Handy time zone clock (and help needed)

Hi folks,
Here's a handy little time zone clock that you can add to your Favorites list (http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/custom.html?cities=152,202,75,627)

Now the help needed - the reason I was on the 'time and date' site was because I was trying to figure out when a talk radio show about the Bears was being broadcast online (there's a 'converter' on the site above that lets you put in a date/time and determine the equivalent in other time zones). However, unfortunately I can't figure out if and when the actual games are broadcast on the radio/online? If someone can find a website that streams that Bears real time you will be my her0 :)

Cheers,
Sweany

ps. by the way, the footy grand final was a blow-out - it was the biggest point difference in finals history, but it was still fun to watch our the local Melbourne team Geelong, which is actually a suburb on the west side of the city, win it for the first time in 44 years. Now if only the Bears could do the same :)

I love the library, but...

Greetings everyone! As the title of today's entry states, I do love the public library and certainly appreciate being able to use the public computers for 1 hour per day, but I am happy to report that I am writing this entry from the comfort of our apartment. It is nice to be able to stay in my pajamas while the wind and rain howl outside and still get my list of "Tasks for Today" completed. I hope this finds you all very well, and still possibly chuckling from watching the Driving In Australia video clips. If you need another chuckle, here's what our 'home office' looks like right now :)

Note the sweet beanbag chair- and let's just say that Andy and I are very lucky that we love each other so much- otherwise the putting-together of that chair last Saturday could have very well put us both right over the edge. You can use your imagination in deciding which 'edge' you would like to picture us falling off

Life continues forward down here- it is weird that tomorrow morning will have us living here 5 weeks already. Footy Grand Final Fever is at the forefront of every good Aussie's mind. I even walked past a few shops this week which had signs on the door stating that they would be closing at noon on Saturday due to the Footy game. We're looking forward to seeing what this tradition holds for us tomorrow.

Andy is managing his daily commute via 1 train ride and 1 bus ride. He got it down to just under an hour by Wednesday morning. I won't write too much about how on Tuesday morning he must have been zoned out, because he ended up missing his train stop, so had to go to the next station, wait for the next train going back the way he had just come....

Tuesday was an interesting one for both of us regarding trains. I myself got stuck spending nearly 2 hours completing what should have really been a 15 minute trip. But I certainly know which station that Target store is at now!

I heard back regarding a couple of the resumes I had send out a few weeks ago, so that is encouraging.

Here's a few fun things we learned this week:

*How to operate our stove!!! And you are only going to know all about it if you come see it for yourself- in our desperation, we finally had to ask our neighbor to come over and give us a visual demonstration. I don't know if I've ever wanted to cook a frozen pizza so badly.

*Hitting kangaroos is the #1 car insurance claim in this country. Followed by hitting dogs. :(

*The possums down here have bushy tails, like the tails of raccoons in the states. Andy and I watched 2 walking down the street and then climbing some trees from our front porch on Wednesday night, but had no idea what they were. Andy thought they were cats, but I wasn't convinced. Then some of his co-workers shed some light on the subject for us on Thursday.

*Some restaurants (pubs mostly) over here require you to go to the bar to order your food, and then they give you one of those table alert devices that you usually get when waiting for a table at a restaurant, and when that goes off, you have to go down and pick your own order of food up! I think this is pretty fun, but I've got some waitress experience backing me up. I wonder if a lot of food quite possibly never makes it back to the table on one's plate.

In closing, here's a description of the pictures at the top of the page taken within the past week: one of me biking at Fawkner Park (which is at the end of our block), one of Andy relaxing on his beanbag throne on our first Sunday night at our new apartment, and a shot of downtown from Albert Park- we biked around that park on Sunday afternoon last weekend. Be well- we love and miss you all. And you know, I was not joking when I posted our home phone number and wrote that we were hoping to hear from many of you soon. :)

Cheers!

Christy

Highway to Hell- Driving In Australia #3

You have to turn the volume on your computer way up for the full effect of this one to hit ya~ This took place on our first entrance onto an Australian freeway- I believe the significance speaks for itself. He He :)

Driving In Australia #2

My favorite part of this one is when Andy runs the windshield wipers when attempting to use the turn signal. This continued as a source of amusement throughout the weekend :) Well, amusement for me, but I wasn't the one driving. Not sure if Andy found it entirely amusing.

Driving In Australia #1

As promised, a few videos of our first attempt at driving in Australia :) Enjoy~

Our 1st Invitation to an Aussie Party :)

I know this sounds kind of dorky and totally desperate, but it is with great excitement that I write that Andy and I have received our first official Invitation to an Aussie BBQ Party for the AFL (footy) Grand Final game taking place this Saturday afternoon. Ok, so I admit that the invitation came second-hand through a co-worker of Andy's, and I also admit that I had to write this co-worker back to clarify a couple of items noted in the invite about which I had no idea what to think, but I am choosing to accept my desperate and dorky side. I know that anyone reading this blog knows just how dorky I can tend to be some days/nights :)

Cheers!

Christy

Home Phone Number

Hi all. Our home phone line is all set up - the number is 03-9867-8959. My dad called me this morning, and to reach us from the US he dialed 011-61-3-9867-8959. Thanks for doing the trial dialing, dad!
We got moved into our new place over the weekend and had some fun and scary experiences with our first 'Driving on the Wrong Side of the Car & Road' car rental. I have some snippets of video to share, but am currently without internet access from home for the next couple of days still, so will post soon.
Hope this finds everyone well. We look forward to hearing from many of you soon.

Christy

More Melbourne pics for your viewing enjoyment

Hi boys and girls,

I've added some more pictures of our travels around Melbourne to our existing Australia photo set on Flickr (the link below should take you right there). Another trip to the city last weekend reminded me what a fascinating city Melbourne is and the fact that it's a 'real' big city (like Seattle), not a pretend one (like Portland). The Portlanders will know what I'm talking about.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8437412@N03/sets/72157601794987955/

For those wondering about Buddy: I talked to Zach Halstead yesterday morning and he is getting ready for his road trip to Alaska. From Eugene, OR to his new place it is 2600 miles, so him and Buddy will have lots of time to bond :) However, the trip will be worth it - the place in Alaska basically has it's own trout lake and is surrounded by wilderness. The people renting the other portion of Zach's house have a 3 yr black lab so Buddy will have a partner in crime as well. All in all, Zach, Spike and Buddy are all going to love it.

Bon voyage Zach and Buddy - here's to new adventures all around!

Our Address

Andrew & Christy Sweany
3/14 Park St.
South Yarra- Victoria 3141
Australia

In case you need reminders of how to get ahold of us via our mobiles:
Andy's number is 043 051 0801
Christy's number is 043 051 0802

We've both upgraded our phones to include additional international minutes with the US. We're hoping to have our home internet set-up shortly after we move this Friday, so then we can begin using Skype.

We had a pleasant weekend- spent a bit of time on Friday walking around the area of our new apartment. Stopped for a celebratory Stella and snack. Visited an Irish Pub and felt more at home than we have since leaving Portland. Hhmmm...wonder why? :)
Saturday we trekked to a new part of the city and purchased Andy's bike, which we have already nicknamed 'Rusty.' Visited the local home improvement store to have additional sets of apartment keys made. Our for pizza and rented our first movie, which we watched on our computer. Sunday we biked and took the train downtown to Federation Square- met up with one of Andy's co-workers and a friend of his- saw a movie at the Australian Center for the Moving Image, followed by a couple of beers and snacks at a riverside bar and restaurant. I was really feeling like home then, because it was rather nasty weather and rainy, and still we kept sitting outside enjoying good beer, conversation, and views of the river.

Hope all is well. xoxoxo

Christy

Empty Apartment Pictures

Hi everybody. We signed the lease and got the keys for our apartment yesterday- here's some pics. We're not really moving in until next Friday- they are still doing some painting over there in the next week. The kitchen (particularly the stove and oven) leaves a little to be desired, but what can you do? I think the bedroom opening onto a little front patio makes up for the kitchen. It is an exciting location and we are more than ready to move down there. I'll send out the official address as soon as I double-check to make sure I am writing it correctly!Today we are off to try to find a bike for Andy, followed by some fridge and mattress shopping if we get around to it. Happy weekend! xoxoxo Love, Christy and Andy

Dare I write that we have an apartment?

Hi everybody. I hate to push our luck too much, but the meeting to hand over our deposit and first month's rent is scheduled for 2pm tomorrow, so I feel pretty confident in announcing that we have secured an apartment for ourselves for the next 12 months- Hooray! What a relief. I was beginning to feel a bit panicky with our move-out date quickly approaching on Sept. 21. We thought we had one lined up over the weekend, and then found out on Tuesday morning that there had been some sort of "miscommunication" at the rental office as to who was in charge of that account- one agent offered the place to us, another agent offered it to another couple. So as of Tuesday at 11am, we decided to start over and search both furnished and unfurnished apartments. We found that most of the furnished places were quite small, and you were really paying quite a bit for things that, in the long run, would be cheaper to just go ahead and buy and own ourselves for the next 2 years. I'm talking very necessary things here, like a mattress and a refrigerator. Weird- from what I'm told and from what I've seen, many apartments over here don't normally come with a fridge. Who knew?! The place we'll be moving into next Friday is an unfurnished 1 bedroom apartment located in the South Yarra area of town. It is a great location- we've got a tram running right down our street, the South Yarra train station a 10-minute walk away, parks at both ends of our block (the Royal Botanical Gardens happens to be one of them!), the bay a short distance away, and tons of shops and restaurants all within walking distance. So I guess Andy and I will be out looking at refrigerators and mattresses this weekend. We are excited to get moved and start making our own place an actual home for ourselves. Here's a picture of the building- our place will be the top floor on the left.

We're hoping to catch a Footy game downtown on Saturday night. The start of the NFL season prior to us locating a pub at which to watch the games has almost been too much for Andy to take :)

We ate our first Kangaroo on Tuesday night- Kanga Bangas- pretty much like hot dogs, but not very flavorful. After we ate, Andy admitted that he felt a bit bad eating kangaroo.

President Bush was over here in Sydney last week for the APEC conference- it was interesting to watch and read the news, and to see how the country of Australia prepared for and talked about him and his visit. I'll leave it at that on that topic.

Hope all is well with everyone. It has been another up and down emotional week for us, but we've been listening to a lot of Todd Snider's song, "I'm Just Happy to be Here at All" to remind us of the important things. Worst case scenario, we live in a sweet hotel for a week :)

Cheers!
Christy

First Friday Pub Visit Video (hopefully!)

Hi everybody. This was from last Friday- just now figuring out how to try to upload it to share. Enjoy. An extra "Cheers!" to the Daby family from us today- congratulations, Jon & Shana! Welcome to little Wilson Daby xoxoxoxo

Christy

Rebuilding

From You Can't Go Home Again by Thomas Wolfe:
For he had learned some of the things that every man must find out for himself, and he had found out about them as one has to find out- through error and through trial, through fantasy and illusion, through falsehood and his own damn foolishness, through being mistaken and wrong and an idiot and egotistical and aspiring and hopeful and believing and confused.

So, this little quote really hit home for me earlier this morning as I read it. All over here continues to go well, but I feel like the reality of this move is really starting to sink in. I had a bit of a discouraging day out looking for apartments yesterday. Wasn't I just saying like 2 weeks ago how excited I was to get out there and see all kinds of different options for living again??? Amazing how taking public transportation and walking around a large city equipped with a map book, only to arrive at a rather dingy apartment, followed by another dingy apartment 2 hours later can so quickly get old and discouraging. On the bright side, however, at least there is a wonderful public transportation system available in this city, at least Andy and I had the foresight to invest in a detailed Melbourne map book our second day in town, at least we have the money for a deposit and rent as soon as I find that perfect place that I just know is out there waiting for me to come see it......maybe tomorrow. Oh, and wait- actually, we don't have the money because it is impossible to transfer money to yourself from your own United States bank accounts to your own Australian bank accounts without physically being in the US to sign to wire the money. This is a detail that would have been exceedingly helpful to know prior to both Andy and I boarding that very large plane taking us from LA to Melbourne. For future reference for all of you :)

Before we left, we had the discussion/joke a few times with various people about how our 2 years over here would probably be like one long vacation. Let me just tell y'all- we are definitely not on vacation! More precisely, I feel like we are attempting to rebuild huge chunks of our lives over here- establishing Australian credit, considering leasing a car, trying to find somewhere to live, starting and looking for new jobs, estimating how much we think we should spend on rent, etc. As I joked with my mom on the phone earlier this morning, I do none of those things while on vacation!!! I haven't even interviewed for any jobs over here yet, and I'm already looking forward to my first Australian vacation :)

Here's a few recent funny/weird things that have happened to us:
*We went to see The Bourne Ultimatum movie on Saturday night- the movie theater we went to had assigned seating. Amusing to us that the back 3 rows are entirely full, but every other seat in the place is open. I wonder- do people ever revolt once the movie has started and move seats??
*You have to pay for ketchup at most of the places we've eaten so far! The first time I went to get some off the counter and came back to the table, Andy asked me if I had paid for that. I said no, was I supposed to? He said he thought so- I went back in and asked the guy working- he laughed it off and told me to go ahead and take it. But sure enough, I had to pay $1.00 for some at the fish and chips place we ate at on Saturday night.
*There are meat butcher shops (yes, plural) at the mall!
*The bacon is really, really good! Bill Bryson was right.

Ok- enough for today. Cheers!

Christy

Some pics from week #1

Here's some pictures from the past week. Sorry for the short message but my computer is running out of juice :)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8437412@N03/sets/72157601794987955/