Australian Adventures

Big Hole in the Ground

2007-07-23T08:49:00.000-05:00

News from Texas:

~Maintenance decided it would be a good idea to go ahead and replace our drywall, respackle (sp?) the wall and ceiling and give everything a poor paint job. I don't know why they thought they should do this BEFORE ascertaining the chimney was fixed. It POURED yesterday while I was at the library and I came home to find a puddle in my fireplace. How do you make an eyes-rolling emoticon?

~You know you're in Texas when you see a hearse made out of a pick-up truck.

~You know you're in the Bible Belt when Harry Potter comes out, your local library only purchases 10 copies, and no one comes to pick them up the day they're released! (Mike and I bought one copy and are reading it aloud to each other. While this is great fun, it makes it rather slow-going, so don't anyone spoil it for us!)

~We FINALLY found a gym. We were going running at our duck pond but it's turning into a horribly muggy Texas summer. We thought we'd try the local YMCA, figuring it would be cheap. Unfortunately, it was ridiculously expensive, rather Stepford Wives-ish, gave the decided feeling of a cult, AND we were already asked to join someone's church--just because we were getting a tour of the facility. So we checked out another gym, only to discover that the only plan we could afford put limits on when and how many days you could go to the gym. But hurrah, we persevered, and found a gym just down the street. Now we can run in comfort!

~And last but not least, our trip to Arizona! Our friends Emily

and Tim (he's saying the word "blog")

are working at Northern Arizona U--Emily is the flute professor, and Tim is heading up the music preparatory department. They invited us out to give a masterclass/coaching at the summer music festival held at NAU, thereby making a tax-deductible trip to the Grand Canyon!

We had a great weekend with Em and Tim--playing with their puppies, playing duets without warming up (!), visiting Sedona, meeting a bunch of their colleagues, and walking part of the rim trail at the GC. Texas is not as interesting as Arizona!

Church in Sedona built right out of the rocks. The view is spectacular. How you'd ever pay attention to a sermon I cannot say!

The Big Hole in the Ground. It really is quite grand!

Proof we were there :)

The trail that leads to the bottom of the canyon. (There's just a few switchbacks...) Now that we've found a gym, maybe someday we'll be well-trained enough to hike that!

The World's Largest Kokopelli, in Cottonwood, AZ. How could I not get a picture with this guy??

6 months

2007-07-06T21:04:00.000-05:00

Hi everybody!
Today is our 6th month anniversary. I was just in Portland this past week, and when I left, my mom requested that I take our piece of cake that we'd saved from the wedding. Laura told me that if we kept it to a full year, it would be throroughly disgusting, so we decided to put this cake out of its misery tonight.
Of course, this is cake that was in my mom's freezer for the past 6 months, then was placed in my backpack, handled through airport security, tossed in an overhead bin and then squished in our overflowing freezer...This is the result of its journey:

It actually didn't taste as bad as it looks. The frosting was a little pasty but the cake itself was still very tasty.

And just to report in on our marriage--we both seem pretty pleased with the first 6 months. We'll give it another 6 and see how things go :-)

~Ruth Ann

Agua update

2007-06-16T10:28:00.000-05:00

This morning we had a huge downpour. I'm very sorry to have to report that our chimney does NOT have "no more leaks;" in fact, things look very much like they did before. >:-P All that leaping about for nothing!

Muchos agua

2007-06-14T19:39:00.000-05:00

I was just berated by one of my friends for not posting regularly. So, Emily K, as promised, here is your blog. We expect comments!!!

First of all, we just bought new furniture. FINALLY. We have both a den and a living room in our apartment, and were suffering from a lack of furniture. The den had a futon that was once my uncle's, but the living room became the catch-all for anything we needed to dump or laundry that was trying to dry. Recently, the futon began to spontaneously shed armrests and we began to think that we should really have some furniture when guests came over. Luckily for us, Rooms to Go was having a sale, and we are now the proud new owners of a couch, a loveseat, and an armchair. They are all VERY comfortable and very nap-inducing!

(You can still see what's left of the futon!)

In other entertaining news, our ceiling has a hole in it.

Our chimney has been leaking pretty much since we first moved in. I think we've become a bit of a running joke with maintenance because we always have a puddle of water in our fireplace. An contract roofing company has been in charge of fixing the problem and kept patching it from the outside. Finally, after about the 5th time this hadn't worked, they sent a crew to check out the inside of the apartment. This crew consisted of one very Texan supervisor, and three men who only spoke Spanish. After checking out the chimney, the supervisor turned to the rest of the team. "There's a problem with meoo-chowus ah-gwah here. Do you understand? Meoo-chowus ah-gwah!!!" He promised to send a team to rip out the sheetrock and fix things from the inside, then went away.

A few days later, I was innocently taking a shower. Mike was off teaching, and, since our bathroom has no fan, I was showering with the bathroom door open. Suddenly I heard some thumping of workboots up our front steps and a knocking on the front door. "COMING!!!!!" I squealed and FLEW out of the shower. I just knew that it had to be my Meoo-chowus Ah-gwah men, and that if I didn't let them in on my own terms, maintenance would be there with key in hand. So I kept squealing "COMING" as I hopped around the apartment, digging for my bathrobe. When I opened the door, it wasn't Mr. Texan standing there, but a very astonished (but very polite) Mexican man who spoke very little English. (Certainly his English didn't cover the fact that I was standing there in a bathrobe, but this is probably a good thing.)

They spent several hours cutting holes in our ceiling and finally left us with this lovely patch:

But before he left, my polite but astonished Mexican proudly told me that there would be "No more leaks!" I'm happy to report that he is good to his word!

I am still hoping that one day we may have the ceiling completely patched and looking like a ceiling again. There's also the problem of the wall...the rain made the drywall so wet that when I went to poke it to see just how squishy it was, my finger went right through!!!

Meoo-chowus ah-gwah indeed!

~Ruth Ann

Many things to tell!

2007-06-06T20:10:00.000-05:00

Hello to our faithful readers from your not so faithful bloggers!

We have been meaning to write a blog for a while but, SURPRISE!, we haven't gotten around to it until now! Lots has been going on lately. We finished off the school year with a bang. We're still teaching over the summer but much fewer students: I have 2 so far and RA has around 10. One of the big exciting pieces of news: RUTH ANN IS MAKING BASSOON REEDS!!! I taught her how and she has made her first reed. I'm very proud to say that it makes a sound! It doesn't play very well, but that is because I didn't give her a very good piece of cane to start with. Here is a picture of the lovely reed.

Now, my plan is to teach her how to make all my reeds so I don't have to anymore!!!! Every Double Reed player's dream!

Juliana turned 2 last week. We had the exhausting fun of going to the birthday party. Here is the birthday girl in her birthday splendor:

There were lots of her friends from across the street. Eric grilled hot dogs and everyone had a lot of fun. I learned that Skittles, birthday cake, and bratwurst don't mix so well in one's stomache.

Our latest excitement was a trip to Santa Fe! Ruth Ann had an audition there and I thought I had better go along and take care of her :b. Ruth Ann advanced to finals but alas, they gave the job to the local sub. BUT she is on the sub list so we're hoping she'll get to play with them sometime. When that happens, I think I may need to go along to make sure everything is alright! We liked Santa Fe so much that we didn't want to leave! RA's aunt and uncle let us stay at their place. The took us to all the haunts and restaraunts. We had some of the best Tex-Mex food ever. On Sunday we went to Bandelier N.P. There are numerous Anasazi ruins and some of the ancient cliff dwellings.

There was one dwelling that we had to climb 140 feet to get to! We were comforted by the fact that many thousands of Indians went before us....

Despite RA having to 'work' on our little vacation, she and I both had a fabulous time and feel very rested. Even though we'd rather still be there.

~Mike

Juliana and Diego!

2007-05-01T18:31:00.000-05:00

When we're not practicing in Texas, we spend our time plotting how to entertain Mike's niece and nephew.

Juliana will be two in a few weeks. She likes me OK, but LOVES her Tio Michael. As soon as she sees him walking up the drive she begins to scream "TIO MICHAEL! TIO MICHAEL!!!" and bounces all over the house.

Diego (born on Christmas Day of 2006) doesn't really seem to be phased by either of us. He's perfectly content to suck on his fist (or our fingers), and as long as he's given something colorful to look at, is perfectly happy. (He is fascinated by Mike's odd mouth sounds, but then--who isn't?!)

~Ruth Ann

Strawberries and swans

2007-04-27T12:44:00.000-05:00

We've been quite busy here in Texas! Mike recently discovered a pick-your-own strawberry farm down in Arlington. Last Saturday we headed out and had a wonderful time. I had never picked strawberries before but now I'm hooked!! It's a not-too-big farm but very family friendly. There was a light breeze blowing and strawberries EVERYWHERE, plus the house right next to the farm had a charming set of windchimes. We got so excited by the berries that we ended up picking about 18 pounds of red happiness. (They melt in your mouth....yum.....!!!) We quickly consumed about 6 of those pounds and froze the rest, but already the freezer is getting empty. Today we're headed back and will try to show some restraint, but I doubt that's going to happen!!

In other news, teaching is going well, I guess. I'm starting to get a lot of calls for summer lessons, so I should be fairly entertained with that. I'm hoping that if I get my hands on the kids before certain band directors come anywhere near them, the kids might actually stand a chance. I'm encouraged because one of the mothers actually asked for my recommendation on an instrument, so maybe more will follow suit.

This weekend we both have what should be a fun gig. The program is for Peter and the Wolf and a bunch of other random pieces that don't truly go together. Mike will be playing P&W, but I've been called to play second on a Looney Tunes medley. Should be the easiest $250 I've ever made!

In other unrelated news (this blog is seeming like the program we'll be playing this weekend!): Our local library has a nature preserve out back, and since it's spring, all the baby ducklings are in full force.

Once we actually saw a mother duck with 20 babies following behind! I'm not sure if she was running a day care or what, but I was truly impressed. There are also 2 swans with their little ones in tow. There were orginally 6 baby swans, then 5, then 4, and now we seem to have settled at 3, which is how it goes, I suppose. :o( But they're all adorable!!!!!

~Ruth Ann

Medieval fair and my MOM!!

2007-04-16T20:02:00.000-05:00

Due to the persistant requests of RA, I'm finally writting a blog! Sorry for the delay. I've been spending all my time making reeds for my students. There are a lot of horrible store bought reeds out there-and they're charging an arm and a leg for them.

We've had some amusing times. A few weekends ago we went up to Norman OK, where I grew up before moving North Dakota, to visit my friend Chris. While there we went to the Norman Medieval Fair, which I have fond memories of from my youth. Unfortunately, things do not stay the same. It was about 10 times bigger and the clientele moved towards the bizzare. There were a lot of people dressed up in medieval costumes. There were also a lot of people dressed as medieval 'skanks' and the Goth look was in, too. A big highlight was the 'Smee and Blog' show. These were two guys well into their 50's dressed as dungeon guards doing a song and dance routine.

All the songs were changed so the words were medieval dungeonish and cheesey. It was entertaining in the scratch-your-head-in-confusion sort of way. But the real reason we went to Norman was a show Chris's Improv group did. It was hilarious! Definitely the highlight of the trip.

Another amusing event happened whist we were clothes shopping. I tend to wear my clothes until all of them wear out at the same time. This means I have to spend a huge chunk of time trying on a whole lotta clothes. Luckily, Ruth Ann agreed(or insisted) she went along. While I was trying on pants in the dressing room, RA was outside waiting with a pile of shirts for me to try on. There was some other guy trying stuff on who was coming in and out. He said to RA "Is that your son?" RA said "Ummmm....No, he's my husband." Weird guy said "Oh gosh, I feel embarassed! He looked so young." RA: "No, he's older than I am." WG: "Oh wow, he looks so young!" RA: "No... he's older than I am." WG: "Oh wow...'Cause he looks so young!" RA managed to finally convinced him that yes, I was her husband and not her son.

We'll pass along more Texas stories as they come.

~Mike

The real question is--does Mike look 12 or do I look 45?!?!
~Ruth Ann

Ruth Ann vs. the Texas Band Monster

2007-03-14T11:02:00.000-05:00

I kept bugging Mike to post a blog but he never did, so I guess it's up to me!

Things in Texas are moving along pretty well! We both have part time teaching jobs in various school systems, which is both good and bad. I, for example, am teaching, which is good--we like money!! But I'm teaching in one of the richest school districts in the country, which is bad. I have 6th graders playing on golden headjoints and an 8th grader playing on a $5,000 instrument. The fact that they sound terrible does not deter them or the band directors at all. I haven't quite figured out what my role is for the school--I was as much as told by the assistant band director that what I say in lessons will not apply in band class, so I'm not really sure why I'm there. Except to steal away all the good kids and create my own private studio!!

In other happy news, we have purchased two new-ish cars. We are now the proud owners of Arctic Blast, a silver 2004 Honda Civic, and Midnight Thunder, also a 2004 Honda Civic (black). Midnight Thunder is the sexy car--tinted windows, spoiler, the works. Somehow, that's become Mike's car. Hm...

Next week is my birthday and my mom is coming to visit. We'll have to see some of the sights--Mike and I haven't had too much time for tourism yet. And the last weekend in March we're headed up to Oklahoma to visit Mike's friend Chris. New state for me!!

Oh yes--we finally had our first thunderstorm of the year. We didn't get any thunder in Australia, so I was VERY excited!! The storm system lasted over an hour, with a good lightning show, too. I'm looking forward to many more storms--Texas style!!

~Ruth Ann

Our apartment

2007-02-06T15:27:00.000-06:00

The sun is shining today, so I thought it might be a good day to take some pictures of our new place! We're not quite finished with the decorating and we're still missing some furniture but overall this is looking like a home. We have to move away from home decor for a while and get down to some boring business, such as registering our car and getting Texas drivers licenses. I was reading up on Texas DMV information today and learned that, in Texas, cars are considered luxury items and cost more to register than yer pickup. I'm not sure anyone in their right mind would really consider our Honda a luxury item...
Anyway, here are the pictures. Let us know when you're coming to visit!!

Happenings in Texas

2007-01-26T19:57:00.000-06:00

Hi y'all!

We're getting used to driving in Texas. I know that every state and city has a different set of drivers and what they think is proper driving etiquette, but this will take some getting used to. Being Texas, everything is LARGE, and this includes the cars. Down here we drive large trucks and SUVs, and the bigger the better! There's nothing more itimidating than to be sitting at a stoplight and glance in your rearview mirror, and all you can see is the grill of the car behind you. Eeps! We've also seen a ridiculously large number of Hummers, which is just Big personified. But so you really know where we are--a few days ago we passed the local Hummer dealer. Proudly displayed out front--a baby pink Hummer. (I've asked for it for my birthday!)

Other things to make you know we're in Texas? How about Doc's Gun Shop, down the road? Or--believe it or not--a chain or stores proudly calling themselves "Condoms to Go!"? !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On an un-Texas related note, a few days ago I ordered some replacement filters for my air purifier. They were supposed to arrive in 3-5 business days via UPS. (Today was day 5.) Today, the postal service brought me a message from UPS saying that my box was undeliverable, as the address listed the wrong city. My only question is--if they could send me a note saying they couldn't bring me the box, why couldn't they just bring me the box?!

~Ruth Ann

The Married Bloggers

2007-01-20T20:03:00.000-06:00

Hi all!
A lot has happened since our last posting. Once again, we've been neglecting our faithful readers (Louisa!) but now we're back and ready to continue telling the tale of our life.
We had a small but absolutely lovely wedding on January 6th. We had the chance to see some friends who we haven't seen in a year or more and everything came off as planned. People keep asking for pictures, but as the bride, I wasn't too busy taking pictures!! So, if you're reading this and were there, please forward any pictures to us--I'm not sure when we'll be getting the official photographs.
On January 9th we moved to Dallas. We have a GREAT apartment that is at least twice as big as what we had in Kirribilli (and no holes in the floor!!!) We've spent this past week running to Ikea and putting together all our new furniture. Unfortunately, we did make it to Texas just in time for this "artic blast" that everyone's so afraid of. Wednesday was a snow day here in Carrollton and everyone stayed shivering indoors. Mike and I, however, were out on the road at 9 am to find no traffic and very clear roads. The news keeps having "special extended newshours" to show keep you up to date on the bad weather that wasn't happening. To be fair, I think it was bad other places in Texas, but Carrollton--not a chance!
~Ruth Ann

I have officially become a Texan. When we got here, RA's uncle Bob lent us his truck for hauling purposes. I've never driven a truck before and let alone hauled anything. We were able to fit 2 nightstands, a computer desk(with hutch), a reed desk, a coffee table, two big book shelves and a diningroom chair in the back-all from Ikea! It may not have had a gunrack, I might not have had a cowboy hat, and I wasn't listening to country music, but I drove a truck, hauled things and felt manly about it so I'm calling myself a Texan now. Giddyup, Yee Haw, and Boy Howdy!
~Mike

Stateside once again

2006-12-04T00:33:00.000-06:00

Hi everybody!
I know you've all been left in suspense--did Mike and Ruthie ACTUALLY return to the US or did they decide to run away into the Australian bush? Never fear, we made it home, and boy does it feel good to be back in the US of A. Our flight back was fairly uneventful; the only exciting part was that we were WAY over the weight limit with our suitcases and they didn't charge us a thing--$350 off scott-free. Whee!!!
Neither of us really had any jetlag; instead we're having seasonal-lag. To go from so much sun in Sydney to being in Portland where the sun never really makes it up in the sky before it decides to set...well, that's rough.
We spent Thanksgiving with my aunt Kacky in Colorado where I had final fittings for my wedding dress and Mike made 10 pizzas for all the nuns. (Needless to say, he's pretty popular!) When we left Denver, Mike flew to Dallas to look for apartments (he thinks he found one!) and Mom and I returned to Portland to continue with wedding preparations. At this point I think everything is under control; it's just silly thins like chasing after the caterer to make sure he remembers who I am.
So, we're planning on keeping the blog up and running, but do you think we're going to have to change the title to Texan Adventures? Everyone knows Texas is about as crazy a place as Australia...but maybe at least we won't have holes in the floor! :)
~Ruth Ann

Getting stuff done!

2006-11-12T04:04:00.000-06:00

We are firmly in the throws of moving home. We officially have all our Christmas and wedding shopping DONE!! By the 11th of November! Yesterday we also parted with our bed and now have to sleep on an air matress. We had a funny sight yesterday of our matress driving off tied to the roof of a TINY little car. Right now we're waiting for a guy to come pick up the rest. Ruth Ann's flute Prof just moved to an unfurnished house and so is taking everything else. Tomorrow we clean out our lockers at the Con, say our goodbyes, and move into the hotel down the street. We're actually starting to feel a little nostalgic.
~Mike

December Boys

2006-11-07T02:56:00.000-06:00

So yesterday I had my recital and my last scheduled event dealing with school. All in all it went pretty well. As we were walking home from the ferry I received a call with a last minute gig this morning(the day after my recital) for some film score thingy. I said yeah sure because it paid 150 bucks. The title was 'December Boys' and sounded to me like some local yokel wannabe film director with a video camera who wanted to make a movie. It turns out that this is a fairly sizable movie(I don't know if it technically is classified as a 'Major Motion Picture' but it would sound better if I did) based on a book by an Australian author. It comes out in December all over the world, including the US! It has Daniel Radcliff (Harry Potter) amongst other lesser well know actors. If you go see it, which you should, don't expect any big bassoon moments-there are none-but that shouldn't stop you! I doubt I'll be in the credits.

Another amusing event today was the Melbourne Cup, held every first tuesday of November. While Americans go to the polls on, Australians go the to horse races because they already voted on saturday (Also, voting is mandatory here-wouldn't that be nice in the States!). At the library, one of our co-workers got all excited and set up a pool for us to chip in a dollar a horse to bet. I'm proud to say that on my first experience betting on the ponies, I picked the winner and won $12 bucks. My future plans are to bet all my life's savings on the next horse race that comes around. If your lucky, I'll share in the winnings!!!

~Mike

Coming full circle

2006-11-04T10:13:00.000-06:00

Our apartment is back on the leasing market (obviously, as we prepare to move home!!) so we're back in the thick of weird housing practices. Today they're holding one of the 15 minute cattle-call-open-houses in our place, so we spent last night packing up all of our small knicknacks and hiding them away. (When an apartment has no closet space, that becomes a very creative endeavor, let me tell you!) This property has a new leasing agent whom we've never met before, and we're contemplating showing up as prospective tenants. "Wow!" we'll say. "Look at the holes in the floor! You can see daylight!"

Out of curiosity I checked the agent's website to see how they're advertising this place. It's listed as a "cute one-bedder" (read, SMALL) for $20 more a week than we're paying now. Also, very frighteningly, there's pictures of OUR stuff posted online!!! They came to do an inspection a few weeks ago but didn't tell us they were taking pictures. Now there's postings of our stuffed sea turtle on the couch and our meat defrosting for dinner. But the best part? Our bathroom is so disgusting that they posted a FILE photo instead--one from clearly 10 years ago when it might have actually been sanitary. :-P

Mike's recital is on Monday--wish him luck!!!!!
~Ruth Ann

A series of lasts, a sinking duck and a personal fly

2006-10-31T21:37:00.000-06:00

Things are beginning to wrap up very quickly here. We have had our last orchestra concert, our last chamber music assessment, our last lessons and our last concert pracs. Did we ever tell you about Concert Prac? This is a fabulously useless innovation of the Con. Since REAL concerts happen maybe twice a semester, you have to practice giving concerts. So every Friday we had to sit in a Recital Hall while a series of freshman played a series of wrong notes while we all write comments. At the end the professors stand up and give each performer comments. The reigning mantra is "how much you've improved!!!!" Anyway, Mike and I made it through our last Concert Prac ever by turning it into a drinking game. We each had a bottle of juice, and every wrong note was worth a swig. An especially out of tune one was worth 2. And so on. But we got through!!

For those of you devoted readers who are worried that the blog might end once we move back to the US, never fear!! We have every intention of keeping this going, assuming you people keep reading it. ??????? I'm not sure how many people we've told, but our current plans (subject to change at any time, of course, but these haven't changed for a bit, so we're probably safe) is to move to the Dallas area. We have some connections there :o) and will while away our time freelancing and teaching until we figure out what our next adventure will be. Of course, one could definitely argue that moving to Texas will also be an adventure!!!!
~Ruth Ann

The personal fly is one of the most annoying things about the Australian spring. Normal flies are annoying, but the Australian Personal Fly is worse. This is when a fly takes a liking to you and decided to orbit your head and follow you....for a VERY long time. I swatted at one for almost a mile one day. Despite hitting him several times, he kept right on following me. Often, whole gangs of them will camp out on your back where you can't reach them and take turns buzzing around you.
I had to work a concert in the box office a week ago. I had a fly follow me from Circular Quay to the Con(.5 miles), came inside with me and half a madding hour later was still there! I walked very slowly to the bathroom, went to the farthest wall, then sprinted out and slammed the door, trapping my personal fly inside. I haven't been back to that bathroom since.

Every morning when we are waiting to catch the ferry to school, we have to amuse ourselves in several ways. 1. Watching all the stuffy business people try and get at the head of the line. 2. Looking at all the jellyfish splooshing along in the water. 3. Watching territorial seagulls scream at other seagulls, and my favorite 4. Watching the sinking duck. This isn't actualy a duck; the body shape is a little different and the neck is longer. It's sort of what I imagine a duck would look like during the days of the dinosaurs. He dives down in the water for a minute or so and pops up somewhere else. But instead of coming to the top of the water, only his neck comes out. He looks around with a quizzical expression as if thinking "Hey, this is weird. Why am I sinking?" Sometimes he'll jump out of the water and land on top of it(like a normal duck would). But then he stops moving and waits until he sinks a little bit before continuing.

Never dull in Australia!
~Mike

Christmas shopping in summer

2006-10-21T16:29:00.000-05:00

It's quickly becoming full-fledge summer here. We had thunderstorms yesterday and it's been nearly 100 degrees several days. But Christmas is coming!!!!!! Some stores have even begun their Christmas SALES and I am so confused! Christmas tinsel juxtaposed with manequins wearing shorts and tank tops. I don't really remember Florida well enough to remember being hot during the holidays so this is just hurting my brain.

We're now at 26 days. We have mailed several boxes home and everything we have left should fit in our massive suitcases. (That is, assuming we don't buy LARGE Christmas presents for people!) My to-do list has shrunk considerably and I'm beginning to feel like these last few weeks shouldn't be any stress at all. We have our recitals coming up, but somehow 40 minutes of music seem pathetically short. That's not how it seemed during my undergrad!!! I guess I must have improved some since I was 22 :o)

On a completely unrelated note, have we discussed the difference between raisins and sultanas? When we first got here, we discovered Sultana Bran was Raisin Bran, and just assumed that raisins were sultanas, end of story. A couple of weeks ago I was ordering our groceries online, like I always do, and absentmindedly did a search for "raisins." An entry came up, and I bought them. When they got here, I went to put them in a recipe but noticed they seemed kind of slimey. Concerned, I checked the box, and here's what I found: Sultanas are dried grapes. Raisins are dried grapes...soaked in vegetable oil. EW! They worked fine in an Indian lamb recipe, but to just eat them out of the box? Ick!

~Ruth Ann

Cue-dahhhhhhhs

2006-10-17T18:59:00.000-05:00

The Con High School is just like Hogwarts!! Today they elected their house captains. But instead of Ravenclaw, Slytherin, etc., the Con HS is divided into Bach, Beethoven and Brahms. (How adorably dorky and quaint, at the same time!) The high school librarian was explaining the system to me at work, and said it was a great "cuedahhhhhhs" to be elected. Thrilled to be encountering a word that sounded like a Trekkie alien race I queried the word. "You've never heard "cuedahhhhhhhs" before?" She looked astounded. "K-U-D-O-S?"

Alas. Tripped up again by another Australian pro-nun-ski-ation!

~Ruth Ann

000

2006-10-16T23:09:00.000-05:00

We have just been rudely awakened by the very loud, very insistent fire alarm. We and all of our neighbors staggered out into the hallway, modeling a wide variety of PJs, to discover that our batty neighbor upstairs (the one who cuts bushes at 10pm) was the one responsible for setting off the alarm. She claims she doesn't know why. Another crazy lady (the one who was prone to cookies) was convinced she smelled cooking and kept asking me "Don't you smell cooking?!" Both batty ladies together decided they should call the fire department. "Do you know their number?" One batty lady asked another. Luckily, the fire department came on their own and turned off that infernal noise. We're going back to bed now!!!

Wedders

2006-10-08T11:34:00.000-05:00

Yesterday Mike and I went shopping for wedding rings. Given that our wedding is less than three months away, this was probably a good idea. After no luck in our first store, we wandered into a store called (I kid you not) Angus&Coote, where we were assisted by a lovely gentleman named Ernest. Apparently we were not actually in search of wedding bands; here in Australia they are called "wedders." Ernest very patiently showed us wedder after wedder after wedder, and even pulled out a large catalogue of all the wedders in the world. (He also enthusiastically showed us that his wedding ring is SQUARE!) Luckily for Angus&Coote&Ernest we think we found the rings we want in the metal we want in the price we want. Successful shopping in Sydney?! I didn't think it could happen!
Our time is really running out fast here. I could write a pensive blog about all that Sydney has taught me, but I have no time. I'm beginning to feel that panicky feeling that I remember from LAST October, thinking "I"M MOVING IN 3 MONTHS!" At least the move this time should be much easier. We have relatives to mooch off of for a few months :-) Our recitals are scheduled (Nov. 6th, but we were assigned times that are back to back, so we may not be very good at moral support that day!) and our last day of work at the library will be Nov. 10th. They're giving us a "Farewell Morning Tea," which should be very cute, and all seem very distressed that we're leaving, which is very sweet. Personally, I'm not sure the library will survive without us there, but that's another story. Meanwhile, if you know anyone who wants to buy a couch or a desk or a washing machine..or a 5-year-old Powell flute, please let me know!
~Ruth Ann

Fans! PM's! Camels!

2006-10-02T06:39:00.000-05:00

We had a very eventful couple of days! Not only was Cairns a fantastic vacation, it allowed me to add a few critters to the list of animals I've eaten. For those of you who don't know, I have been keeping a tally of the different kind of animals I've eaten over the years. Now, I am proudly up to 20! Australia has been very kind to me with adding 7 new ones: kangaroo, wallaby, emu, rabbit, quail, goat, and camel. YES! I've finally eaten the much sought after camel meat and it was really good! Not stringy or gamey at all. Much better than my ill fated goat adventure in Melbourne. Now that I've hit 20 animals, I'm aiming for 25 (this of course doesn't count the bugs I've accidentally swallowed while biking. Nor does it count creatures that live in water as they are too numerous and would skew the numbers. I have a separate list for fish.)

Yesterday as we were walking home from our ferry, we passed the Prime Minister's house. Normally it's very quiet with a couple of friendly guards outside saying hello to everyone who passes. On hot days, they stand across the street in the shade. Yesterday there was a bit more hubbub: a few more guards and several official cars. As we got halfway down the street the motorcade of John Howard passed us. I actually saw him in the front seat of the first car reading a newspaper. He's a lot smaller than all the pictures I've seen before but his head is very round! This is the first time either of us has seen our reclusive PM despite the rumor he goes jogging through Kirribilli.

Today was even more exciting as we finally found a fan!!! We went to Manly to bum around a bit this morning and we passed a store that had them on sale! We weren't able to get one quite as cute as Hoppy, but it's bigger, more powerful, much taller, and REALLY gets the air moving through the apt. Now our clothes can dry in a night! I personally have a huge pile of clothes to test this ability on. The name hasn't come to us yet. Any suggestions? Actually I just looked at the fan and the name came: Filburt the Fan.

~Mike

Cairns is great!!!!

2006-10-01T10:06:00.000-05:00

Of course, it would help if we knew how to pronounce the name of the city! Mike and I firmly keep pronouncing it as "C-A-I-R-N-S," ennunciating every letter. Australians, however, tend to drop Rs and add them again in funny places, so Cairns becomes "Cannes, Australier." I think they're just hoping to envoke memories of the real Cannes. But French Riviera or no, this was a lovely tropical paradise!
Our weather was perfect the whole time--in the 80s, sunshine, light breeze. (None of us got completely fried by the sun.) We spent a good deal of time laying on the beach with the turquoise ocean in washing on the shores. I never entirely knew if I could trust the pictures supplied by travel agents about the color or tropical oceans--actually, you can!
I think Carins will be best described in a picture blog, so here goes:

A beach outside of Cairns, to give you a feel for for the lay of the land. (That's the Coral Sea!)

On the second day, Emily (you'll see her in a minute!) went on a diving trip to three spots out on the Great Barrier Reef, and Mike and I went out to Michaelmas Cay. That's a small island about 40 miles off the coast that was created by the decay of the reefs. See what I mean about blue oceans?!

Mike went snorkelling and I laid on the beach and did nothing. :-)

The cruise we took did have a semi-submersible boat that would take you around the reefs and look for wildlife in cozy, dry conditions. We saw a bunch of parrot fish, the world's largest clams (huge!!!) and two sea turtles!! Alas, our cameras weren't fast enough to catch much moving wildlife--we'll have to be content with pictures of the reef.

On Wednesday we went up to Karunda Village, about 30 minutes up the mountain from Cairns. There they several wildlife parks--Birdworld and the Koala Gardens were our favorite. When we arrived at Birdworld, we were one of the first groups to show up that day, and as you get to feed the birds, the birds are thrilled to see you!!!

This is Emily. She was the unlucky person holding the bag of food when we entered the park, so was mobbed by several hungry birds. Actually, don't you think she looks ecstatically happy to have a bird on her arm? Birdy here was trying to eat through the plastic bag.

Koala Gardens was another great place, because you could Cuddle a Koala! For $15 we could hold a koala and have our pictures taken. Obviously, we jumped at this chance!

Finally, I'm going to leave you with the Hysterical Signs of Cairns. Quiz of the week: do you know what these signs are for?!?!?!?!

~Ruth Ann

Whirlwind tour of OZ

2006-09-19T23:34:00.000-05:00

I just got back from a whirlwind tour of several Australian cities. I was playing with the Australian Chamber Orchestra and got to tour around the country. We played 10 concerts in 11 so my head is sort of spinning right now. Aside concerts in Sydney, we played in Brisbane, Canberra, Wollongong, Melbourne, and Adelaide. What wonders did I see in these new places? Not much! We would fly in to a place about midday, go to the hotel, have a bit of time to warmup/practice, and then play the concert in the evening. Sightseeing was limited to afternoon strolls around the area of the hotel. I did see and experience several things of note: the Holden Blimp(the Australian equivalent to the Goodyear blimp), I ate goat for dinner in Melbourne (it tasted okay going down but not so good once it was in my stomach), the parliament House in Canberra, several interesting displays of public weirdness by people in Adelaide (I'm assured that Adelaide has more than it's fair share of weirdos), and the insides of many hotel rooms and busses.

In a few days a friend of Ruth Ann's will be coming to visit. We're heading up north to Cairns to see the Great Barrier Reef and the rainforest. I refuse to stay in a bus or hotel all afternoon so I might get to see a bit more. As for now, I have to go and see if I still know how to play contrabassoon.

~Mike

Quiz answers and didgeridoos

2006-09-12T03:09:00.000-05:00

Hi again!

Sorry for the long delay in getting answers up. I'll try and make this an extra long posting to make up for it!

Thanks to everyone who answered. We didn't have QUITE the turnout we'd hoped for, but we did have some new reponders, which was great. An especial thanks to our most devoted fan, Louisa, for her promptness in answering! Here are the results:

Laura: 13.5 (my family does me proud again...it's nice to know that you all listen when I call :))
Eric 10.5 (let's hear it for the siblings!)
Connie 10
Louisa and Jon 7.5
Emily 7
Grandma Friesen 5
Kacky 3.5
Bob 3
The Creative Answer Award was a tough one this time, but we're going to give it to Grandma Friesen for her answer to number 15--Eve tempting Adam in the Garden of Eden. Fabulous work!!!!

So, I suppose you want the real answers??

1.) Actually, this isn't fair, as it's a trick question. One could argue three, if they ever get around to it, but the answer is actually A--none. Lightbulbs aren't designed to twist in down under--you match up the grooves and pop them in with a click!
2.) Most poisonous spider is the Sydney Funnel Web. We haven't seen any of these guys in our apartment yet, but I'm sure they're just waiting for their chance. We have had a few friendly Wolf Spiders, though...not The Most Poisonous, just Painfully Poisonous.
3.) Whinging=whining. I think it's a fabulous term!
4.) I do have to agree that taking a train when you're supposed to be taking a bus is a bad idea, but you should also never take the 443 to Broadway. The 443 will take you to the Casino in Darling Harbour and dump you there, forcing you to walk back the 4 miles to your hotel in 95 degree heat carrying your instruments because you don't have an apartment or a locker at the Con yet........(See an earlier blog!)
5.) The Socceroos. Isn't that adorable? I'm sure it strikes fear in the hearts of all their competitors. No wonder they never scored any goals in the World Cup before this year!
6.) Knackered=exhausted. Apparently this is how I look with jetlag!
7.) Come on, people, didn't you read our blog from Tasmania?! As my dad so eloquently put it, wombat droppings are Square Shit!
8.) The Con student body has not protested mandatory breathalizer tests, only because the faculty hasn't thought of it yet! They've protested everything else, INCLUDING the elimination of the minor performance major. Yes, you read that right. At the Con, you can major in performance minor--piano minor, flute minor, you take your pick. As a performance minor major, you do even less performing than a performance major major (and we don't get much ourselves). This degree is supposed to prepare you for the real world in some mysterious way, but it's very Australian. The Dean is trying to eliminate this program and was slammed with a Wall of Protest all over her office door. This degree is designed to give you a diploma without any real work..which is how I think they like it.....
9.) Verbruggen Hall was originally the Governor's Stables. http://www.music.usyd.edu.au/talent_facilities/hire_venues.shtml
Pretty fancy for some stables, huh? When they were excavating and redesigning, apparently the stench of manure was so strong they had to let it air for some weeks. (As an amusing side note to those of you from IU, the concert stage was designed by the same guy that did Auer Hall--they look remarkably similar, don't you think? http://www.music.usyd.edu.au/talent_facilities/verbrugghen.shtml )
10.) Yes, in the tour books left in our hotels, the most advertised feature was the escort services. Prostitution is legal in Sydney, and it's not uncommon to walk down a perfectly innocent street and see an adult bookstore with a brothel upstairs. That was a bit of a shock. (BASE jumping is an extreme sport of jumping from a fixed object with a parachute. Building, Antenna, Span, Earth. I'm actually surprised there isn't more of this from the Harbour bridge!)
11.) Rockmelon, capsicum and pumpkin=cantaloupe, peppers and squash. Arrugala is also known as rocket. It's a difficult thing ordering a sandwich around here!
12.) I'm personally convinced that this is the entrance to hell. Actually, that's Luna Park, an amusement park over in Milson's Point, just on the other side of the Harbour Bridge from Kirribilli. It's not very large and doesn't have many rides, but would remind you of 1900s Coney Island. I'm sure it would be wild to enter, but I haven't worked up the courage yet. I'm not thrilled with the idea of walking through that guy's mouth!
13.) Kangaroo is a pleasant mixture of venison and beef. It's very lean, so can be overcooked and dried out very easily. We found that wallaby is a bit less gamey and a bit moister.
14.) 35 rolls of TP. I think we're set for a while. I know TP never goes out of fashion, but since we have no closet space to speak of, this is a bit extreme.......
15.) This lovely thing is a mangosteen! (And a goof with a piece of fruit on her head!) You can't find them in the US because they will have spoiled by the time they get through quarantine. Inside they're divided into pulpy sections, not unlike a custard apple. They have a pleasant, mild flavor, somewhere between a pear and a plum, although rather slimey!

Thanks for playing! We'll see if we can't create another quiz for you before we come home!

So, last week was pretty busy. It was Special Projects Week II, advertised as SPW, which reminded me of SPEW from Harry Potter. I digress. Special Projects Week is designed to be a chamber music festival, and instead means that everyone abandons the Con for the pub. Since Mike and I were the only ones around, we were roped into playing two concerts. One was an ordinary evening concert at the New South Wales art gallery, which was actually kind of fun. For the other, our wind quintet was teamed up with a famous didgeridoo player. Yeah. That was interesting. Don't get me wrong, he could really didge that ridoo, but organization wasn't his strong point. He wrote the piece we were supposed to play on Saturday on Tuesday, and then didn't show up to our rehearsal on Wednesday. The piece was a bit odd, too--wind quintet and didgeridoo doesn't go together like you might think. But still, it's something we can brag that we've done--have YOU ever played a piece for didgeridoo?????

It's been cold and rainy here in Sydney again. It rains and it rains and it rains, and my laundry mounts up. I miss clothes dryers! There's a rumor that it may finally stop by the end of this week. Me and my clothes really hope so!!!

Mike is off being a bigwig this week. He's been asked to play second bassoon with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Australia's top ensemble, for a 10 day tour. He just got back from Brisbane this morning and will head to Canberra, Melbourne and Adelaide later this week. Sunday's performance in the Opera House was recorded and will be going up on the web around Sept. 25th. We'll let you know the link when it's posted and you can see our hotshot bassoonist!!!!!!

Um...other than that....On Tuesday and Wednesday some family friends of the Jones' will be in town, and then on Thursday, my friend Emily K arrives for about a 2 week vacation. That coincides with out spring break, so we're planning a trip up to the Great Barrier Reef. The GBR is one place we have to see before we leave Oz.

There's some boysenberry ice cream in the freezer calling my name. I have to answer :)
~Ruth Ann

What's a Phff-aaa-nn?

2006-08-29T14:15:00.000-05:00

STOP!!!!!!

What DO you think you're doing?

You're reading this post AND YOU HAVEN'T RESPONDED TO OUR QUIZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's it. Stop reading right now and get your lazy self down to the last posting and answer our questions. It won't hurt, I promise. Get a move on!!

*********************************************************************

Thank you. That's much better, and it wasn't so hard, was it?!

I just got back from another futile shopping trip to Tar-jay. Seeing as the sun is being sighted several times a week again, and temperatures have creeped up as high as 26 degrees, I thought it was reasonable to want to replace our beloved Hoppy the Fan who succombed to all the dust in our apartment a few weeks ago. (One could say he literally bit the dust!!) I'd checked for fans a few weeks ago and the response was "Check back in a few weeks!" I went today but still no luck. If you ask for anything that's not in stock at Tar-jay, you can see the workers sounding it out in their heads. "She wants a phhhfff-aaaaa-nnnn. Is that some fashion accessory? A brand of furniture?" They assume a blank look which quickly switches into one of smug superiority. "WE are above ppphhhfffaaaaannnnnss." I'll try back next month.

I can't really pretend that a lack of knowledge and organization is unique to Sydney's Tar-jay, though. Back in Bloomington, before they renovated, Target kept hair dryers in the most obscure spot. Not next to the hairbrushes and shampoo; no, they made their home next to the potted plants.

At least we're not suffering for a phfan yet. It's a very pleasant temperature most days, but a fan would expedite turning our damp laundry into dry. At least it's not warm enough for the bugs to be out in full force. No signs of ants yet, just a few rogue daddy-long-legs. I'm waiting for more cockroaches, though--I just discovered a new hole in the floor, right underneath our garbage can. Mom points out that at least the bugs won't have to go far!

This semester is chugging along. I'm about to have a big bunch of free time as I'm being rotated out of orchestra and will have 6 weeks off until I'm back. That means that EVERY Tuesday I can go hunting for phfans! I've been working a lot lately, though, so I can't say as I'll mind some free time. On Saturday, Mike and I worked "Open Day--Sydney Uni Live!" (Officially they're the University of Sydney, but they call themselves Sydney Uni, and even make Tshirts saying "Sydney University." I guess there aren't enough universities here that it makes a difference if they're one or the other.) Anyway, this was a day for prospective students to come check out the Con. Mike and I staffed the general information booth, which meant giving people directions to various recital halls and being deafened by the saxophone duet that played right next to us. It wasn't so bad, except that after doing that for 6 hours, we then had to staff the Early Music Ensemble concert. I don't know what it is about Early Music Musicians, but they're the most disorganized people on the face of the planet. Maybe it's because they're all supposed to be living in 1650 and haven't noticed that the world moves at a slightly different pace now. In any case, these concerts are usually chaos for those of us back stage. I went to the director a good hour before the concert and asked what stage changes he'd need help with. They were doing a concerto for 4 harpsichords, so I knew there'd be insanity. Neal insisted that he would coordinate the moving of the harpsichords; all I had to do was take 6 chairs offstage. He forgot to mention that when he said 6, he really meant 10, and also that he needed 4 more stands added behind these newly positioned harpsichords stage right. So I wandered aimlessly around the stage while the recorder players whispered frantic instructions at me off stage. Then the entire ensemble went back onstage while the sound guy was still moving microphones, leaving him in his jeans and brown Tshirt caught in a sea of black formals. *sigh*

~Ruth Ann

P.S. Just because you answered the quiz doesn't mean you're excluded from commenting on this post......

The next quiz!

2006-08-25T20:28:00.000-05:00

Hi folks! Mike has been carefully crafting this quiz for weeks now, so we expect a good turnout. Last time we had 13 applicants, and now we expect EVEN BETTER RESULTS!! Tell all your friends, tell all your relatives, the Australia Quiz is BACK!!!

1. How many Australians does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A. None
B. 1-2
C. 3 if they get around to it.
D. Lightbulbs don't exist in Oz. Here they're called Luminous Spheres

2. What is the most poisonous spider in Australia-which is the world's most poisonous as well
(thankfully one not found fit to come to our apartment)?
A. The Goliath Spider
B. The Sydney Funnel web Spider
C. The Kirribilli King Spider
D. The Acromantula

3. If someone 'whinges'(pronounced with a soft 'G'), what are they doing?
A. Mispronouncing a number of possible words
B. Sneezing
C. Complaining
D. Referring to some new techno-slang word

4. If you're at Circular Quay and need to get to Broadway, what bus should you NOT take?
A. 443
B. 257
C. The 1:25 train to Penrith
D. 16.5

5. What name is the Australian soccer team?
A. The Socceroos
B. The Soccer-manian Devils
C. The Whiz-bang Wombats
D. The Down Under Wonders

*Bonus question(1/2 a point): Before this year's world cup, how many goals has Australia made in all previous world cups?
A. They won the last one
B. 12
C. 5
D. 0

6. If one is 'knackered' what is one?
A. One is handy with something
B. One is done in/exhausted
C. One is wearing pants
D. One has the hiccups

7. What shape are the droppings of a wombat?
A. Dodecahedron
B. Hexagonal
C. 2 dimensional and round
D. Cubic

8. What event here at the Con did NOT cause a protest by the student body at the Con?
A. Unpopular foreign officials visiting
B. Unpopular foreign Deans
C. The elimination of the minor performance major
D. Mandatory breathalizer tests before concerts

9. What was the Con's performance hall used for before being a Con performance hall?
A. Dancehall
B. Stables
C. Headquarters for the Parramatta Trust Group (Mining Division)
D. Part time lecture hall/radio station for the biochemistry dept. of University of Sydney

10. What was advertized the most in local tour books?
A. Escort services
B. Opera house
C. BASE jumping from the Harbour Bridge
D. The mine ride at the Parramatta Trust Group (Mining Division) mine

11. What are rockmelons, capsicums, and pumpkin known as respectively in Australia?
A. Rubble from the PTG (Mining Division) mine, hats, and shoes
B. Types of birds, a relative to the tsetse fly, and apples
C. Cantaloupe, bell peppers, and squash
D. Freshmen, sophomores, and juniors at the Con.

12. What is this the entrance to?

A. Hell
B. An amusement park
C. The Parramatta Trust Group (Financial Division)
D. The entrance to the Con

13. What does Kangaroo taste like?
A. Chicken
B. Gamey beef
C. Nothing like you would think
D. Polar Bear(not that I would know what this tasted like!)

14. At the time of printing, how many rolls of toilet paper do we have in our cupboard?
A. 35 rolls (24 unscented and 11 with some weird scent that I(Mike) bought by mistake)
B. None! Aren't WE in trouble!
C. Toilet paper in Australia comes in ovals, not rolls
D. 7 plus whatever is on the holder

15. What are these a picture of(there may more than one correct answer)?

A. A goof with a piece of fruit on her head
B. An apple
C. A wattle seed
D. Mangosteen
E. A goof with a nut on her nut

Good luck!!! You have one week to get your answers in!
~Mike and Ruthie

Apostrophe Man to the rescue!

2006-08-20T05:55:00.000-05:00

Hello readers!
We're back in the thick of second semester and the weirdness has begun! We begin our tour with Christian Fundamentalism. Apparently a number of students at the Con think that Ruth Ann and I are Fundamentalist Christian. I don't know how this got started as to most of you who know us might agree: WE'RE NOT! Nobody said anything to us for a while until one of the other American bassoonists asked if I had become more religious since leaving Bloomington, IN. A member of the quintet we're in this semester was all excited because she being very, VERY liberal wanted to try and corrupt us. She was a bit disappointed when we said that, no, we're not Fundamentalists.

The next oddity in our recent past was a massive hailstorm. RA and I had just gotten a bag of M&Ms(peanut) and sat down by a window when it started pouring rain. We were very impressed and enjoying it until we remembered we had a lot of laundry on the clothes line. Since our heater caught on fire, we've had to dry our clothes very slowly in the apartment. The morning of this day was one of the first nice days out so we put out a lot laundry. To make matters more interesting, hail started falling. The ground got covered with an inch or two of hail stones and everyone here was so excited because "it looked like it SNOWED!!!!" There are a number of our friends who haven't seen snow. Our clothes stayed out several more days to dry out until the batty old lady upstairs wrote a snide note on the board to take them down(she's the one who was trimming the hedges at 11pm that one night).

Several fun, interesting times were had while working at the library. RA discovered that if you hit control, alt, up arrow, the screen on the circulation computers flipped upside down! Of course on my next shift I had to try it. I also tried control, alt, right arrow and that flips the screen on it's side. Delighted, I pressed control, alt, left arrow to see what would happen.......and the computer crashed! When I restarted it, there was some message about a graphics error or something.

Here in Australia there is this annoying habit on signs, emails, newspapers, etc, to make a word plural by adding apostrophe 's' to something. I don't remember seeing it in the US but rest assured, I'm sure we have many bad grammatical traditions. I asked the high school librarian(the is a high school attached to the Con and that library and the music library share the same space) who has an English degree about it and she said that it was just uneducated people being themselves. She said that in the newspaper a few years ago, a columnist advocated the use of Apostrophe Man! This involved putting your finger in the air, shouting 'Apostrophe Man to the rescue!' and taking a pen and scribbling out the apostrophe. The librarian said that RA and I had to invoke Apostrophe Man at least once before we go back.

These little events have amused us greatly in the last week. We also heard one of our new favorite quotes from the little old lady downstairs. When we were in Portland, she picked up our mail and took it inside so we baked her some cookies in return. When we brought them to her she said with a big grin "Oh, I am just PRONE to cookies!"

The next quiz is coming!!!!!

~Mike

Our new favorite place

2006-08-12T04:55:00.000-05:00

Hello all,

Within the last week we have found our new favorite place in Sydney. There's this huge store chain called David Jones with 5 or 6 stores in the downtown area. Each one sells different things: one homewares, one ladies clothes, etc. Our new favorite place is the gourmet food store. Forget everything you know about gourmet food and the stores that sell it. This place is HUGE! There is of course the usual selection of imported chocolates, spice mixtures, and sauces. Going further into the store is the cheese bar with hundreds of different kinds of cheeses. Next to that was the deli with sliced and salt cured meats. Next to that was the pasta bar with homemade gourmet pastas. For dinner tonight we had pumpkin and leek ravioli and roasted eggplant, pepper and ricotta ravioli. There was several dozen other kinds along with little bite sized quiches. Next to THAT was the sausage bar with all kinds of zany sausage mixtures. We bought(but haven't tried yet) Duck, pear, and cognac; chicken, rocket, and goat cheese; and beef, spinach, and pinenut.

There was also a butcher where you might be happy to know we could have gotten lamb kidneys or a turkey for almost $100. (Turkeys aren't raised or eaten as much here as in the States. I suppose if the pilgrims had ended up in Australia, we'd be eating emu for Thanksgiving). The produce section was surprisingly small compared to the rest of the store... There is also little containers of chocolate mousse that we've gotten several times and have plans for getting more.

Should you find yourself in Sydney, we'll take you there! Stay tuned, dust off your thinking caps, and tell all your friends: the 2nd Quiz is coming in a few days!!!!

~Mike

Back in Sydney

2006-08-10T10:57:00.000-05:00

Hi everybody! I got back into Sydney last Friday and have successfully worked my way through jetlag. Thanks to everyone who's been so sweet to us these past weeks.

Semester 2 is well underway at the ol' Conservatorium. It looks like we're both going to have light semesters--we both get 6 weeks off of orchestra in the middle of the term. What are we going to do with our free time?!?!?! Both of us have taken on extra work, though. I'm doing some substitute teaching at St. Andrew's Cathedral School, one of the biggest primary music programs in the city, and Mike will be touring with the Australian Chamber Orchestra in September. Whoohoo!!!!

Life at the Con wouldn't be the same without a protest, so, to oblige us, the students staged a walk-out on Tuesday. They all met in the cafe and made about 200 signs, which they hung outside the Dean's office. These signs were quite adorable. Mostly they protested the fact that they have to play in orchestra or sing in choir--when "We all plan to be soloists!" Oh dear. How pathetically naive!

We're becoming very hopeful that spring will arrive soon. Every morning when we wake up the birds are singing their little hearts out. It's slowly warming up during the day, although nights are still pretty chilly. We had a dramatic incident with our space heater. Friday when I got home from the airport, we tried to turn Zippy, our favorite $15 space heater. Unfortunately, $15 only take you so far. First there was a painful squealing noise...then smoke gently wafted from his vents...then I saw flames. But alas and alack, Sydney stores are now into summer merchandise. No more heaters available!

Here, at long last, are some pictures of crazy Tasmania wildlife. THESE are pademelons:

Australia is full of small, hoppy creatures. Pademelons are essentially small kangaroos. Two nights we were in Tassie, a whole group of these little guys came into our front yard. They are very fond of apples and sweet potatoes ;-)

We'd heard that there was a chance we'd see some wombats in Tassie and were very hopeful. "Wombat" is just such a funny word! We'd learned that they leave square droppings on anything new to mark it as their own. We saw trails of said droppings (we have pictures, but I'll spare you...) and kept hoping. The second day it was very foggy and we just driving through the park because it was too stormy to hike. All of the sudden Mike stopped the car.

He waddled down the road in front of us and finally ran off to the side. They're related to koala bears and definitely waddle, although he can run at quite a clip when pressed. He snuffled in the brush for a few minutes as we stopped and cooed over him. THEN he got the bright idea to run and snuggle up next to the car tire (or "tyre" here in Oz). Mike's eloquent quote: "Um...shoo??" Luckily the wombat decided the car wasn't as pleasant as he'd originally thought and trundled off. Crisis averted!

~Ruth Ann

2006-08-10T10:50:00.000-05:00

DAD EXTRAORDINAIRE

Home again, home again, jiggety jig!

2006-07-02T18:17:00.000-05:00

We're back! Once again, we have reluctantly returned from the fabulous land of Tasmania. We were up at 4 this morning...no, actually, I was up at 4 and Mike was up at 2 to catch our return flight (I don't know what's wrong with the boy!) so if this blog is a little sleepy, please forgive!
Wednesday we flew to Hobart and then drove 4 and a half hours north to Cradle Mountain National Park. Mike drove the whole way, and occasionally in more than one lane :o) I was only moderately terrified. At the entrance to CMNP is a tree stump with the following sign. We have no idea what it means, but found it rather charming!

We stayed in a fabulous cottage probably not much bigger than one Laura Ingalls would have grown up in. But it had a fully equipped kitchen, a gas heater, a bathroom with heat lamps, and the world's comfy-est bed, so we were more than content! Here are some pictures to make YOU wish YOU had come to Tasmania, too!! These were all shot from a moving car, so ignore the fuzz...

Eucalytpus trees

Tassie (pronounced Tazzie) farmland

Cradle Mountain National Park from about 30km away.

Thursday afternoon we hiked around Dove Lake, at the foot of Cradle Mountain.

Friday we hiked part of the 8.5 k "boardwalk" that runs from the visitor center to Dove Lake. It's literally many, many planks of wood covered in chickenwire raised over the vegetation to save the plants. There was a storm brewing so there was no one out but us and the scene was rather surreal.

Saturday we drove back down to Hobart and ate at our two new favorite restaurants. Hobart is a very cute town; it has what you need but not an overload of activity to drive you nuts. (ie Sydney!) This is how happy you would look if you came to Tasmania, too:

Tomorrow we'll report on our wildlife encounters. Anyone know what a pademelon is? We saw 6!
~Ruth Ann

How many Fulbrighters does it take to give directions?

2006-06-26T05:03:00.000-05:00

To those of you who have had the pleasure of eating Mike's cookies--HAHAHA! He's baking some right now!!!! I get all the cookies! Tonight he's trying a twist of adding "desicated coconut" to the batter. (Australian unsweetened shredded coconut.) We weren't sure if the recipe could be improved upon, but the answer is yes, yes it can. WOW, those are some good cookies :o)

Yesterday we had a lovely adventure, a kind of which we have not had in quite some time. We were invited to an informal Fulbright gathering, so say goodbye to some old Fulbrighters and welcome in the new ones. Mike felt he should go, and I was invited, too, so we thought we'd have a pleasant trip out to Balmoral. We're also looking at a few apartments in that area, so thought we'd kill two birds with one stone.

Janet Flint, the crazy lady who picked us up at the airport with a TINY car, was hosting this shindig, and had sent directions. So, following said directions, we took the train north to the Chatswood station. We were then to catch the 257 bus to Balmoral Beach. We headed to the west side of the station, where all the bus stops are. We found the 256 and the 258 buses, but not 257. I asked a guy at the ticket stand, and he had no idea. We sat down in a typical posture of Australian resignation when suddenly I remember that the west side was NOT the only side with bus stops. We trotted off to the east side, only to see the backside of bus 257 departing. It was half an hour to the next bus.

We sat down and waited, and in half an hour, 257 came back. The ride began, and we began to notice that we were driven in a circle--down south and then back north almost to where we had started from before heading out east. We could've left from a complete different train station and cut 45 minutes off our trip! We finally entered into the town of Balmoral, and Mike, who was carefully watching the maps, said we should get off. We had a very pleasant 10 minute walk down through some beautiful residential areas with a gorgeous view of the open ocean. However, when we got to the bottom of the hill, we found that our end goal of our walk...was the same as the end goal of bus #257. !!! At least we knew where the bus stop to go home was......

Mike had been told that the party was at 1/66 Lower Almora. Unfortunately, there was no such place. I had a fit of the giggles, but the beach was right there, and why should I care if I never met some stuffy Fulbrighters? We took a walk out onto one peninsula where Mike saw a Fulbrighter he recognized. The guy waved at him, or so we thought--turns out he was waving at his baby daughter and didn't even recognize Mike. We had a few awkward moments with this guy--he did NOT get to be a Fulbrighter based on his social skills! Turns out the party was at 1/6 Lower Almora. Har. Convinced by this man's lack of social skills we decided the rest of the party would probably be a bust, and since he said it was almost over by now due to our circuitous bus ride, scrapped the whole thing. We had a lovely bowl of seafood chowder looking over the ocean.

After our soup, we decided to catch the 257 back, except to get off at the closer train station and save ourselves that 45 minutes. There was a bus driver who was on his break, but we knew he had to be Mr. 257. We were right; he flipped his sign to say "257 to Chatswood" and we eagerly stood by his door, waiting to climb back into some warmth. (Ocean breezes are a bit nippy at this time of year!) He saw us, pointed behind him, and DROVE OFF. He then went forward about 200 meters, turned left, went to a bus stop down a side street, picked up one passenger, and came back and made us board his bus ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STREET. I will never understand Australia.

Ah well. Tonight we had purple mashed potatoes. ! From purple sweet potatoes! I tried to get a picture of them, but they just looked foul on camera, when in person they're a lovely violet, not that far from the color of blueberries. I'm not sure where or why they grow, but Mike found them at the market last week. We'll probably have them again soon, if only for the amusement factor!

Tomorrow is Mike's bday and we're going out with some friends for Indian food. And then--Wednesday--TASMANIA! We'll take fresh camera batteries this time (unlike last) and will post some pictures of the true beauty of that island. It's not to be missed!

~Ruth Ann

We're done!

2006-06-22T05:24:00.000-05:00

WE'RE DONE WITH OUR FIRST SEMESTER!!!!!
Ruth Ann and I had our juries this afternoon which means the semester is over! Overall they went fairly well. A lot of good things and, as always, some not quite so good things. All we have to do for the next month is work a bit at the library, practice and recharge our batteries. What did we do to celebrate this afternoon? We came home early and collapsed! Then we had kangaroo burgers and purple sweet potatoes for dinner. That's right, purple! Not only are we on the opposite side of the world with the opposite season, our food and everything else here is on the other side of the color wheel. I'm trying to be funny here, but I think I'm just tired.

We're leaving for Tasmania this coming wednesday. We've learned our lesson and are only bringing carry on luggage. Now they'll have to lose us with our bag! We have our trip all booked and ready to go. We're hitting most of the same spots we did in the last trip: Saturday Hobart market, Fantastic seafood, Cradle Mtns. Luckely I turn 25 before we go so the rental car will be much cheaper.

Well, I'm going sleep.

~Mike

I saw Jesus in the sky today...

2006-06-18T04:29:00.000-05:00

We are almost done with our semester and are enjoying our free time immensely! Yesterday we slept in late and had a two and a half hour nap. Today we went back to one of our favorite bushwalks which we haven't had time to hike in some weeks. We had just started on our trek when we noticed a skywriter. I haven't seen one of those in forever, and in hopes of witnessing a romantic wedding proposal or such, we settled ourselves on a bench to watch. Alas, it was only a religious experience! The word "Jesus" appeared upside down in the sky as we were reminded that He Saves. Apparently, though, Es are very hard on a skywriter, as it looked like one of those computer generated words to prevent computer spam. !!!!
We just bought tickets to go back to Tasmania!!!!!! We'll be heading down June 28 (day after Mike's birthday) and spending 4 days there. We're planning to spend 3 days in Cradle Mountain with our heated mattress pads and then back to Hobart for the cutest arts and crafts market we've found yet. I'm warning you, though, we may not come back!
~Ruth Ann

Hail the Queen of England -'cause she gives us more holidays!!

2006-06-12T03:08:00.000-05:00

Today is one of the many holidays we get due to Queen Elizabeth. Today is her official birthday! Yay! Her unofficial birthday (the day she was actually born on) was sometime in March. Never fear though, we were able to send her birthday wishes via a website. We got a response back saying "The Queen wishes her technical employees to thank us for our birthday wishes." We're fans of the Queen due to all the holidays we get because of her. A day off now and again is pretty nice.

We've had a car for the last few days. We were performing a concert down in Jervis Bay about three hours south of Sydney. There were four of us playing for a fund raiser for the Woodwind department at the Con. The Con saw fit to rent a car to the group to drive down there. Due to circumstances, neither of the Australian members of our group could be at the rental place when we picked the car up. This meant the legally only Ruth Ann and I could drive. Now, I drove a bit in Tasmania and did OK, but driving in downtown Sydney scared me. Luckily we got it Saturday morning when traffic was low and made it out of the downtown area. Hertz had initially misbooked the car so it looked like we might not get one. The only other one we could have was a new(ish) Nissan something-or-other. Guillaume, our very French Hertz clerk, compared our car (equally) to a Mercedes so we were pretty pleased after we made sure it was an automatic transmission. Neither Ruth Ann nor I drive stick shift very well and having the gear shift on the left side would have been too much!

We decided to take advantage of having a car to run some errands. We went to Target and got a little heater/fan combo. His name is Zippy and joins our ventilation system of one other little fan (who's name is Hoppy). We also went to the grocery store and stocked up on all the essentials now that we didn't have to carry them back on the train. We got a 10 Kilogram bag of rice(22lbs) so we'll never run out now!

We had to give it back this morning. It was nice to have a car for a bit. It's good we had to give it back now instead of after driving it around more: to refill the tank, it would have cost us $75! It sort of makes U.S. gas prices look not so bad.

We go back to 'school' tomorrow. It is now the study vacation which means no classes or anything. We do have to go into work. Other than that we just have to get ready for our juries next week. After that we have nothing for 5 weeks! We going to Tasmania at some point during those weeks.

Now that we have them loaded, here are several pictures from Tasmania. The first two are of Tasmanian devils at the Tasmanian Devil park. The Ranger went into the devil pen and picked one up by the tail. It snuggled down into her arms and let us pet it!!

The next one is of a wallaby we saw out in the wild. He was on the side of the road and we got up close. All he did was look sleepily at us and scratch himself.

The last pictures is of Port Arthur, the former prison colony.

~Mike

Hm...

2006-06-09T03:28:00.000-05:00

Is it a bad sign when you can SEE your BREATH in your APARTMENT?!?!?!

~Ruth Ann

Yay Tasmania!!!

2006-05-31T05:22:00.000-05:00

We have just gotten back from our first trip out of the state. Last thursday we flew to Tasmania with my folks for an extended weekend(meaning we skipped class!). Before we left, everyone told us, "Ohh, Tassie(pronounced Tazzie) is really cold!" After feeling what they called cold here in Sydney, we weren't expecting too much. In their defense it was chilly-especially because most buildings didn't have heat!

Our first few days were spent in Hobart, the capitol. After being in a city of 4 million for quite a while, a city(more townish) of 150,000 felt REALLY nice! It was much more laid back and with no hustle and bustle of the big city. We rented a car and my dad drove quite expertly on the left side. The turn signal and windshield wipers were on the opposite side, so left turns were signaled by our wipers. Much good seafood was eaten: clam chowder, shellfish, bluefish, fish 'n chips etc. All the food we had there was spectacular.

We first went to Salamanca market. It is a market where one can buy all different kinds of crafts, and food. There was a fresh juice stand with fresh apple cider which made some money off of us all. On our first full day, we went to Port Arthur down on the southern tip of the island. It was a old prison colony from the 19th century. The ruins of some of the buildings were still standing for people to wander through. We saw the main prison building, the insane asylum, the church, and various other buildings. The land was beautiful and so incredibly quiet that we rather enjoyed being there. IF we were to be incarcerated some day, we would much rather be in a Port Arthur prison than a Sydney one. They even had a set of leg chains you could try on. We have pictures, but the computer is moving REALLY slowly tonight so they'll come later.

The next day we headed for Cradle Mountain in the North. It was a 4hour drive but was well worth it. Along the way, my dad got a crazy notion to stop in one of the little towns to see 'character.' The three of us agreed grudgingly to humor him. It was a good thing we did. We stopped at a little tea house and had scones and hot soup for brunch. It was the most adorable little house. It looked like it was straight out of the countryside of jolly old England. There were little stone houses and old windmills and a sign to drive slow because of "Ducks, ducks."

Back on the road, I got a chance to drive on the left side. It wasn't as hard as I thought. It was a highway without much traffic so that made it easier still. I signaled with the windshield wipers, too. There was another little town we stopped at with a neat church and shops that sold wood and wool crafts. We finally got to the cabin on Cradle mountain. We had a nice two bedroom one back in the woods with a fireplace and heated mattress pads. This cabin was not heated and it was significantly colder here than in Hobart. Temps got to right around freezing. We played some cards and then went to bed. The heated mattress pads were heavenly! It felt so good to climb into a warm bed from the cold room and we felt so relaxed! The next day(and our last), we got up and went for a hike around a mountain lake. The views were spectacular! Just before in the parking lot, we saw a wallaby and a pademelon(basically a small wallaby) eating grass and scratching themselves. They seemed unconcerned as cars drove by and we stuck cameras in their face. Our next adventure was to the Tasmanian Devil ranch! Despite the loud noises they make and the misrepresentation in cartoons, they are actually quite cuddly. We learned about the ways of the Tassie Devils and the woes they are facing (and have faced). But the best part was that they picked up one of the devils(by the tail!) and let us pet them!!!! We took many pictures so there is proof, but it's on my parents camera because my batteries had died. Once we get them, we'll post some of them!

The day ended with us back at the airport-with our original suitcase this time!- and ultimately back to Sydney. We hit the ground running yesterday and have busy schedules until the end of June. This hasn't stopped us from planning our next trip to Tasmania already!!!!

~Mike

I hear Hamilton Island is a nice place to visit....

2006-05-30T00:07:00.000-05:00

Hi all! We're back again, with another set of adventures to tell!
Mike's parents are still in this neck of the woods. They spent about 5 days in New Zealand, and then met up with us again for a long weekend in Tasmania. Mike and I were TERRIBLY excited to go, especially since we cut Woodwind Performance class on Friday. (Biggest waste of time EVER.) It's only about a 2 hour plane ride to Hobart, the capital, but we were so excited to be leaving Sydney it wouldn't have mattered how long it took to get there!
The airport in Hobart is adorable, being possibly The Smallest Airport that is still known as "International." We collected Bob and Connie's 4 suitcases...waited for ours...waited for ours...oh, crap, there are no more suitcases going around the conveyor belt!!!!!
I asked the two attendants standing there if there were any suitcases left in the back room. One of them opened the door behind him, stuck his head in and said "Nope." The other guy referred us to the service desk in the next building over.
Mr. Service Desk came to the conclusion that our bag has been mistagged and sent to Hamilton Island, off the north coast of Queensland instead of way down south to Hobart. He didn't act like it would be a big deal, took down our contact information and said he'd call us as soon as he knew anything.
About 5 minutes after we'd left the desk, he called us to let us know that maybe the bag HADN"T gone the Hamilton Island...in fact...he had no clue where it was. But he'd keep us posted.
I was relatively amused, and figured the bad was still in Sydney, and we'd have it by nightfall. Mike, however, was very unhappy. We were sharing one suitcase, and although I had quite a few of my favorite clothes in there, nothing was the end of the world. But poor Mike had packed his: bassoon harness (special order), orchestra part to Tchaik 5 (concert this Friday, replacement cost ~$1500 for entire orchestra set), Beethoven part (chamber concert we're giving in less than 2 weeks) and black dress shoes (concerts Friday, Saturday, and next weekend).
We spent most of Friday trying to find a Target in Hobart to buy crucial things like socks and toothpaste. If you remember our story about going to Target and Kmart trying to get basic supplies for our apartment, you'll have a pretty good idea of what we went through trying to get outfitted for the weekend. I'll spare you the gruesome details, just know that it wasn't pretty and it is very difficult to find things in this country!
The airlines called two or so more times to continually let us know that they had no clue where our bag was, except that they were sure it was NOT in Hamilton Island. Saturday I called them to voice my displeasure. The guy I talked to acted offended that I wanted my bag, and asked "Well, had I SEEN them put a tag for Hobart on my suitcase? Because that was MY responsibility." He also lied and told me that he himself had left two messages that morning on our cell phone. The concierge at our hotel let us know that this airlines is notoriously troublesome, and that we'd have to keep harrassing them before they'd realize that we weren't going to go away. Bob and Connie even went back to the airport to voice their complaint in person.
Sunday, still nothing. We notified the airlines that we were changing hotels but that the cell phone was staying the same, and then agreed not to worry about it at all. Didn't matter--no messages from the airlines, no messages on Monday, either. Monday evening we returned to Hobart to fly to Sydney. We went straight the service desk, both of us dreading the return to Sydney to have to replace all of our stuff and tell the orchestra manager about the lost part.
"Michael Jones? We have your bag right here! Didn't anyone call you?" The lady popped into the back and wheeled out OUR BAG. "Apparently it was mistagged for Hamilton Island," she said.
Then, as a little "We're sorry!!!!!" we got upgraded to orange boarding passes. JetStar, the airline we were flying, is the Australian equivalent to Southwest--you get sorted into groups, and you find your own seat as you board the plane. Orange boarding passes mean that we could get on with the first group--"And, with luck, you can get the exit seats!" they told us enthusiastically. Nothing about the $400 we had to spend to get new sweatshirts, socks, shampoo, etc. etc. etc. etc. But, because I think the universe owed us one, we DID get the exit aisle. Nothing like a little leg room to say "We're sorry we're completely incompetent!"

Actually, despite all of that, we had a FABULOUS time in Tasmania, and hope to return as soon as humanly possible. But I'll let Mike tell you all about it!
~Ruth Ann

Finally a new one!

2006-05-21T04:44:00.000-05:00

We are back! We sincerely apologize to our intrepid readers for our lack of posts. We've had a busy week with my parents coming to Sydney! They stayed in Sydney for a week and are now in New Zealand. In a few days, we'll all go to Tasmania for a long weekend. Our week was spent showing them around the city interspersed with school obligations. All the sights that we have grown used to were new and exciting again when showing them to people.

They got in in the morning and were feeling fine with no feelings of jet-lag....as the afternoon wore on, they got sleepier and sleepier. Alas, they succumbed, and didn't even notice me taking this picture on the train.

After feeding them their first meal in Australia (we made kangaroo burgers!), we took them around the closer sights of Sydney at first: the opera house (this is proof they were actually here!) and the botanical gardens where my dad made a new friend. The ibises are so tame here that they will eat out of your hand....even when all we had is a crummy muffin.

In the Circular Quay area, they were thoroughly amused by the talented street performers and arguably more amused by the bad ones (we don't have any pictures of the bad ones as we didn't want to encourage them). The living statue and the dixie-land group were the best ones.

While we were in class and working, my parents went off on their own and saw the sights of greater-Sydney. They managed to come back with half a suitcase of native Australian wood and a bunch of material to take home. In the evenings, we were to go out to eat with them and see a bit more of the city. At one restaurant, we ordered (and we all-my mom included!- ate, I might add)kangaroo and crocodile skewers.

They did get to experience one incident that is the epitome of Australianisms. In the hotel they were staying in, there was a knock at the door. I opened it and who ever it was said "Oh, ah, I'm from housekeeping. We need to check the drapes. We're going to replace them and we need to see if their put on right. We won't do it now while you're here, but we need to check anyway." They went to the window and jimmied the drapes and said "Yep, these need to be replaced. We'll wait till you're gone otherwise it will be awkward with you here. Thanks, bye." They left the room, turned off the lights (with us still being there!) and closed the door. The three of us (my mom, dad and me) just looked at each other and blinked several times before the oddness of the situation passed.

We have several days of the grind until we get to go to Tasmania. We'll write more later and tell you how it was!!

~Mike

An odd day

2006-05-09T02:42:00.000-05:00

About a week ago, I was innocently minding my own business in a practice room when some strange guy popped the door open and asked if I was using the piano. I was, in fact, because I'm learning a piece where I have to sing a countermelody while playing the flute; moreover, there were NO stands to be found anywhere, and the piano by default had become my stand. I said as much and the guy (I've named him Chump-boy) said "There are a bunch of empty rooms at the end of the hall." "Yes," I replied, "But there are no stands anywhere and I really need to be able to see my music." "Just remember that stands are moveable and pianos are not," said Chump-boy. "I'll make you a deal," I said, though irked. "If you can manage to find me a stand anywhere, I'd be happy to move." "Just keep that in mind for next time," he said with a dismissive wave and disappeared.

Haven't seen him at all since, but then I was unfortunately innocently minding my own business in a practice room again today. I heard a knock on the door and hoped it was Mike, but when I turned around, there was Chump-boy, back for round two. This time I did have a stand, and was done with the piano part, and so would have been willing to trade if he had an empty room for me. Before I could say anything, he came out with "Could you take your tuner off the keys?" "Take my what off the which?" was my elegant reply. "Your tuner...or whatever that is...It's not good for the piano keys if things touch them." This completely blew me away. The piano was a small upright with a broken pedal and coffee stains on the keys. I had a small Korg metronome and a PENCIL sitting on the keys...That's definitely much more weight one's fingers....My only response was to yank them off the keys and slam the lid shut (where the music prop promptly would have fallen On The Keys...) "Cheers!" Chump-boy said and vanished.

I can only figure that he's got it out for me since I wouldn't move the first time. Since then I've thought of a dozen snappy responses, but he takes me by such surprise that I'm left openmouthed. I almost hope he bugs me again just so I can ask him who he is and why won't he leave me the **** alone!!!

Then today we had the first tutti orchestra rehearsal for the second program this semester. I don't know how everything else went, but we ran Tchaikovsky's 5th Symphony. !!!!!!!!!!!!!! If any of you were in Concert Orchestra the semester PB (names omitted to protect the innocent!) conducted, you would have thought that was the worst that a student orchestra could have played. I'm proud to annouce that we topped that today, mostly thanks to Maestro IP's conducting. He stopped conducting in the most crucial tempo changes, varied his tempi in rhythmic sections and gave us no help whatsoever for the sycopation, then would ask us why we didn't come in. I'm honestly surprised that we made it all the way to the end. Although things weren't helped by certain string players not picking up their parts until today.......Things never change, do they?

Mike has a late lesson, so it's up to me to cook dinner. Hmmm...this will be as much a surprise for me as for him! :-)

~Ruth Ann

Zeeeee

2006-05-06T20:47:00.000-05:00

We had a startling discovery yesterday. We can see daylight through a part of our apartment that we shouldn't. It's not the walls or ceiling.....IT'S THE FLOOR!!!! Our building is built into a cliff-like hill. We're on the ground floor in the front but our floor is the third one up in the back. We are seeing the light slantways towards the back of the building. There apparently is nothing between our floor boards and the outside world!!! This explains a fair amount like why we get so much dust in our apartment(we don't know if there is nothing but dirt directly below us or not), how cold our place gets is the night and how easily the damn bugs and spiders crawl in!! Since it's Sunday, we can't heckle the leasing agent about it today, so for now there is a big heavy phone book on the crack. (We hope the industrious bugs aren't strong enough to lift it off!) Very soon they (leasing agents) will be getting deal with the problem instead of us.

I'm teaching Ruth Ann how to make bassoon reeds. I'm hoping she'll have a natural talent to it so I don't have to deal with them. She's learned how to shape it pretty well, but we'll see how she does with the scoring and if she cracks up the middle of the tube. I have high hopes as she's learned the ins and outs of making oboe reeds. When she has finished her first one, we'll post a picture of it!

We had several amusing run-ins with Australianisms regarding the alphabet. An 'h' is pronounced with an 'h' sound to it so it sounds like 'haych' but not everybody says it like that. Also in the U.S. we all learned to say the letter 'Z' as zeeeee. Here they pronounce it 'zed.' While working in the library we've gotten several confusing looks been politely corrected by patrons when we say zeeee. We asked one of our friends, Ian, about this and he said, "Yeah, I used to think the band was called Zed Zed Top!"

Cheers!

~Mike

2006-04-30T06:46:00.000-05:00

Well, it's yet again Sunday night. All one can do is "look forward" to another week of school/work/the longest possible amount of time before the next weekend. It seems like it's always Sunday evening here. But this Sunday is different! Ruth Ann is making(as I type) rice bubble treats(rice krispie treats with peanut butter, honey, coconut, and raisins instead of marshmallows)!!! We just got done cleaning the dust off of the floor and under the furniture. Our apartment produces a ridiculous amount of dust. We have no idea where it comes from but there are always huge dust bunnies(or jack rabbits) under our bed. So because of our hard work, we get a treat!!

We had our first orchestra concerts this weekend. There was a concert Friday night that celebrated all the scholarship winners at the Con. Apparently both of us won scholarships, some of which we didn't even know! We knew about Ruth Ann's but had no clue I was getting anything. We're not counting our chickens before they hatch, though, because we have lived here too long. We're going into the scholarship lady at the Con and seeing what exactly is going on-it's possible it was a typo or some other mishap. Later that night we went to here the Sydney Symphony(we can get some free tickets through the Con) and heard an amazing oboe concerto amongst other things. We decided that should they even need an extra flutist or bassoonist, we'd be more than happy to play with them.

Our concert Saturday afternoon was not quite as good and Fridays, but we decided to be social and went out afterwards with a number of the wind section. We had multiple odd and amusing conversations such as "the evils of American cheese vs. The other better kinds of cheeses out there(we agreed)," "Denver and tuba players," and we tried in vain to explain right wing militias-apparently they don't really have them here.

We've used our Sunday to the best of our abilities: slept late, went running, had pancakes!, talked to various family members, had a nap, and now we get dessert! Have a good Sunday night!
~Mike

I feel like expounding on our discussion on right wing militias. :-) I'm not sure why Mike decided to ask the Australians if they had any, but they were extremely confused. The discussion got passed around the table a bit, and Mike tried to explain about people hiding out in compounds deep in Montana. One girl protested that there hadn't been guerilla warfare since Vietnam, and another guy said that there were no people to shoot in the bush. We tried to explain further, about right-wing extremists, just hanging onto their guns for dear life. "Some people go hunting for fun," another guy offered. We continued to try and explain Montana (who can?!) and I guess it didn't work. When one girl finally said "I think the closest thing we have is paintball," we gave up. !!!! I guess you just have to experience it for it to make sense :-)
Back to my Rice Bubbles!
~Ruth Ann

Things that go swish, honk, and toot in the night

2006-04-25T05:07:00.000-05:00

We've had several odd incidents during the last two nights. The first one began two nights ago around 10:00. We were both busy reading our books when we noticed a strange sound that kept reoccuring. It sounded like a cross between an animal snuffling and a strange clicking. There are several dogs and cats that seem to roam the neighborhood with their owner's permission so we thought nothing of it. The sound kept going and seemed to move to right outside our window. Around 10:15, curiosity got the best of me so we turned out the lights to see in the dark and I went to the window to see what it was. THERE WAS NOTHING THERE!!! We went back to our books and the sound continued again only it moved a bit further off. Around 10:30 the sound was starting to irritate me again so I turned the lights off and looked outside again. THERE WAS STILL NOTHING THERE!!! I could here the sounds clearer now and it sounded like someone jiggling keys or scraping something. There are a number of cars parked outside so this seemed logical. I kept looking until I found out what it was exactly. Our batty old neighbor upstairs was pruning the hedges in the front yard!! At 10:30 at night!! She was bent over so her face was nearing to the ground and she had a little pair of handshears and she was clipping away. We've had several conversations with this woman and knew she was a little nuts, but yard work in the middle of the night puts her squarely in the nut house.

The second incident happened the next morning. The ferries start running around 5:30am. Sometimes the harbour gets crowded with little boats(yachts and motor boats) so the ferries have to honk their horns so they'll clear the way. This is very common and it doesn't even register with us anymore. So around 5:30 one started to honk....and it didn't stop. Our apartment is around 200yrds from the water(as the crow flies only) so it was very loud. We were firmly awake with no hope of going back to sleep and it still kept honking. It kept going for around 10 minutes until it shut off. The sound continued though, as it echoed back and forth across the harbour for 15 more seconds. We asked the security guards at the Admiralty House what happened and they said "Ahhh, we don't know. It was probably the fog horn that got stuck. We started worrying about it, but then it stopped." This is how our day began yesterday.

Today started a little stranger but thankfully a little later. Today was the ANZAC memorial day(Australian/New Zealand Army Corps). All the Australian and New Zealand soldiers who fought in WWI and WWII were out in force today in their uniforms with all their medals and green jackets. This morning at 6:09am, a bugler began to play some reveille. We woke up and hoped it was just some solemn ceremony and the Governor General's house down the street with some war veterans. The bugler kept playing and repeating the little jingle over and over until he began to get tired. He finally took a break and we got up and looked outside. There was a very young guy playing the bugle wearing and ANZAC WWI uniform. Another young looking guy was in a suit nearby looking very cold. There were two other men, one with a light and the other a video camera filming the cold looking guy in the suit. We have no idea what this was for or why the guy NOT in uniform was so important. Anyway, the bugler started playing a again but his lips were getting tired so a bunch of the notes started to sag. He kept at it with fervor dispite his embouchure being entirly shot. He tried to salvage his playing by doing a few embouchure excercises but it did not work. By the last time he played the reveille at 6:30, almost 2/3 of the notes were painfully flat. We had started to put some warm clothes on and go out to take a picture of him, but by the time my shoes were on he had finished so, you'll have to take our word for it.

Tonight, we are hoping for a quiet night's sleep!

~Mike

On a sort-of related side note, today we had to go buy another blanket. We bought one a few weeks ago, a lovely blue knitted one that was cozy at the time. But alas, our apartment is not heated, and 55 degrees at night in a poorly insulated 70 year old apartment building with hardwood floors with the bed by the window can be a bit chilly! We trooped up to our favorite Tar-jay, since that was where we found Blanket no. 1. We had seen several quilts for about $50 and hoped to give one a good home. Alas again, Tar-jay was participating in seasonal price gouging, with said quilts now going for $140. Electric blankets were no better. Mike managed to find a plain white, institutional-like quilt for about $55. Aparently, when you buy a plain white quilt here, you're also supposed to buy something called a "quilt cover." In other words, buy the quilt, but then spend another $50 or more on another SHEET to spread over the top of the quilt. ??? White works just fine for us!

We have, however, managed to find a happy place to buy Cheap Stuff. It's called "The Reject Store" and carries everything from mixing bowls to Easter candy. Today I managed to find a "clothes airer" (read: clothes drying rack) for only $10, which is amazing in Australian terms. And now, while I'm writing a roundabout email, let me just expound a bit on Australian laundry. Clothes dryers hardly exist here. There's no room for one in our apartment, nor has there been in any others we've looked into (although corners for washing machines are very common). The towels and sheets (and now the quilt) we've purchased here actually tell us NOT to tumble dry, but to line dry in a semi-shaded area. My parents sent me clothes-pins (and a clothes-pin bag...what a surprise, Dad!) and I have to say I actually enjoy hanging laundry up outside. The clothes airer was purchased to we don't have to hang our underwear up for the batty neighbors to inspect or make off with, but everything else can go down on the community clothes line downstairs. It's in a semi-shaded area but you get a clear view of the harbour as you hang away. And it's been dry enough that if something is hung up first thing in the morning, by the time we return home it's nicely dry. Fabulous!

And now, having written a completely pointless blog, I'm going to go try out that new quilt. Ta!
~Ruth Ann

Back from the Mountains!

2006-04-20T20:34:00.000-05:00

We're back! Just a few hours ago we returned from the Blue Mountains. We'd like to head straight back; we're not made for city life!!
We stayed at the Jemby-Rinjah Eco lodge, outside of Blackheath. Blackheath is a little blip on the radar screen about two hours outside of Sydney by train. The JRL is designed to carefully fit into the natural environment, which is the middle of the Australian bush!
Our cabin looked a bit sketchy from the outside, but inside it was pure luxury! It was all wood, but still with large windows. We had a little kichenette and living area and the world's coziest bed. ZZZZZZZ!!
One of the best parts of the trip was the Jemby-Rinjahs! That's the local Aboriginal word for the kind of parrot that lives in the local bush. Apparently, in 1987, the owner of the lodge decided to try feeding the birds; the idea eventurally caught on and the birds will now appear on cue at 8:30 every morning.
This morning we went to the clearing where the birds appear. We were greeted by an absolutely adorable 6 year old British boy who asked if we were waiting for the birds. We said we were and a little conversation sprung up. We asked if he'd ever been to Australia before, and if he had seen any kangaroos. When he said he had, Mike asked if he'd seen any joeys in the mamas' pouches.
"No," Mr. Precocious said. "It's the wrong season. They'll be born in spring."
!!!!!!!! (He made Mike feel stupid...)
Anyway, if the visitors show up at 8:30 with the birds, you'll be given the chance to feed them, too. You take a handful of sunflower seeds and hold still, and look what happens:

They tickle :-)

Yesterday we went for a hike in Australia's Grand Canyon. It's not nearly as big a hole in the ground as the US's, but still picturesque nonetheless. You can easily climb all the way to the canyon floor and hop around amongst the muddy stones. It's actually very bizarre--going down, you're clearly in a rainforest-bushy sort of place. Rocks are covered in slimy moss, the trees drip on you and you slide through mud everywhere. But then you cross the river and start climbing up the other side and are transported into desert--the plants change and everything is covered in a thin film of dust. I enjoyed the dusty part better--probably because it reminded me more of home!

Proof that it was gorgeous:

These pictures to me clearly Look Like Australia. I am slowly becoming to realize that yes, I really am in another country, not to mention continent! Even the wind sounds different out here, because none of the trees are the same.

At night it was completely dark and completely silent. We had to use a flashlight to get back from dinner, but we saw more stars than I've ever seen anywhere (even Virginia Dale, Kacky!!). Even if I had known what southern constellations to look for, I'd have never known where to start with these. The Milky Way was RIGHT THERE but even when you turned around, the stars would be shining all around through the trees. It was quite amazing.

Needless to say, we want to go back SOON! Other upcoming adventures, though, include a trip to Tasmania with Mike's parents and, with any luck, a trip to Uluru and the Olgas over our winter break (that's 6 weeks long!!!) Stay tuned!!!!! More thrilling adventures to come!!

~Ruth Ann

TV is bad!

2006-04-17T20:48:00.000-05:00

So last night we had nothing to do and sort of wished we had a TV to while away the evening hours. Since we left the hotel 2 months ago we haven't watched a stitch of the idiot box and we haven't rented movies for well over 1 1/2 months. Thanks to iTunes one can now get selected television shows for their computer or iPod. We decided to get 2 episodes of the Office and one of Lost. After the shows were over we had a manic feeling and couldn't get our minds to calm down enough to go to sleep. We felt like the shows had assaulted our senses and minds. What we have learned is that TV is bad for our health and the calm of our minds. Books are so much more interesting!

In an hour or two we're set to go off to the Blue Mountains for a few days. We're staying in a lodge out away from towns and cities so the din of civilization won't mess up our time. And there'll be no TV's!!!! This is the first time we will have gotten away from Sydney and it's sprawling metropolis. We'll get to feed the parrots in the morning, hike, not hike, and relax in the spa that will supposedly be in our room. There are several spectacular views a short distance from the lodge(so we're told). Hopefully it's just what we'll need to make to the next break and stay sane.

~Mike

The answers!!!

2006-04-13T06:28:00.000-05:00

We are both ecstatic with how many responses we received for our quiz :-) Thanks to everyone for their serious and not so serious answers. Mike will reveal the winner of the creative answer award in just a few minutes. The person with the most correct answers, I am pleased to announce is MY MOTHER!!! 14 correct answers, not bad at all! You're becoming more used to the idea of your daughter living in Australia every day :-)
So:
Carolyn 14
Nicole 11
Laura and Connie 9
Louisa, Jan and Emily 8
Chuck 5 (statistics working for the math teacher there!)
Bob and Kacky 4
Andrea 0

And on the correct answers!!
1.) Australians drive on the left side of the road. Amusingly enough, you're also supposed to WALK on the left side of the sidewalk. In a shopping mall, have you ever noticed the escalators? The one going up will be on the right, the one coming down will be on your left. Here it's the exact opposite. That's taken some getting used to, although if you walk into enough people you learn a little quicker....

2.) Michael Jeffery is the Governor-General of Australia AND our next door neighbor. John Howard is the prime minister and Morris Iemma is the premier of NSW.

3.) Australia has 6 states (New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, West Australia and Tasmania). There are also two territories, Australian Capital Territory and Northern Territory.

4.) Canberra is the capital of Australia, being conveniently located in the Australian Capital Territory :-)

5.) Definitely all beaches. They are also funny names, but no so funny as compared with some other names here in Oz: Humpty Doo, Turramurrah, Warrawee, Wooloomooloo.......

6.) Rice Krispies! Although they still have the adorable elves on the front of the box :-)

7.) Raisins. Raisin bran is sold here in Australia as Sultana Bran!

8.) A carrawong is a fabulous bird with amazing vocal abilities. He looks not unlike a crow, but can whistle, bwak like a chicken, and (my favorite) let out a resounding "WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!"

9.) They do, in fact, say "G'day" and call us "mate." However, we're trying to figure out the linguistic patterns---not everyone does, and we think it may be a variation on "y'all." (By the way--I have frequently been mistaken for being Canadian--my southern inflection confuses them to no end--and I've lost most of my twang!)

10.) Full up=very busy, although I was convinced he thought my shift was over and was going to let me out a bit early :)

11.) Chockers is very full. We're guessing it has something to do with "being chock full of CDs?" ????

12.) I'll be back in a tick. I love that one!!

13.) It's some form of soybean oil that they think works just as well for cookies as Crisco. They're wrong--nothing can replace Crisco in Mike's Famous Cookies!!!

14.) Nurofen is our new form of Advil. We've discovered the joys of Australian pharmacies--a lot of things that you can't get over the counter back home you can here--hurrah for OTC Telfast (Australian Allegra!)

15.) This was the question that no one (except Chuck, by default) got right. "Digeridoo" actually came from Irish settlers, and it comes from "dÃºdaire or dÃºidire" (meaning either a long necked person or a crooner) and "dubh" (meaning black or native). The digeridoo has been around for over 1500 years but has only been called that since the 1800s. !!!!!

Thanks for playing--we had such a good response we may just have to have another one soon!!

~Ruth Ann

Excellent work everyone! I am most impressed with the creativity of answers: both within the confines of the 'rules' of multiple choice (Chuck and Kacky) and the complete disregard to the 'rules' (Bob and Andrea). There were also those who did a bit of both (Emily and Louisa). All of you were very creative and so all of you earned participation points. If I had little white ribbons, you all would get one!

Now to the nitty gritty. Louisa, you had some good ideas/alterations but it wasn't enough to win. Ruth Ann isn't marrying MichaeJefferyes, she's marrying me! Emily, you ventured further from the box and earned a few more points. I can almost hear the future pitter patter of little Curl Curl Jones running down the hall..... But alas, it was not enough.

Chuck and Kacky, you played by the rules but within that you thumbed your nose at 'the man.' I'm afraid Kacky that Chuck barely edged you out with his answer of 'A' to a true or false question!

And now on to Bob and Andrea. Your trail blazing, maveric attitude to the multiple choice has racked up a number of points in your favor! Bob: nice work on the solfeggio and neuro-fen answers. Your skillful punning hard at work! But the Winner goes to.......
ANDREA!!! With one broad sweep you've negated the entire quiz process and brought a shread of dignity to the over worked student. Bravo! As you taksolacece in the fact that you DID have enough participation points to pass, know that you worked the system to your best advantage! May you be a beacon to all of us in the quagmire of busywork and academic indifference!

Nice work everyone. It is now the holiday break for us here in OZ and we're celebrating it by going to sleep early! We're both tickled at thresponseses we got on the quiz! Good Night!

~Mike

24 hours remaining!

2006-04-12T04:55:00.000-05:00

Thanks to everybody who has posted answers to our quiz. We have exceeded our previous comment level of 5, with an all time high of 7! But this doesn't mean you slackers out there shouldn't try your own answers. 24 hours remaining to get your answers in!
(I feel like I'm on pledge week for PBS.......)
~Ruth Ann

There will be creative awards for answers as well. Right now, Bob taking the cake. Will he be allowed?!?!?!?! It's up to YOU!
~Mike

An interactive blog

2006-04-10T04:04:00.000-05:00

Since we're very greedy and LOVE comments to our posts (I'm not kidding--every morning after we've posted the first thing we check is if we have any comments!) I'm posting a blog filled with trivia for interactive fun. The most comments we've ever had on one post was 5, so let's push for 6, people! If you haven't posted in a while, or have never posted, here's your chance! Even if you're one of our most faithfuls (Louisa), respond anyway! The more the merrier! The winner with the most correct questions may or may not win an all-expense paid trip to Oz. (Exclusions apply.) And no fair Googling any answers!!

Oh--and if you haven't figured out how to post a comment, from the blog entry, click on "comments." When it takes you to the comment page, all you have to do is click "anonymous" and then "login and publish entry." That publishes the comment right away.

Ok, on to the fun!

1.) Which side of the road do we drive on in Australia?
a.) right
b.) left
c.) Australians hop--it's the kangaroo in them

2.) Michael Jeffery is
a.) the premier of New South Wales
b.) the Prime Minister of Australia
c.) the Governor-General of Australia

3.) How many states are in Australia?
a.) four
b.) six
c.) eight

4.) What is the capital of Australia?
a.) Canberra
b.) Sydney
c.) Victoria

5.) What do Curl Curl, Dee Why and Coogee all have in common?
a.) They're all beaches in New South Wales
b.) They're all towns in Queensland
c.) They're all funny names

6.) What are Rice Bubbles?
a.) The Aussie name for bubble tea
b.) The Aussie name for rice cakes
c.) The Aussie name for Kellogg's Rice Krispies

7.) What are sultanas?
a.) Little baby sultans
b.) Raisins
c.) a kind of banana

8.) What's a carrawong?
a.) a bird
b.) a plane
c.) Superman

9.) True or false: Australians do, in fact, use the words "mate" and "G'day."

10.) The other day my boss asked me if my shift was "full up." What did he mean?
a.) My shift was over
b.) My shift was very busy
c.) I'd had loads of crazy patrons and I'd had it UP TO HERE!

11.) One of our coworkers commented to Mike that a bookshelf was "chockers." What did she mean?
a.) It was stuffed full
b.) It was leaning to the side
c.) It was dirty

12.) If an Australian is going away for a second, what do they say?
a.) I'll be right back
b.) I'm coming back, mate
c.) I'll be back in a tick

13.) What is "cofa?"
a.) an Australian sofa
b.) the Australian version of Crisco
c.) an electronic funds transfer

14.) What is Nurofen?
a.) a kind of Australian tea
b.) an Australian gas station
c.) Australian ibuprophen

15.) From what language did the word "digeridoo" originate?
a.) Celtic
b.) a native Aboriginal dialect
c.) Dutch

Have fun! I'll give you three days to post answers, then I'll write response. :o)

~Ruth Ann

Manly AGAIN!

2006-04-09T05:32:00.000-05:00

Hello faithful readers!
We went to the Manly area again today to do some hiking. Ruth Ann and I donned our hikin' clothes and adventurin' hats. Due to a low pressure system over the Tasman Sea, the surf at the Sydney beaches were supposed to be between 4 and 7 meters high! Before our hike, we went to the beach to see what was going on. To our disappointment the waves didn't seem that high but they were very violent and we saw numerous surfers wipe out. Everybody else had the bright idea to go see how high the waves were so when we left the beach to go on the bush walk, we were away from the crowds. The trail we went on started out being paved but then moved into the Sydney Harbour National Park-a bushy area with several fantastic views of the Pacific:

We hiked about 8 miles total and treated ourselves to gelatto. When we were trying to leave, the waves stymied us. The ferries could sail just fine, but they couldn't dock at the wharf securely enough to let passengers on! So, they had a few buses to crowd the people on and drive them back to Circular Quay.

Our lovely neighborhood ant colony decided to pay us a friendly visit this morning. Last night I had a mug of juice and left it by the sink. There were a few drops left in it and the ants took that as the go ahead to swarm all over our counters. Luckily we had a bottle of windex near by and I had fun spraying them. We also bought some sweet gooey jell that ants can't resist and poisons them a few days later after they have spread it around to other ants. Here is a picture of them not resisting the jell and drowning in it!

Both Ruth Ann and I have started a new job(in addition to the library): working box office and back stage for the concerts at the Con. Ruth Ann is now a backstage manager and gets to yell at students who are slow to get on the stage. In the box office, I get to smile at people, tell them where the bathrooms, are and sell them tickets. We were both trained Friday night and then Saturday afternoon, we were there with nobody else! BUT, we pulled through ok! Tomorrow, we have interviews for the jobs we already have been given.

~Mike

flowers and charangos and frogs, oh my!

2006-04-04T04:12:00.000-05:00

Today has been a very pleasant day in Sydney. Our cool weather continues, but the sun shines all day. Our little fan, Hoppy, has been retired for the season and we actually need jackets in the morning when catching the ferries.

This week is 'special projects week' at the Con. Theoretically, this week is devoted entirely to chamber music. All classes are cancelled except for orchestra rehearsals and chamber coachings. We are all to apply ourselves diligently to our chamber groups. Yeah, right! Mike and I, not knowing anyone at the Con yet, were assigned to play a Beethoven Trio Concertante with a very crazy, although amusing, pianist. (The piece is pretty bad--he wrote it when he was about 16. You know all those szfortandi he liked to throw in in his later years? The trio is peppered with them, often with more than one per measure!!) Anyway, our crazy pianist, Alexey, summed up special projects week very well. "Every day, the students go to the Con and then to the pub, to the Con and to the pub. By the end of the week, they're just at the pub!" Apparently the end of the week came early this year, because the school is a ghost town. Fall break is in two weeks, so I think this is just a break to get ready for break!

Here's a picture of my new favorite flowers, frangipani:

(See La, they're white and yellow!! They also come in pink, but I don't like those as much.) The streets back to the ferry wharf are lined with them, so whenever we see perfect specimens we bring them home.

On another natural side note, I have discovered that we have frogs everywhere here! When we first got here I saw a TV special about the native frogs of Oz, and how in the male mating croak, only the second part is what the female pays attention to. So all the males try to croak OVER the second half of all the other males. The resulting sound is very similar to crickets until you listen very carefully. They're very soothing :-)

Mike is sitting behind me dinking on his charango. (A small Bolivian instrument related to the guitar...I surprised him with one for Christmas.) His dinking improves every day, but apparently E Major is very difficult. (Says he!) It appears to be a bit like the piccolo of the guitar world--just WHERE do your fingers go?!

~Ruth Ann

Manly

2006-04-02T05:29:00.000-05:00

Hello all!
We just got back from an exciting day at the beach! We went to Manly again and remembered to bring our cameras. The following pictures are from this trip. The beaches as you can see were very crowded despite chilly temps. We had sweatshirts while the sunbathers had to be freezing as they were wearing quite a bit less. There were skads of surfers out in the water all waiting for the few paltry waves coming in today. We saw several good runs and many more wipe outs! There is a trail we discovered following the harbour side waterline that goes for 12km each way. We only did about three and a half down and are saving the rest for next weekend. The trail goes through some protected bushland so we'll be away from civilization.

The day's excitement didn't start there either: for breakfast we had coconut milk pancakes! It all began yesterday morning....I was making pancakes and had everything mixed up except the milk which had gone bad. Not wanting to have flour/water paste for breakfast I turned to the open cabinet and saw the cans of coconut milk and thought "Why not?". Anyway, it works very well if you should want to try it. The pancakes don't come out too coconutty either-more of a hint of the flavor.

Also, we found crisco today! While this may not excite you, it excites us a great deal. We can now make the infamous Lucille's chocolate chip cookie recipe and bribe the secretaries at the Con into giving us more work. Also, we like to eat these cookies. We bought all the ingredients at the store one time only to find that they didn't have crisco(nothing else really works very well in the recipe). We found said crisco in a tiny little shop in Manly called 'Hello Sweetie.' They import a lot of foods from North America. We extolled the virtues of Cheezits and Goldfish crackers so hopefully next time we go, we can have those too!

BUT today's culinary excitement didn't stop there either!! When we first got to Australia, Kim Walker gave us a bottle of wine. It looked like something she had been given as a gift and she didn't want it. Anyway, I opened it and tasted it and it was pretty bad. Very dry and unpleasant-the tannins were too strong and the after-taste was a might peppery (I haven't lost my touch have I, Carolyn?) Since Ruth Ann and I don't really drink wine I started cooking with it. Everything it touches turns to gold! We've braised with it, marinated with it, used it in countless sauces....and now it's sadly gone. But before it left us, it caused a very good lamb roast to be braised. We googled the wine after dinner and found that it was preeettty expensive. We think it went to a much better use!

BUT THE DAY'S EXCITEMENT CONTINUES!!! For no apparent reason, fireworks were being shot off in the direction of the Harbour. We had just finished dinner when the first barrage went off. We threw our shoes on and ran down the street until we could see. The display was impressive and well coordinated. We have no idea why the fireworks were shot off. These impromptu displays have occurred several times before. We've asked several people while watching them and they have no idea either.

The day's excitement has run out now so we're going to sleep. May your Sundays be as eventful as ours!
~Mike

And on to other bugs

2006-03-30T03:58:00.000-06:00

From cockroaches to moths! This little guy is perched on the doorjam going into the kitchen and has been there all day. We think he's rather pretty so are leaving him alone.

We have a new favorite Australian food: Weis's Fruit Bars! They come in peach, raspberry, mango and mango/macadamia. It's a "frozen confection" of a strip of frozen fruit and a thin strip of vanilla ice cream right next to it. (For those of you who knew Fruitful's fruit bars, they're just as good...if not better!!)

The weather has finally been cooling off here--we actually had to go buy a blanket last weekend!! It's supposed to be really cool on Sunday, so we're going to head back to Manly in hopes that the beaches will be fairly empty. We promise to take our cameras along this time so we can provide a true report.

Just to totally mess with your minds...So, it's that time of year to change your clocks, right? And now that you've all finally figured out what time we are here, we're going to confuse you! While it's spring in the US, you're springing forward...but here it's FALL and so we're FALLING back. How nuts is that?! Officially we'll be getting closer together in time but it actually will just make it more difficult to reach people. Hm...

Fall break is coming up soon--we get the week after Easter off. Mike has found us a lovely B&B in the middle of the Blue Mountains so we're going to escape the city for a few days. Apparently we'll be close to "Blackheath's Grand Canyon" (whatever that means? We'll find out!!) and the Three Sisters, which is one of Australia's famous rock formations. The B&B also promises that we can feed the wild birds every morning. I know what Mike will be doing! Chirp!

~Ruth Ann

P.S. Kacky: "Con" is short for "Conservatorium." Australians like to shorten whatever they possibly can, and articles are unnecessary in gramatical contexts. For example, "attending a university" is more affectionately known as "going to uni." :-)

COCKROACHES!!!!!!

2006-03-28T03:51:00.000-06:00

Well, one of them anyway. We had our first running with a cockroach in our apartment last night. He kind of showed up out of nowhere and ran under our desk. I managed to coax him out with a few puffs from our air pump. He didn't really like it too much and made a dash to the coach. Ruth Ann valiantly trapped him with the broom and I then smeared him across the floor. The good news is that this was a flawless team effort in the demise of the bug. The bad news is that it's a cockroach and where there is one, there are usually more. We haven't seen any evidence of them in our apartment before so we're hoping he's an rouge but at least we have a bunch of roach motels.

Speaking of irritating bugs, in orchestra today we found out that they tune to A 441. After getting A 440 hammered into your head for a number of years, playing a bit higher is irking-sort of like a mosquito buzzing in your ear: not enough to push you over the edge but really annoying. (Side note from Ruth Ann: Note to self! When traveling to another country, always be smart enough to figure out the tuning frequency! I noticed in sectionals that I was distressingly flat and didn't find out the real reason until tuning a tricky section with the clarinet after rehearsal. Boy, do I feel dumb.......) (But it's also characteristic of everything Australian--half way between the US and Europe!!!)

We went to the beach last night. We took a ferry to Manly up northeast of the city. Unlike the dinky beaches we've been to thus far, Manly beach is right on the ocean(as opposed to being in the harbour). The tide was coming in so we had a spectacular display of waves coming in. We got there when it was still light and had a picnic on the beach. The seagulls were a bit cuter than those at Circular Quay so we threw some grapes and crackers at them. They didn't seem to like the carrot pieces I tossed to them. After that we took our shoes off and strolled through the wet sand. A wave washed up and we thought we'd get our feet wet. It kept coming and coming until we were soaked up to our thighs. We stayed until after dusk watching the waves and being amused by the surfers being thrown off their boards.

~Mike

Pictures again

2006-03-25T03:53:00.000-06:00

Okay, I tried this last night but the pictures wouldn't load. Trying again...

Hello again to all of our faithful readers out there! Life in Australia has actually been relatively calm since our last posting. The "orchestra strike" on Thursday turned into a weird situation with people from the main campus trying to rile everyone up and start a major protest that administration doesn't care about the students. Condoleezza Rice was hardly mentioned at all, although a lot of the students who are being changed demanded to know why the Dean wasn't trying to help them out. I've got my own theories there...Things did get a bit tense for a few minutes and Dean Walker did have to threaten to call security again if they didn't calm down. But somehow everybody shut up after half an hour and we had an orchestra rehearsal after all. !!!

Here are several more pictures:

Two views of the Con; the first being Verbruggen Hall where the orchestra concerts are held, and the other being the main building with classroom and practice rooms.

Here's a picture of the famous opal. Our digital cameras don't have a high enough resolution to get a clearer picture than this, so you'll just have to see it in person!!

And THIS lovely little guy came and begged for lunch crumbs in the Botanical Gardens on Friday. He hopped and scampered and we thought he was much more worthy than all the pigeons!

I leave you tonight with one last photo. It has no explanation!!!

~Ruth Ann

Another full day

2006-03-22T02:14:00.000-06:00

Well, we're wrapping up another full day here at in Sydney. We just got back from a welcoming reception for International students studying in Sydney hosted by the Lord Mayor of Sydney. It was held in the Town Hall building-basically a huge open hall with a MASSIVE pipe organ. The event started off with a bang and the food and drink were flowing. Perhaps a little too much! When the Lord Mayor and all the Vice Chancellors from the three universities in Sydney and the Grand Poo Bah got up to speak, barely anyone was paying attention. There was a small crowd in the front trying to listen but a much bigger crowd in the back talking very loud. It increased to the point that when the speakers were done and a choir from somewhere started performing, nothing could be heard. We left shortly after claiming sore feet and ears.

One highlight of the evening was a stone carving in the wall urging us to "Remember Nellie Melba!" We couldn't because we didn't know who she was but she was depicted as a naked woman with a goat on one side and a strange man on the other. On further research, Nellie Melba was a professional soprano in the early 1900's and is on the $100 bill. Why we should remember her and why she was naked with a man and a goat, we will never know!

~Mike

I had a very exciting and varied day! Since we had this important shindig where we had to be all gussied-up, Mike went ahead and gave me my birthday present. I am now the ecstatic owner of an Australian opal necklace!!!!!! It's light blue, in a white gold setting of a teardrop and also has a small diamond at the bottom. Mike also said some very romantic things but I'm saving those for myself ;-)

Life pre-opal was not very good today, though. I worked today and it was SO SLOW. I'm officially only trained to check in items, so if people don't return things, I've got nothing to do. The computer system is the exact same thing that we used in Bloomington, so I really am capable of doing a lot more but they don't seem to be able to understand this. To give me something else to do, one of the librarians showed me how to load a cart!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! As if I haven't been working in libraries for how long? I also encountered a very irritating situation of sexual discrimination? Harassment? (not sure which, but either way it's not recognized here so I couldn't complain if I wanted to). The interlibrary loans came around 1 and so, having nothing to do, I said "So I just take this box from you and give you our sitting behind the counter?" The librarian who taught me how to load a cart said "No, you're not qualified to do that yet." That through me for a second, just long enough for one of the maintenance workers to come from around the corner, move the box and hand the delivery guy our outgoing stuff. "What would you have done if there were three of them?" the maintenance worker asked me. "Moved them," was my suave reply. He looked at the other two men and said "She's got it all figured out!" and they all laughed.

ARGH!!!!!!!! Each box contained three or four books and a handful of CDs. The boxes at MCPL were three times as large and 5 times as heavy. I could've screamed. Punching the guy also seemed like a nice option...

On a more cheerful note, this morning at Circular Quay we encountered a new group of street performers. Three retired men, sitting on plastic milk crates, playing Dixieland! The tuba player had big puffy cheeks and sandals with really dirty feet; the banjo player wore a tweed cap and sunglasses and just plunked along; and the trumpet player had a row of mutes in front of him and wore tap shoes so he could set the beat. We're so disappointed we didn't have our cameras! They were actually really good, too, especially the trumpet player. He still had amazing control and really knew his stuff! We listened to them for longer than we should have :o)

Thanks to those of you who commented...Keep it up!! We're off to the park to eat shortbread cookies and watch the stars come out.
~Ruth Ann

And the protests continue...

2006-03-21T02:39:00.000-06:00

Here we are again, back by popular demand! Apparently our blog is hugely successful and read by many. Your comments are eagerly awaited by your two authors, so please, don't be shy about responding to anything we post. We love comments :o)

Today in orchestra, Mike found the following placed on his stand (and I quote):
------------------------
STUDENTS ARRESTED FOR PEACEFULLY PROTESTING A WAR CRIMINAL SPEAKING AT THE CONSERVATORIUM.
~Classes cancelled for private function as Condoleezza Rice speaks at Conservatorium last Thursday.
~Snipers, mounted police, police dogs, federal police, ground police and (we understand) CIA agents kick con students off our own campus.
~The Dean and Vice-Chancellor continue to show that students are their lowest priority.
~Support your fellow students who were unfairly arrested and beaten up by police. Meet at Verbrugghen Hall 1.45 pm on Thursday, orchestra strike and demand the Dean apologises for cancelling classes, putting ALL our lives in danger and alllowing (sic) students to be arrested on our own campus.
-------------------------

~More classes were cancelled because con students acted like idiots and had the Con put on lockdown. By the way, at IU, we were always THRILLED when classes were cancelled. Why not here, too? An orchestra strike is essentially the same thing...
~As if CIA conspiracy theorists don't run rampant enough in the US!!! We had to spread that abroad?!
~The Con is actually owned by the government; the Dean had no choice but to allow Rice to speak here.
~Yeah, as *forcing* the Dean to apologize does anything to help the war effort. Orchestra strike, smorchestra strike! If I have to play Rach 2 by myself, then I will. And by the way--anywhere you act like and idiot, you can be arrested.

There's my two cents! We'll report back on Thursday

We are the proud owners of a very odd 4.5 kg washing machine. It sounds pained that it has to wash and very distressed that it has to spin. It is also designed to use our kitchen sink as a back-up tank, which created a few frightening minutes the first few times we used it. But as long as we don't leave anything in the sink, we're golden. I don't care really care what does--almost anything is better than doing loads of hand laundry in the sink!!

I had a lovely, lazy day today and had nothing scheduled. I am proud to report that a I created a lovely dinner: butter chicken with butternut squash, onions, tomatoes and spinach. Very happy! And now my goal is to be in bed by 9...Ta!

~Ruth Ann

Today a lot seems to be happening around the water. Early this morning, the ferry workers decided to strike so we had to take the trains to school. While this wasn't a trying time for us, apparently it caused HUGE traffic jams on the North Shore of the harbour because a lot of people had to drive instead. The workers were ordered back to work this afternoon by the government because they hadn't given enough warning(they declared the strike at 5am) but when I went to the wharf to go home, they were canceling ferry after ferry. Needless to say, taking trains during rush hour with a ferry strike was mighty crowded.

Also, another big cruise ship came in. It's impossible to imagine how big these things are unless you've seen them. If you take a 40 or 50 story building, put it on it's side in the water, you're close. Circular Quay, where all the ferries dock, is a very popular destination to park the ships for up to a week.(personally, I think the ferry pilots struck because they didn't want to have to steer around the cruise ship). All of them have names that conjure up images of tropical splendor and elegance: the Diamond Princess, the Crystal Serenity...all except the Maxim Gorky. We found out later that this awkwardly named ship from Russia has the distinction of almost sinking in the arctic ocean when the pilot got too close to the ice. Whenever the ships come in, Circular Quay gets inundated by tourists and thus the street performers are out in full force. I've toyed with the idea of taking my bassoon out and practicing to make a little extra cash, but bassoons can't compete with didjeridoos played to a techno-beat. The donkey continues to show up and stand there!! I love it!

~Mike

A slice of the US

2006-03-16T03:38:00.000-06:00

Today, Condoleezza Rice came to the University of Sydney to speak a bit about US foreign relations and answer questions from students. This all happened at the conservatory in the hall. I was invited to attend due to the whole Fulbright thing along with 300 students(mainly political science majors) from universities in New South Wales. The Conservatory was blocked off from the public all afternoon. Security people were scurrying everywhere and apparently had ringed the building. There was a huge group of protesters outside and some even got arrested. The Con, music schools generally being very liberal, was full of debate and anti-american sentiment (we felt a tad uncomfortable). The biggest to-do though was during Rice's speech.

A few minutes into her talk, two students in the back started yelling "Condoleezza Rice! You have Iraqi blood on you hands that won't come off! You are a murderer!" over and over. The secret service wasted no time in hauling them out of the room. A few minutes later another student started yelling about what freedoms did the Iraqi people supposedly have now. He was promptly escorted out. There were at least a dozen secret service guards there that we could see. All of them were the stereotypical SS guys-huge and Marine like, all wearing dark suits with the coiled earpiece, constantly looking around at everybody.

Neither of these incidents phased Rice one bit-I'm sure she's had to deal with this a lot with the unpopularity of Bush around the world. She was a very intelligent, well spoken woman who knew what she was talking about. Her knowledge of history on the spot was impressive. It's a nice feeling to know that, as stupid as Bush may be, at least he has some intelligent people(at least one!) around.

Other than that, our day was pretty uneventful. We started training at the music library and practiced. How exciting!

~Mike

We continue to be picture happy

2006-03-13T01:51:00.000-06:00

We've finally started carrying our cameras with us everywhere we go. You'd think we'd have learned this a long time ago!

Carrying a quill and whistling Eine Kleine Nachtmusik is none other than Mozart! (Mike protests "He's tryin' to steal my girl!!") One of the best street performers we've seen yet!

Mike tries on Viking armor and decides to take up pillaging!

This boar is seated outside the Sydney Hospital. Rubbing his nose leads to good luck, so we thought we'd try :o)

Queen Elizabeth was here in Sydney today, opening a new section of the Opera House and meeting with the Governor-General. (Right down the street!!) She mostly caused a lot of traffic problems and got a lot of police officers overtime...Sections of the harbor were blocked off for her yacht and the trains were extra crowded. We got a picture of Queen Liz (when we met her for afternoon tea, of course). However, she requested that we not post her picture--she doesn't want everyone clamoring for free photo shoots!! :o)

~Ruth Ann

2006-03-11T21:54:00.000-06:00

Now that I can have solid food again, I'm feeling pretty good. When I can PLAY with my food, I'm even better. These happy face frozen french fries are just asking to be played with. The first is obviously a happy face of happy faces:

These two characters were made during dinner. I made Jacques-Pierre(note the BBQ sause beret) while Ruth Ann created Nanett(notice the carrot hat). Don't ask me why they turned out to be french. The muse sang to us as such-we merely expressed their 'frenchness'.

The next pictures are of our apartment. Ruth Ann is showing off the master suite and the next two are of the living space.

~Mike

Ruthlessly, Ruth Ann has just killed a bug.

(In my defense, Mike wounded him first!!)

Next is the kitchen...

Here is 75 Kirribilli Avenue. Doesn't it look like a nice place to live?? (We're the ground floor with the blinds closed.)

This is our lifesaver--the 15 centimeter fan that we have named Hoppy. We had hoped to find him brothers named Skippy and Jumpy but they were adopted by other desperate folks before we got there. He is quite a trooper!!!

Still life with toaster. Our toaster is long and thin, and paper towel rolls are very short here!

The harboUr bridge from our park at night

And we leave you tonight with another view of the Sydney skyline. Good night!!

~Ruth Ann

Yay! I'm not sick anymore!!

2006-03-10T04:50:00.000-06:00

It case the title didn't tip you off, I'M NOT SICK ANYMORE!
I just got over my first case of food poisoning(and hopefully my last). I had no idea the amount of strange noises one's intestines could make! Anyway, after several days of not being able to eat anything, I sweated the last toxins out in a fever last night. I've already graduated to non-bland foods this evening with no ill effects!

What this little episode taught me was that Health Care is important. Luckily with the Fulbright I'm covered under Australian Medicare. While this doesn't cover everything it should be adequate-I have to pay for Rx's but not the doctors visit, none of the fancy things more expensive plans cover, etc. Every Australian is covered by this national health care plan but apparently a lot of those who can afford it get a private coverage plan.

Ruth Ann is not covered by Medicare(she wouldn't be even if we were married). She has to use the USyd plan for international students. Today she had to run around the main campus(far far away from the Con) trying to get her Health Care card. Courtesy of the wonderful International Department, she was directed to Multiple buildings by multiple people. Eventually she did get it.

From almost everyone we have talked to who has dealt with them, we've heard the International Office is incompetent-profs and students included. Our own experience has shown this as well: multiple lost transcripts, lack of communication, lack of response, the left hand not knowing or caring what the right hand is doing etc...Once we have our work visas processed, we'll be done with them for now.....

This is a picture of my baby niece, Juliana. I felt like I needed to put a picture of her because she's just too cute! My folks are sitting in the La Paz Airport right now waiting to go see her(and Eric and Claudia) and I'M SO JEALOUS!!

~Mike

The missing penny

2006-03-09T02:06:00.000-06:00

The nighttime view from our favorite park!

Well, school has officially started. So far things are going well, but maybe that's just because we haven't had to do anything yet! :o) I'm very pleased with how my orchestra audition went, and I placed co-principal of the Symphony Orchestra. Which, considering how long it's been since I've taken an audition, made me very happy indeed! The faculty gave me good comments from the audition and there weren't any surprises--all the mistakes they heard I heard, too. A good sign :o)

We'll be playing in a chamber trio with a very nice pianist with a great sense of humor, so I hope that will all go well, too. I had a planning session with Alexa (my flute prof) last week and my first lesson today. It has me all fired up and I'm actually EXCITED to practice again! Right away she's fixing my piccolo playing--everyone who has heard my piccolo playing knows that this is a good thing.......

Tuesday was our one year anniversary. I can't believe how much has happened in one year! Get engaged, move to the other side of the world...that's just a cakewalk! Mike took me back to the Harbour Kitchen and Bar, our new favorite restaurant. He's supposed to be writing a food entry at some point but currently has the stomach flu, so I think you'll have to wait for food reviews.

Australian financial matters have kept us entertained these past few weeks. Our first round of bills had to be paid, and our options were to 1.) send a check or money order, 2.) pay the bills with a credit card online, 3.) pay the bills online with a debit card, or 4.) pay them in person with any of the above methods at our local post office. (Great, isn't it??) We knew that #1 was out. Australian banks have a lot of fees, and personal checks cost a lot, so no one uses them. They are so out of use that a regular bank account here is a SAVINGS account, not checking. No checks can be written, but you can use your debit card from this account. (This through us for a loop when we'd hand over our debit card and the salesperson would ask "checking or savings?" We'd say checking, only to have our transactions declined. Scary moments!!)

So checks were out. I moved on to trying to pay our bills online. Some of the utility companies have a setup where you can just have an automatic withdrawal from your bank account, and others will send you an email with your bill enclosed and you can handle it from there. "No worries!" I thought. Online bill pay sounded fabulous. I logged on, created an online account for the gas company and then pulled out my nifty debit card. In the US, our debit cards can be used anywhere that credit cards can be, and since these were MasterCard registered, I thought the same thing applied.

No go! Here, debit cards don't have your name on them so they CAN"T double as credit cards. Your PIN is your everything and your signature can't substitute. Which means we can't use them to order anything online...booo!!! And if you want to use a debit card to pay your bills, you have to register your debit card online. Which invoves creating another account on another website and waiting a day or so until you're approved by your bank.

The next day, I got an email that my request to pay my bills online from the gas company was declined, citing that the name I had used on the online account didn't match the name on the bill statement. Somehow they only included Mike's name on the gas bill and Ruth Ann Ritchie didn't make any sense to them, joint bank account or no.

I've given up all dreams of online banking and now pay my bills at the local post office! It's such a useful place!

The other monetary amusement we've had is the Case of the Missing Penny. Pennies don't exist here and haven't for some time. The smallest coin is the nickel. Also, sales tax is 10% and calculated into the price shown--so if they say your muffin costs $3.50, it really only costs you $3.50. Which is great! I enjoy the what-you-see-is-what-you-get factor.

However, in some stores, mostly grocery stores, I've noticed, things will amazingly be priced for $.67 or $3.99. ?????? The Australians have created this hysterical thing known as the "coin adjustment." If it says $.67, they will actually charge you 70 cents, only because, having no pennies, they can't give you change! Although sometimes it does work in your favor--I was once charged $4.00 for something which rang up at $4.01.

~Ruth Ann

Picture happy

2006-03-08T00:54:00.000-06:00

Here are a bunch of random photos that don't really go together but deserve to be put on the blog!

At Big Basin Redwood Forest with Laura and Stuart, the day before we came to Sydney. Here, Laura THOUGHT she was being sneaky...

This is where Laura and I both got stuck about halfway up Slippery Rock. We're pretending to admire the scenery but are actually wondering how to climb the rest of the way up!

At the zoo, they have a "birds eye view" where your eyes could be at pond water-level. We got quite friendly with all the pelicans!

Ruthie after a long day at the Con.

The Governor-General's house...in Kirribilli!!

This is the view from our park at the end of the street. :o) (More often than not it's sunny here; somehow we had our camera on the one misty day.)

Mike is all ready for the first day of school!

Ruthie is running behind on the first day of school!

2006-03-02T04:38:00.000-06:00

What's he looking at?

storage

2006-03-02T04:27:00.000-06:00

If anyone has any storage and/or space saving devices for this apartment, I'm all ears. We're trying not to buy too much furniture, as it probably won't be worth it and the apartment is rather small, anyway. The problem is mostly in the bedroom. Our bed takes up pretty much literally the whole room--if we had gone with queen sized we wouldn't have even had room to edge around it. So there's no room for a dresser of any kind; only two collapsible laundry hampers in the corner (thanks, Connie!!) The closet kind of has enough room for clothes, except that apparently Australians never wear floor length dresses, or if they do, they're only short Australians. Also, I guess Australians don't wear socks or underwear, because there is clearly no room in the closet for those. Mine have been relegated to my suitcases which are under the bed. Our 4 suitcases laid out together=the size of our bed. The large suitcases fit under the bed grudgingly and we can only get them out again if we lift the bed up. So we can't put our socks in the little suitcases and then the little suitcase in the big one and have room for our shoes under the bed!

We only have one other closet and then a desk with some filing room. But moving to another country creates so much PAPER that we can't give up a drawer for essential things like PAPER CLIPS.

We thought we came here with no stuff. What happened?

Surprisingly, though, we do have a lot of cabinet space in the kitchen. Maybe our spare clothing will have to end up there. "Can you hand me an onion? No, dear, that's a pair of socks......"
~Ruth Ann

2006-02-28T23:08:00.000-06:00

A posh little affair.....street performers and Sydney's creepy crawlies

2006-02-27T04:15:00.000-06:00

Well well! It's so nice being able to type in the comfort of our home. No more sketchy internet cafes for us!

I just returned from the opening reception for the East Asia/Pacific Fulbright conference. It was in a swanky little club on the 16th floor of a building near to harbor so there were some great views. When I got into the room, I was the only person under the age of 45. Also, when they said the dress code at the reception was 'business casual' I didn't think it meant 'wear the nicest suit you possibly owned.' Everyone else did. I only have 1 suit and it is somewhere between Fargo and Sydney right now. I did manage to get myself to wear a tie.

All in all, it went much better than it started. I met some really nice Fulbright folks and some not so friendly ones(who shall remain nameless as I didn't bother remembering their names). There were two Americans involved with the Fulbright commissions from Tokyo and Beijing who were very friendly and knew about music and Indiana. There were several people who had actually been to Fargo! The US Consular General in Sydney was a very charming man who could either schmooze REALLY well or he really liked me. Also a diplomat from New Zealand gave me his card. The other Fulbright students I met were pretty nice. All the same questions were asked by everybody so I got really good at answering them(almost like a family reunion!) The food was very good but fairly scarce.

There are several more receptions later this week I get to go to.

Now onto a more amusing topic: the street performers of Sydney. They seem to be everywhere and are able to play anything! On the walkway of Circular Quay where all the ferries dock and cruise ships unload, there is a huge walk way that attracts some good and not so good performers. There are aboriginal men with their bodies painted playing didjeridoos(with a techno beat in the background), a harpist, a tuba player, steel drums, bagpipes(with the tightest grace notes I've ever heard!), human statues, a huge cross-eyed banjo player, accordion, an old Chinese man who is just learning violin as he plays, and my personal favorite: a guy in a donkey costume. He doesn't sing or dance, he's just dressed as a donkey. I put a few coins in the hat to see if he'd do anything and all I got was a hoof raised to shake my had and a very sincere 'Thank You!' Everytime I think about it, I laugh till my sides hurt!

And now onto another topic which merits mentioning: the bugs of Sydney. Prior to coming, we had heard about all the poisonous spiders of Australia. I assumed Sydney being very mild and moist of climate would be rife with creepy crawlies. When we moved in, I bought roach motels and prepared to declare war! We've slept with the window in our bedroom open(no AC) with no screen(they don't seem to be used in OZ) every night and all we've seen are several millers, a daddy longlegs spider, two beetles and a couple of gnats. All these have been sent on a nautical tour of Sydney's plumbing system. Now I'm not naive enough to think they're not there lurking in the shadows, but at least they stay out of sight so that I don't have to think about them. And if they do show up, I have shoes placed throughout the apartment(much to Ruth Ann's chagrin!!) to take care of them!

Ahhh, Australia! Land of charming diplomats, entertaining people, and polite bugs!

Have a good night!
~Mike

Back for good!

2006-02-27T02:34:00.000-06:00

Hello once again! I am happy to report that WE HAVE BROADBAND!!!!!!!!!! HURRAH!!!! Now everytime Mike and I look at each other and say "This belongs in the blog!" we can actually rush over the computer and write an entry. I think this will make us both feel more connected with the world, since we will be able to check the weather. :o)
Our little apartment in Kirribilli is beginning to feel like home. Like I said before, we're right down the street from the Prime Minister and the Governor General. We're only a 5 minute walk to the wharf for the Kirribilli ferry, and at the other end of our street is a little park that stretches under the Harbour Bridge (aren't I becoming so British???). From there we have a clear view of the Opera House and all of the huge cruise ships that come in--including the QEII! Every night we take a walk down there and watch the waves and the little sailboats go up and down the harbor. There's always some couple having a moonlit picnic, too! (We have yet to do this :o)) Even though we're so close to the city lights we can see the Milky Way and quite a few constellations, though we don't know what any of them are yet. We'll get there!
When we first moved in, things weren't so peachy-keen. The very first day we had here was Terrible, and I mean Terrible with a capital T. :o( We had no furniture, so the very first thing we needed was clearly a bed--we had spent more than enough money on hotels as we tried to find an actual apartment and so had already checked out of the hotel. From the apartment, we walked about half a mile to the train station and went up to St. Leonards, which, according to the phone book, was Mattress Central. Luckily, all of the mattress stores were right on the main drag so we didn't have to wander all over the city. The first store we went into was owned by a crazy American from New York, and we had to admit that he had a lot of charms because we missed our home turf! They had a bed we wanted, but we couldn't have it until the following Thursday...a little bit long to be sleeping on hardwood floors! So we walked up and down Mattress Mile, trying all of the stores. We could have had a bed THAT DAY, but only if we were willing to spend $3000 on it. Sadly, we trooped back to Mr. Crazy American and told him that if he could tell us where to buy an air mattress, we'd be willing to wait a week. "Sure thing!" he says. "You'll need to go to Kangaroo City Tents, up in Chatswood."
Well, Chatswood has a train stop, and Kangaroo City Tents was on Victoria Avenue, which didn't seem to be that long and right near the train station. We thought our day was looking up. We boarded the train, made it to Chatswood, found Victoria Avenue.......and no Kangaroo City Tents. After consulting with a phone book and our large book of maps, it was discovered that Victoria Avenue stretches very far on the OTHER side of the train station. Sigh.
On the plus side, while en route to Kangaroo City Tents, we discovered Australian Target. You know all the jokes about Target being Tar-jay? Well, here in Oz it truly deserves to be called that. That was the most expensive Target I've ever seen. The cheapest iron we saw was for $40; there is no such thing as a $10 toaster; clothes hangers are made our of wood and so you can't buy 25 for $5; and trash cans are metal, so go for about $70. I've NEVER intended to make my trash can an investment piece, especially not in a foreign country where I have no intention of spending the rest of my life! I've always used Target as The Place to Go when I need something and can't think whereelse to get it. Not so with Tar-jay. They don't even sell Scotch tape! Let alone air mattresses!
Discouraged, we set out to find Kangaroo City Tents. About this time, the sun had come out and we both realized we had forgotten to apply sun screen that morning. We walked and we walked, gently roasting in the sun. Kangaroo City Tents was supposed to be at 195 Victoria Ave. We reached 196 Victoria Ave and...nothing. THEN we remembered the rule of Australian streets: just because 194 and 196 are on one side of the street does NOT mean that 195 will be right across from them. No, as a matter of fact, all bets are off knowing who your neighbors over the way are...In this case we were only at about 335 on the odd side of the street. That also does not mean that the 200 and then 100 blocks should follow; actually, we had to walk past every single odd numbered building between 335 and 195.
At least Kangaroo City Tents actually exists! It was a cute little store for all of your outback camping needs...including air mattresses. Now, I don't want to keep being the irritating American, but in the US, I've found air mattresses (at Target!) for $25, including an electric air pump. Here the air mattress cost us $40, and we had to spend $25 more on a hand pump--it was almost $50 for an electric one.
But we needed one and so bought it and moved on our merry way. Back into the sunshine, where we fried some more. Back to the train station, back to our home stop, back to our apartment where we applied sunscreen. Then we set out for a mall near our first hotel that had a Kmart (cheaper than Tar-jay for towels and dishes and the like) and also a cooking supply store where Mike had spotted and drooled over a set of pots and pans. To get to this mall involves a ferry ride and a bus ride, about 45 minutes total. We set about our way through Kmart, though without a shopping cart, for there were none to be had. Kmart here is terribly organized; prices are labelled wrong if they're labelled at all, and things don't really have much order in their shelving. But we bustled around and found pillows and sheets, winced at the price of towels so bought the cheapest we could find only to discover they leave fuzz everywhere, and found some cheap dishes. Then we went in search of fans.
Fans. A necessity in Australian life. You don't have A/C unless you're rich (we've discovered that if a store has A/C we probably can't afford to shop there) and the only way to survive the 35 degree heat (about 95--hotter in the sun) is WITH A FAN. By the way, on this day, it was over 35.
No fans appeared. Mike sat down in the patio furniture area while I went to search for a helpful clerk. I found one guy willing to be helpful, and when pressed for his fans, what do you think his answer was?

"We actually don't have any. We sold out a few weeks ago and aren't stocking any more because we're now into winter merchandise."

I actually said to him "YOU. DON"T. HAVE. ANY. FANS?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!"

When I came back to Mike I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. He laughed. Later we found your regular oscillating fan......for $90. We decided we'd rather be hot, and were in fact later able to find a 15 centimeter fan for only $10. We've named him Hoppy. He follows us every where we go.

So, after that frustration we managed to get out of Kmart and buy Mike's pots and pans and so forth. Thus ladened with at least 4 bags, we decided to head for home. Only to discover that since we had put on sunscreen, it was now POURING with all its might and main. We sat in the mall for a while and then gave up and caught a bus back to the wharves. Of course, in our distress with so many bags, we sat on the wrong wharf for 20 minutes and nearly missed our ferry, then struggled home up the hill with all of our packages, only to discover that in our box of dishes, 25% of them were broken.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What a day! Luckily, we've not had one that bad since :o) Actually, things are really settling in here. We have a membership to the Kirribilli Video Store and have discovered a fabulous new kind of ice cream--macadamia mango. We got our student IDs and email addresses, registered for classes, got lockers, and signed up for access to the postgraduate study room (--a fabulous place with computers and quiet area just for postgrads! Hurrah!!). Orchestra auditions are on Wednesday and I have my first lesson with Alexa on Friday. We've been offered VERY lucrative jobs at the music library (how many people knew I'd end up at the music library? Raise your hands!) and will start those next week. The food here is fabulous, but I'll leave that for Mike to talk about.
Speaking of Mike, he's off at his first fancy Fulbright function tonight. I've been left at home to do nothing but eat ice cream and type, but I'm not sure that I don't have the better end of the deal!
But now I should probably go do dishes. Good night!
~Ruth Ann
.

Getting our things in order

2006-02-19T18:24:00.000-06:00

Hi again!
Sorry for the long gap between posts. We've had some crazy adventures trying to move into our new apartment. But despite sunburn and fatigue, we are mostly settled. We have a couch, a desk and a table, a bed coming on Thursday, a phone line connected today and broadband being connected next Monday. So things are moving along!
We have all kinds of funny stories to report about Australian Targets and KMarts and "winter merchandise." In a week we'll be out of our sketchy intenet cafe and can write in peace. Stay tuned!
~Ruth Ann

No longer homeless!!

2006-02-12T22:04:00.000-06:00

Happy news!!! Today we FINALLY got the OK that we really and truly can have an apartment. WHEW!!!!
We will be living in Kirribilli, right across the harbor (excuse me, harboUr) from the Opera House and only a 5 minute walk from the wharf. Which means that I can fulfill my dream of taking a ferry to school everyday :) We also live right down the road from the Governor-General. We will take every opportunity to hob-nob. Think he'll be our welcome wagon when we move in? Greet us with fresh baked bread??
We get the keys on Wednesday so now get to start finding dishes and towels, etc. BUT WE HAVE A HOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

~Ruth Ann

P.S. We've had several comments posted that are not in the spirit of our blog...First of all, we'd like everybody to sign their names! It's rather difficult if all of our friends are named Anonymous. :o) Also, we have no qualms about deleting your comments...so please be nice!

Australian showers and other mysteries

2006-02-10T14:38:00.000-06:00

Well, thanks to Stuart, we now know more about metric paper than any human being should. :o) (Stuart being my fabulous bother...er...brother-in-law who works for Apple.) He will be glad to know, though, that the other day as Mike and I were headed to the lobby with our Power Book in our hands, we were stopped by a lovely British gentleman. "It's good to see another Mac user!" he said. "It's a sign of higher evolution." We think so, too!

We've settled nicely into our new hotel. We both got at least 10 hours of sleep last night...The beds are SO SOFT! I have to say bedS because although it's advertised as a queen sized bed, it's definitely two twins pushed together. Maybe this is the metric bedding system. We're on the 12th floor, so have a great view, and even did our laundry last night on the 45th floor. The only problem with the room is the shower. Alas, we cannot figure out Australian showers. The hot is really hot and the cold is really cold. It's impossible to find the right balance, so you're constantly running in and out of the stream of water screaming in scalded agony or squealing in frigidity. There are only shower curtains, and the lip on the floor around the shower itself is less than an inch. Which means that with all this dodging in and out, much water is splashed all over the floor. That might explain the extra drain on the floor near the trashcan.......

Other oddities that we've noticed in our apartment hunting is the decided lack of closet space! Apparently no one has a clean streak in them or they just enjoying showing everything. We'd like to find a place to hide our ridiculously sized suitcases, but they may end up becoming defacto coffee tables. Oh yes--kitchens almost never come with fridges, and only if you're lucky do you get a stove/oven. These all have to be rented.

Despite these odd quirks, we did have a housing breakthrough yesterday. We talked to a leasing agent that told us exactly what was necessary for us to do as overseas applicants, and then gave us the secret heads up: after we see a place in a mass viewing/cattle call, we should rush over to the leasing office. If we can give them one week's worth of rent, they will process our application first and hold the apartment for us until our application clears. !!!!!!!!!! It sounds little better than a bribe, but if that's what it takes to get us our own temperaturly-challenged shower, then so be it!
~Ruth Ann

A happy post

2006-02-08T18:15:00.000-06:00

We've decided that we've been complaining too much so here's a cheerful post! Today we went and looked at two apartments! Neither was our dream apartment either would do in a pinch! But we can't extend our stay at this hotel any longer, so tomorrow we have to move across town! Then we're going to see another apartment!!!!!! :o) :o) :o) :o)
To answer some questions by our faithful readers:
-No
-Yes
-It could be, but I doubt it
-No
La, you'd have loved how we fit those suitcases in that tiny car. We fit one big one and two of our carry on bags in the trunk; Mike pulled the front passenger seat as far forward as it would go so we could set the other large bag on the backseat floor. The two smaller bags went next to me in the back seat; my backpack was at my feet and I held the bassoon the whole ride there. Mike's knees were jammed into his face. It was a long car ride. (Also because we had to try and make conversation with a zany lady with little or no sense of humor...) (P.S. I've started writing you a letter...)
Harms--I have no idea what the exact specs are for a metric sheet of paper. It's a little bit taller and not quite as wide. As soon as I can get a ruler I'll let you know :o)
BobE--No Foster's yet! We've yet to try out the Sydney scene.
A very amusing anecdote from last Sunday: We had lunch at Circular Quay before petting wallabies. (CQ is the main hub for all the ferries running across the harbor.) Since it's so close to the water, there were seagulls and pigeons everywhere, begging for snippets of our lunch. One bugger of a seagull kept getting closer...and closer...and closer...until he finally took flight and dove straight for the sandwich IN MY HANDS! I saw him coming and shrieked but that didn't stop him. He actually took off with a wad of my bread. HMPH!!!!!!!
And now, to tell you all about our secret indulgence, Australian TV, is Mike!
~Ruth Ann

As we're sitting in our room night after night without a whole lot to do, there has been one little slice of happiness and entertainment that has kept us sane. It's called "Home and Away" and it is the king of Australian soap operas. We don't quite know what the overall premise of the show is but here's the low down on what's going on:
Martha is a do-gooder who is infiltrating a cult that has its community out in the bush ('The Farm'). Mamma Rose is the leader of this cult and tries to control everyone, INCLUDING MARTHA!!! Martha is trying to save her friend, Tasha, who is being wooed by Jonah, the son of Mamma Rose. Mamma Rose made Jonah drug Tasha and impregnate her to make her stay. This baby will give faith to the 'believers.' We think Jonah is questioning her so he may not have done that. Robbie is the boyfriend of someone(we can't figure that out). He's the namby-pamby tool who is running errands for the corrupt mayor who is sleeping with the trophy wife of Robbie's grandfather. These two(mayor and trophy wife) have something to do with the believers and are trying to thwart Robbie who is trying to find out what's going on. Meanwhile, Matha is trying to convince her boyfriend, Jack the cop, that the believers have someone(possibly Robbie's girlfriend?) locked up in an underground pit.
Things are really getting excited and tense! We can hardly wait what is going to happen next on our story. We'll let you know ASAP!! We'd write more, but it comes on in only a few minutes!!!!!!!
~Mike

We're still here

2006-02-07T21:13:00.000-06:00

Hi again--
After a strange night where we both woke up for good around 3:30 we've continued in our apartment hunting. We're going to look at two more places tomorrow and have all of our documents in a row so we can throw our qualifications in their faces. This feels like applying for jobs! We did talk to someone at the international housing office who told us that the suburbs we've chosen to apply for aren't used to renting to students and are notoriously snobbish. We're supposed to push the fact that we're engaged and thus "family oriented," plus show all kinds of documentation showing every tie we have to Australia...bank accounts, Australian references, if we had a third cousing four times removed who once vacationed here, that might help as well.
On the plus and amusing side, today Mike was mistaken as being from the UK! The teller at the bank was absolutely convinced.
We also ran into Kim Walker today, the dean of the conservatory and Mike's old bassoon teacher. She's taking us to dinner on Saturday and pretty much assured us of getting us jobs. At least we don't have to search for those on top of an apartment!!
But now we're REALLY SLEEPY so more later!
~Ruth Ann
(Mike says zzzzzzzzzzzzzz)

Monday is no good!

2006-02-06T17:24:00.000-06:00

All right guys, don't bother with monday. If at all possible avoid it. Stay in bed and sleep until tuesday. (You guys are lucky you have us to tell you how the day is going to go!).

~mi......

At this point Mike collapses with exhaustion and tells me to step in. Well, let's see. We got on a bus coming back from practicing that should have taken us back to our hotel, but it took us to the casinos down on the water and called "Last stop!" We then had to hike it all the way from Darling Harbor back to the hotel, almost an hour, lugging our instruments and in 90 degree heat.

When we arrived back at the hotel, we found that we had been rejected for the apartment we applied for on Saturday. Only because we're American, we think. The housing process here is very odd...there's no way that we would have been rejected from this apartment in the US. Here's how it works: There is no equal housing act whatsoever. Also, within one apartment building, every unit is owned by a separate landlord, and thus they all use a separate leasing agent. You can rarely get a private viewing; instead you have the show up at the prearranged 15 minutes on a Saturday where you can view both the apartment and all of your competition. If you like the place you take and application and have to get it in by Monday morning, at which point they review the applications.

We had found this fabulous place north of the harbor, and grabbed an application. We got it in ON SATURDAY, spouting that Michael was a Fulbright scholar over and over and over again. I had proof from our last apartment that we paid all the bills on time. We have Australian references, those being the head of the wind department at the conservatory and the dean of the conservatory herself. We know that our references were called, and the agent sent us a very positive email on Saturday. This afternoon we just got the voicemail that "Someone else got their application in last minute" and our "application looked great except that we didn't have Australian references."

AGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, the search goes on....and on....and on................We are so tired of living out of suitcases, and I personally don't love living RIGHT in downtown. I'd like to get a bit of peace.

On the plus side, we did get to go to the Tarango zoo yesterday! We had our pictures taken with koalas and even were two of the lucky few to get to pet a wallaby! But the best were the two baby snow leopard cubs with big paws climbing all over each other and their mommy. Pictures to follow :o)
~Ruth Ann

Does this spell the end of our Australian adventure and, by vicarious extension, yours too? Will our heroic, intrepid duo fight this one out or will they be crushed in the gaping maw of Sydney housing? Stay tuned! Find out on the next posting!

~Krazy(at the moment) Mike

Where the hell are we?

2006-02-04T15:50:00.000-06:00

Hey everyone! We are ALIVE and in Australia now!(and have been for the last four days). It's been very surreal so far. We were picked up at the airport by a zany Australian lady with a TINY little car! I thought that when I came here, nobody would know where North Dakota was and so I didn't have to go through being laughed at. The second person we had contact with(the hotel desk clerk) saw that I was from Fargo and burst out laughing!!! There's a mix of the familar with the completely bizarre and we are so completely exhausted that all we can do is laugh at it and fall asleep. Jet lag doesn't seem like it would be a problem until about 5:30pm when we normally hit the wall. It's been very hot here and we've walked all over the place so we've sweat a good deal. We have a cell phone now(email us if you want the number) and hopefully we'll have an address on Monday afternoon. The food has been great! There seem to be more Thai restaurants than anything else so we've had a lot of that.

~Mike

~The hotel front desk clerk does a nice imitation of the Fargo accent
~The water really does go down backwards
~The trains are double-decker
~Australian money looks like monopoly money. It comes in denominations of $50, $20, $10 and $5, but $2 and $1 are in coins. There are no pennies, and no quarters, just a 20 cent piece. It still all looks alike to me.
~We just got laughed at by the front desk for our "American paper." We were trying to send a fax and the front desk agent went to the back office and said really loudly "DID YOU KNOW THAT AMERICANS USE A DIFFERENT SIZE PAPER???" We are sadly behind the times.
~We are becoming very adept at Celcius...Today it was only 23, which is a nice change from the 35 it was on Thursday. The weather report says something about it "freshening" this afternoon and it will " become fine" tomorrow afternoon.
~Our hotel room is very small but very tall
~Australian TV is predominantly American or American inspired. Wheel of Fortune just isn't right without Vanna!
~Not only does Australian paper come in metric sizes, SO DO THE CRACKERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yours, on her way to being an Aussie,
~Ruth Ann

On our merry way!

2006-01-30T20:00:00.000-06:00

Despite troubles with our shuttle (supposed to arrive at 5:45 and only three angry phone calls got us a shuttle by 6:20...) WE ARE NOW INSIDE SECURITY AND AT OUR GATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!

-RA

After several bouts of the jitters today, we are finally feeling excited. All the stomache monkies (and head monkies and intestine monkies) are gone. All that's left is the excited 'jimmy leg.' We're the only ones here at the gate and we don't board for another 2 hours so we have a bit of a wait. We're drinking our Odwalla smoothies and typing away.....

-Mike

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!
-RA

Thank god for Tylenol PM! Once on the plane, we plan to look around excitedly until the novelty wears off, then to watch a movie or two until that novelty wears thin and THEN blissfully sleep until we land 14hrs later in sunny Sydney! We have a window seat but unfortunately all we'll be able to see is very dark ocean down below.

~Mike

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!! The time today lasted both forever and not at all. We ran our last errands this morning and called our grandparents, then Laura came with me and Mike to play on the swings at the nearby park. Mike spent a good deal of time cleaning off our hiking boots from yesterday--we can't take any mud into Australia for fear we're carrying some weird spore or creature that will wipe out the entire vegetation of the continent. I'm not sure how much of that I buy into, but Mike did a beatiful job with my boots. They haven't been this clean since I bought them!
All nerves are gone now, it's just pure excitement.
WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!
~RA

Killing Time

2006-01-29T20:15:00.000-06:00

Today we hiked 5 miles in the Big Basin National Forest. It was a good way to wear us out and hopefully we'll sleep well tonight! The shuttle comes to get us at 5:30 tomorrow afternoon. We're doing one last load of dirty laundry and then let the re-packing games begin!!!

The above pictures come from a program Stuart showed us, called Photo Booth. It allows us to play with trick photography, as seen by the two Mikes and two Ruthies! The second picture is of all 4 of us goons here in Cupertino; the other two goons being my sister Laura and her husband Stuart.

~Ruth Ann

Antsy!

2006-01-28T10:50:00.000-06:00

Can we just leave already?!?!?!?! Both of us are climbing the walls. So much anticipation is building that it's getting a little hard to sleep/relax/remain calm. Is it Monday night yet?!?!?!?!?!

Festivities

2006-01-26T00:54:00.000-06:00

HAPPY AUSTRALIA DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A little closer....

2006-01-24T18:45:00.000-06:00

Now we're in San Francisco-a tiny bit closer. Portland was great but the weather has finally gotten better now. The Sun shines here (unlike Portland) and it's warmer and dryer. We had a very excited shuttle driver in Portland and a jerk in SF. There also was an arrogant New Yorker talking aloud on her cell phone how horrible the people she was riding with were. The only good thing about that was that she was dropped off last and so had to suffer in the smelly van. Aaahhh well.....

Michael

I have to correct one thing Mike just said--officially we're in the Cupertino, not San Francisco. Laura has told me multiples times that people around here DO NOT think they're all one big happy family...if you live in San Jose, you live in San Jose, and you don't pretend to be the same thing.

But anyway, we're in California, which is all that matters. We had a good time in Portland...two really good, long hikes with Dad, a tour of the Lewis and Clark exhibit at the historical society and the beginning of wedding plans. I also promised Mom that I wouldn't mention that Dad had to change the toilet (really! The whole thing! And when he set it out on the curb for the trash pickup, the garbage men dropped the lid and there's now porcelain shattered all over the street :o)) or that we had an interesting lunch of organic hot dogs wrapped in brown rice tortillas (Mom has a lot of food allergies, so theoretically that was a good lunch for her, but YUCK!!!!!!)......but since I promised, I won't talk about those :o)

Plans for our time in the bay area include tickets to the San Francisco Orchestra and hopefully a hike in the Big Basin National Forest. Mike and I will also head into the city itself to see the sights. But for now a nap is calling my name, so more later!
~Ruth Ann

Portland

2006-01-14T19:03:00.000-06:00

Hi from the West Coast! We've been here for about a week and are being quite efficient :o) The happiest news for me, anyway, being that
I NOW HAVE MY STUDENT VISA!!!!!!!!!!

Hooray! It came faster than I ever could have dreamed! I filled it out Thursday night at around 11 pm (I was eligible to apply online) and had my acceptance 8 hours later. I was imagining chewing my fingernails for the next 14 days and then having to apply for a tourist visa at the very last second so I could catch my flight to Sydney. Nope! It's in my hot little hands and it's not going anywhere!

Mom and Dad came up with a perfect Christmas present for those of use with weight limitations...We just got back from our pre-paid night on the town! Dinner at McCormick's, a night away at the local Marriott and brunch at the Black Bear Diner. Much delicious food was eaten, and since I finally have my visa, I slept SO SOUNDLY for a good 9+ hours. We also visited the local branch of Powells (the world's best bookstore) and took a drive over to the next county for scenic views and a tour of the locally flooding rivers. (It's a bit soggy here in Beaverton!)

~Ruth Ann

MY(Mike's) life in 100 pounds or less

2006-01-05T15:18:00.000-06:00

Well, it is safe to assume that no one in the airline industry plays bassoon and has big feet. Apparently reed tools and my shoes weigh a lot! Who would have thought? And there are still clothes on the drying rack.

We leave for Portland tomorrow so everything has to be packed now. I hope the Ritchie's aren't too generous in their Christmas presents. We may not have room to take them! The change in weather will be wonderful though.

We signed up for an update on all apartments in our price range advertized in the Sydney newspaper. We've gotten a lot that look good, but you have to wonder about them when they say the apartments have a shower and a fridge. Is there nothing better to say about them? At least they have a shower I guess.

-Ruth Ann's Future Better(hopefully!) Half

My life in 100 pounds or less

2006-01-04T16:22:00.000-06:00

Advice to anyone thinking of studying abroad: DON"T DO IT! YOU"RE CRAZY!!!!!!!!!!!

The newest of our continuing sagas: Today we called the airlines to verify weight limits for baggage. Everything we'd known to this point said 2 bags per passenger, 50 pounds per bag for a domestic flight, and 70 pounds per bag for an international flight. Alas, no. Regulations changed September 7th. If we had purchased our tickets BEFORE 9/7, we could still take 70 per bag. But since our tickets were purchased in December, we're only allowed 50 pounds per bag, the whole way.

Have you ever thought about 50 pounds? I mean, really thought about it? How much do all of your clothes weigh? Well over 50 pounds, I can now assure you of that! Not to mention the music we both have to take and Mike's reed tools...We've spent an interesting afternoon packing and repacking and dragging the suitcases to the bathroom scale. The problem is not space at all, which is what we had originally thought. Nope. It's definitely the weight. Even most guys I know would be shocked at how few clothes I'm now carrying!

~Ruth Ann

2006-01-02T10:37:00.001-06:00

This is exactly what my cookie looked like!

2006-01-02T10:34:00.000-06:00

Now we're testing to see if we can post pictures. I think I can I think I can!

Issues....

2006-01-02T10:16:00.000-06:00

Well, we're almost ready to go! Ruth Ann is having trouble getting the final details straightened out with the U of Sydney. And of course, being the holidays, no one is there to answer questions or fix malfunctioning websites! I still haven't been officially accepted yet until they get my final transcript. I can't find out what's going on with that because NO ONE IS THERE!!!!!!!!!! The basement ping pong balls are getting a workout from our frustration.

All we've done here in Fargo is be lazy and eat. We've been out to eat the last three nights. Last night was Indian food-the best I've ever had-and in Fargo! We have gone through all my old stuff in my closet and threw a bunch away(not the legos of course). Our suit cases are basecally packed and we're ready to go-now only a month left until we do!

We searched online and found a bunch of apartments that are for rent. We contacted the companies(no one is there of course!) and hopefully we'll be able to set up several showings for when we get in. It looks like we'll be in North Sydney.
-Michael

P.S. The turtle soup was wonderful. Even Grandma had some and she liked it!

Turtle soup

2005-12-24T14:47:00.000-06:00

Merry Christmas Eve! The tree is sort of up (Mike's mom has dictated that everyone must reach a quota of 10 ornaments today) and we have more cookies and chocolates than we could ever want. Last night we made the Jones family Christmas cookies, which involves lots of food coloring and a great deal of imagination. Mike's dad made a Christmas tree with a handlebar moustache while Mike attempted a Sydney Opera House. It just looks like a big blob of colors to me.
Mike and I just finished rehearsing for tonight's Christmas Eve service and he is now attempting to make turtle soup. With real turtle. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The consistency is supposed to be similar to that of beef tongue, which doesn't comfort me any. I'll stick to eating cookies.
~Ruth Ann

Fargo

2005-12-21T17:21:00.000-06:00

Well, we made it to Fargo! It was -2 degrees last night, but thanks to fuzzy PJs I never knew it. I'm amazed at how big the sky really is here...Mike wasn't kidding!
We managed to bring most of our stuff from Bloomington, too. It looked a bit tense for a few minutes, but we crammed the van and car full. The van was so packed that the back tires splayed out and it looked like a little bug struggling down the highway.
We spent the weekend in Nebraska, where I met more of the Friesen and Jones extended families. We got in to Fargo around 9 pm Monday night and have mostly been lazy ever since. Much cooking is taking place--I'm introducing the Joneses to bourbon balls and have batch freezing in the garage right now. (My family would say they're weak on the bourbon but I have to start them off easy.)
~Ruth Ann

13 days............

2005-12-03T14:03:00.000-06:00

Well, the buyer for my car fell through. I was highly skeptical throughout the whole negotiation period anyway (like the fact that they told me they had "HALF the money"). After having talked to the BMV, I told these potential buyers that I'd give them the VIN, they could arrange for insurance, and then we'd meet up at the BMV to transfer the title and cancel my registration. Mr. Southern Indiana called me back to discuss all this...He said he understood that I wanted "to be legal and all" but that they wanted to avoid the taxes and thus were hoping I could put less on the bill of sale so they could pay less money. Further discussion led me to understand that they were going to use their old registration on my car and I just needed to put my "plates and registration in a drawer where no one can find them." This just made me really nervous (my tummy hurt!) so I told them to buy the car my way or that they'd have to find another. They chose to find another.
Surprisingly, though, I'm much happier!!!!!!! Even if I get less money, my life will be simplified :)
~Ruth Ann

I can't wait to leave. My finals look like they're going to be easier than I thought. All I have left is two days of classes and one lesson!!!!!!!!
Lunch awaits.....

Michael

15 days and counting!

2005-12-01T19:05:00.000-06:00

Hello, all!
This is my first attempt to post on blogger, so we'll hope everything goes according to plan!
Mike and I have only 15 (well, 14 and half) days left in Bloomington. We're making feeble attempts to sell furniture, only to discover that most of the population around here is completely unreliable. Oh well...Goodwill will be getting a nice donation from us at some point! And I have finally found someone to buy my car, so that's a big worry off my mind!
We leave Bloomington on the 15th, then drive to Fargo by way of Nebraska; spend a few weeks there before flying to Portland; then fly out of San Francisco at the end of January. Exact date TBA, but it does look like Mike will get a Fulbright reception at the airport. Hurrah! Someone to carry our bags!!!!
More details as we know them........
~Ruth Ann