair bit of shopping, as the prices were very reasonable in Brisbane compared to Sydney. Drew was attending the conference the whole time, so we went out together for dinner in the evenings. Drew really liked the conference centre in Brisbane, and said it was nicer than some of the big ones he had been to in the US.