Taste the Ocean! 🌊

It's been a crazy few weeks but we are back to recap some past events.

I would like to present the BIRTHDAY BOY! Now Shout Hurray🎉🥳 I would always tease Travis about how his birthday is in such a terrible month and now that he has a birthday in the summer for a change that’s a pretty nice gift in of itself methinks. When I first meet Travis he didn’t put much emphasis on his birthday or birthdays in general. While I'm not a "go all out" birthday type person either, I think that at the very least everyone must have a delicious treat on their birthday.

Anyway, this new hemisphere may have jumbled up his brain because by the end of his birthday this year he’s talking about celebrating both his Canadian AND Australian birthdays since they don't both coincide at the same time due to the international dateline. This sudden change of heart surprised me. I had a good laugh about it. His new idea is to have a “surf” meal for his Aussie birthday and then a “turf” meal for his Canadian birthday. Additionally, he told me we should always do some activity that is Australian for his Aussie birthday like swimming and something Canadian the day after. The plan for this year's birthday was to get gelato (a commonplace item), a seafood platter and then take a nice long walk on the beach. Travis loves gelato but it is a bit expensive. Ok, a lot expensive so we always share. Unfortunately, Travis loves black liquorice which means he doesn’t get it that often. His eyes lit up when I suggested that we get black liquorice for the birthday boy. So that’s what we did but I ended up getting one for myself, so it was a win for both of us. We were still in Aspendale at this point and we asked Meg and Wayne for a recommendation of a good place to get seafood. So off to “The Bridge”. We took the train to the restaurant and planned to walk home along the beach. It reminded me of being at Granville Island because the restaurant is along the pier. The seafood platter was yum (a common way to describe a food item that is yummy by the Aussies) and we were both able to try oysters for the first time.

It must be an acquired taste as many Aussies we have met seem to love oysters. They are on all the menus here. I have never had an oyster and neither had Travis. He went first because it was his birthday. His facial expression is priceless. Meg agreed that oysters taste exactly like the ocean. She told us as a kid her dad would frequently bring them to the ocean for a mouthful of water. Add that to the list of natural remedies and old wives' tales. Considering how much they cost, Travis said if we ever feel the need to eat oysters again, all we need to do is open our mouths in the ocean. 

Some pictures of The Bridge restaurant. It was a bit windy but we decided to brave the wind and eat outside. It had a very nice view but was maybe a little too windy to eat outside. 

Our beach walk after dinner. Although we were stuffed from eating a lot of seafood (bet all the seagulls are jealous) so it was good to go on a walk afterwards. The colours of the sky faded beautifully from blue to pink and orange as we strolled back home. I would say it was a successful first Aussie birthday for Travis and one he will never forget. The next day would be his Canadian birthday but he said he would only celebrate his Aussie birthday while we are here.

Mattress or no mattress? No MATTRESS! At the beginning of January Travis and I were browsing the internet and looking at the potential mattresses that we might want to buy (I'm always thinking far in advance). We wanted a mattress-in-a-box but we needed to discover the Australian equivalent. Koala is their main brand, how fitting… We also found a german brand (EMMA) that ships worldwide. After researching them both we bought the EMMA. And huzzah it was the last day of their boxing day sale (yes they have that day too). it was half price!! So we scored a mattress for only $500! life-hack many mattress-in-a-box companies have 50% off deals on boxing day. The only problem was that we were in our airbnb so where would we ship it to?? The sales rep said that we could delay the delivery by one month. Crisis averted! So after Travis and I got the keys I stayed in the apartment and waited for the delivery. I wait a few hours and no delivery. I waited a few more hours and still no bed. Finally, after calling the company, they told me if it wasn’t there by then it would be the next week since it was a Friday. I gave up hope and headed back to Aspendale.

Our time with the Dingos came to an end. I’m sure they are happy to have us strangers leave their pack. The apartment agent was kind enough to give us the keys a few days early to move in. Even though we didn’t have a mattress yet I wanted all our stuff over to the apartment ASAP. Up until this point, we were unable to shop for anything because it would require us to store it in Aspendale and then haul it to the city. We were originally going to hire an Uber to transport us and our things from Aspendale to the CBD but we thought that we could save some $$ and take the train a few times each to move our stuff over (It's about an hour ride on the train from Aspendale to the CBD). Let the thrifty lifestyle begin! After getting the keys Travis decided to go back and start the multiple trips but then Wayne came to our rescue (it’s a good thing Travis is really chummy with them). I rode in the front and Travis sat on the floor haha. We said goodbye to our generous hosts. They have been total lifesavers for us; helping us get on our feet here has been such a blessing.

Ready, set go! That’s right, it's off to Ikea, Costco, and grocery stores for the dreaded restock. While it is very easy to get around in public transport, not having a car is a challenging adjustment. The simple things like buying something moderately heavy or just going to multiple shops in the same day is now much more of a strategic op. Often, many trips are required and you may end up caring things down the street. Now that we have done this a few times it's not unusual to us when we see a couple blokes carrying a table from one apartment to another. At Costco, we got some pillows, a knife set, a desk chair, and a few food items. I have this Ikea “backpack” full of food while caring the knife set in one hand and pillows in the other. I'm surprised the Ikea “backpack” did not break. Sometimes miracles just happen against all odds. Travis had the task of carrying the desk chair. Looking back we are very grateful that we decided to get that desk chair because we ordered bar stools as our kitchen chairs and they took a looooong time to come. So, if it wasn’t for that desk chair we would have both had to eat on the floor for quite some time. Instead, we took turns each night. 

And then there’s Ikea…while it has many things we wanted Covid has disrupted the supply chains so it's very low in stock. We were forced to order most things that we need that won't come until March 😭. 

About the knives. The only explanation I can give is that Travis loves cleaver knives and they just happened to have these Japanese ones at Costco. Travis loves to chop veggies and his weapon of choice is the cleaver. This called for his warrior pose...or Haka pose now that we are in the land down under. 

One other thing we had a hard time finding was salt🧂. Every store we went to were all out of it…can you believe that?? A salt shortage!!! Travis is waiting for the moment when we can tell our future children we couldn’t even buy salt during the pandemic. One evening we walked past this Asian store and Travis thought we should go into and look around. He found salt! We went without it for a few days and were very glad to have it back in our lives (especially Travis…he loves salt😋). Good lesson here, you might have to look in an unsuspecting place to find what you’re searching for. 

We also needed a laundry drying rack as we didn’t buy a dryer. The reason for this is most people don’t have dryers here. It saves money on your electricity bill so we decided that it wasn’t a necessary item to get.

Moving in style! At 4 pm on Sunday, we loaded all of our things in Wayne's Combie. It was hot as (remember your Aussie slang?). The air conditioning in the Combie were two little electric fans attached to the dash.  It needed a lot of encouragement and prayers to keep that machine going. We stalled many times on the way to the CBD (one of the gears just wouldn't go in) and we were all a bit nervous that we weren't going to make it all the way. It was a fun little adventure and a good memory. Since Wayne owns a lot of motorcycles and vintage sports cars with very few seats, the only vehicle he owns that can fit a few people and luggage was the Combie. It was our first Combie ride and one to remember. 

We used to spend a lot of time riding the trains to and from Aspendale and many of the CBD terminals are up to 4 floors underground as you can tell by the very very steep elevator. The intercom commonly reminds you not to hurry as people have slipped all the way down and hurt themselves pretty bad…ouch. Now that we are full-fledged inner-city folk, we just walk and use the tram. 

Aussie term of the day:

Flash: is short for flashy ie, that’s a bit flash, isn’t it?

Thought you'd seen it all eh? This giraffe would disagree!