Dave & Dana in Australia

It has been SIX MONTHS since we last posted anything! Sorry about that, but sometimes life gets in the way. I guess the next relevant piece, chronologically speaking, would be our trip home to Canada in September. It was fabulous seeing friends and family again – I hadn’t been back in 2 years and it was wonderful to catch up. We had a great time at the cottage, Gavin’s cottage, and Colin and Joanna’s wedding. We look forward to coming back next year!!

By October we had become more familiar with our new city and decided to explore further afield. We spent a lovely weekend on Phillip Island, about 2 hours south of Melbourne. The Island is teeming with wildlife and beautiful scenery. We saw the “Penguin Parade” - everyone gathers down at the beach at dusk to watch the little Fairy Penguins come in for the evening. They wait in little packs before waddling up the beach and into the grassy bluffs where they keep their homes. It was hilarious!

Dave travelled back to the US at the end of October on business, this time to Chicago, New York and Boston but unfortunately didn’t have any time to visit Toronto. Meanwhile, I discovered that I was pregnant! So far, it has gone really well. I didn’t have any first trimester symptoms at all, except perhaps a bit of fatigue here and there. I feel great - I’ve joined a pre-natal exercise class twice a week, a pre-natal pilates class once a week and I enjoy swimming on a regular basis. We found out at my 20 week ultrasound that we’re having a girl! I’m due on May 9th – a couple of days before Mother’s Day!

By mid-November, David was a bit work weary from all the travelling and long days at the office when in town (and some weekends too) so we decided on a long weekend away on Wilson’s Promontory, a peninsula of land at the southern tip of Victoria, about 3 hours drive from Melbourne. “The Prom”, as it’s called, is full of great day walks, overnight walks, wildlife, etc. We went on a couple of small hikes and saw some echidnas, but no wombats or roos unfortunately. The cottage we rented for the weekend was spectacular - a hexagon main room with two walls made entirely of glass, overlooking the water and the mountains of Wilson’s Prom. It was expensive, but fabulous!

At Christmas we traveled to Perth for a week with the family. We had a great time catching up with Dale and my folks. We also enjoyed a 2 day getaway south to Margaret River to tour the wineries and coastline.

In January Dave was off traveling again, to Europe this time. With the downturn in the economy I wasn’t getting any new assignments so I had the pleasure of entertaining my folks who were staying with us for a month before heading over to New Zealand. We had a great time exploring the city and surrounds. One highlight was the Australian Open - we attended the men’s singles quarterfinals and watched Rafael Nadal beat Gilles Simon. The following evening Dave was invited to the semifinals through work and watched Roger Federer beat Andy Roddick.

The weather during this time however was absolutely unbearable! Melbourne had multiple days of over 45 degrees and my parents and I were melting!! We don’t have air conditioning, and we were making do with a cheap fan and cold washcloths. I was struggling big time as I’m already overheated! Luckily we escaped for a few days and went sightseeing in Tasmania, where the weather was much cooler. We did a semi circle of the island, starting in Hobart in the south and driving along the east coast up to Launceston in the north. It was a great few days.

Thankfully the weather has normalised and things are pretty quiet around here now that my folks are in New Zealand. We’ve set up the nursery and only have a few things to tick off the list before we’re ready (at least in theory) for baby’s arrival. We still need to pick out a name but we still have time - 72 days to go!

We’re finally done (for now)! We’re going to meet with an architect soon to discuss our options for the future, but we won’t be in any position to do anything major for awhile so a little colour on the walls will suffice until the real renovations can begin. Here are a few before and after shots:

Well, we’ve been in our house for just over 3 weeks now and we’re starting to make some progress. Things haven’t gone as smoothly as we would have liked. The move itself was fine - some damage to our furniture but we have insurance so we’ll get that sorted out shortly. The 10 hour drive from Sydney to Melbourne with the cats in the backseat went surprisingly well - I was picturing stressed cats and meowing the whole way but they settled down quite nicely once we got underway. The main issue we’re dealing with at the moment is that we have no gas connection to our house, and therefore we haven’t been able to cook, heat our house, or use hot water since we got here!!! We’ve got temporary solutions in place - we bought a new BBQ with side burner so have been cooking on that (courtesy of insurance once we put in the claims as the movers broke our old BBQ). We also joined the rec centre which is at the end of our street so we’ve been going there every day for showers (it’s a fantastic complex with olympic size indoor pool, massive gym, and lots of cardio and other classes that I’ll be taking advantage of once we’re settled). The heat issue is the one that’s getting to us the most at this stage - Melbourne is much colder than Sydney and we’re just not used to having to wear a sweater. This old house is so paper thin that it’s the same temperature inside as it is outside so we’ve been wearing multiple layers around the house and dragging an electric heater we bought on the first day around with us!

Initially we were thinking of renovating the house over time, but we’ve since decided to knock the place down in a couple of years and completely rebuild. The previous owner was going to build a new home but decided to sell instead, so we became owners of all the architectural plans for the new house. Since it takes about 2 years for city council to approve any plans, we are probably going to keep these plans current for another couple of years and build when we can afford it.

Our aim for the interim is to make the house livable - no major home improvement projects but rather aesthetic ones like painting, fixing cracks, etc. The one major project I do want to complete though is moving the toilet inside (currently it’s in a separate “toilet shed” outside!!) Having to go outside to use the loo has not been fun! It’s bloody cold this time of year!!

We’ve managed to do a bit of exploring around the city so far. Melbourne is such a funky place, with cool cafes, one off designer stores, excellent restaurants, so many parks, and the best tram network to get you anywhere you want to go with ease. It’s like Queen St. West meets Montreal. We are really going to like it here and we are looking forward to making this “our city”. Last weekend we took some time off from “house stuff” to go see a footy game - our local team, Richmond, got creamed by Geelong. This weekend we went for a nice long walk around Fitzroy Gardens, then into the city, up to Dave’s office to see some views (he’s on the 44th floor), and around the city centre. We’ve also found a couple of great places to eat - a fabulous breakfast place here in Richmond, as well as a great value Curry House and a Nepalese Place (went there for Dave’s birthday earlier in the week). We also went to a very nice Spanish restaurant in the city centre last week with a fellow we know from Sydney who was down here for work. Melbourne is foodie capital of Australia, so we’re in heaven!

That’s right - we’re now homeowners! We’ve bought a home in one of the most expensive places in the world to buy property. A good idea? Well, we’re pretty excited about it, and looking forward to some serious DIY projects. Oh, did I mention it’s a fixer-upper?

Not only are we homeowners, but homeowners in a completely new city - we’re moving to Melbourne! Dave has accepted a new job with the Future Fund (basically the Australian version of the Canada Pension Plan) and he starts at the end of April. We take possession of our house on May 5th so we only have a few short weeks left in Manly before the big move. We sure are going to miss the idyllic beach lifestyle but we’re looking forward to inner-city life in the most vibrant city in Australia.

I’ve resigned from my job too. After 8 years as a Corporate Recruiter, I’ve decided to pack it in and try something new. I’m not sure what I’ll end up doing in Melbourne, but I’m looking forward to a new city, a new house, and a new job. I’ve never been one to turn down new adventures!

So, for the next couple of years we’ll be keeping pretty close to home, spending our hard earned dollars on renovation projects rather than globe trotting. We are making a trip to Ontario later this year however to attend Colin and Joanna’s wedding in September so it’ll be a great catch up with everyone.

See you in Melbourne!

Just a general update on what we’ve been up to over the past month since we’ve been back from our trip to South Australia.  One of the first things we had to do given the amount of wine we bought down there was to invest in a wine fridge to keep our investment from going bad in the heat!  It seems to fit well in our apartment so we’re pretty happy with it. The only thing now will be resisting the urge to empty it before the bottles are ready!

With the Markwicks in town we’ve been pretty active with going to to see lots of jazz - one or two a week.  This included a private showing at their friends the Fisses, who live in Paddington in Sydney and where there was an audience of 12!  We also saw some pretty nice jazz on the water as part of our Australia Day activities.

Australia Day was a very busy one for us.  We started off at the markets in the Rocks before walking to the middle of the Harbour Bridge to watch the Ferrython - an annual race between a few of the harbour ferries with hundreds of other boats providing ‘escort’ - quite a spectacle.  We then headed out to the beach to have a picnic and then do the Coogee to Bondi walk along the coast.  The beaches were all packed with revellers - we even managed to spot a streaker.  We headed back to Darling Harbour to watch the winners of the “Best Dressed” boat competition and some free jazz, then back to my office which is the best vantage point to watch the Australia Day fireworks with a glass of wine.

While down in Melbourne on business I managed to spend an evening attending a match at the Australian Open, one of the grand slam tennis tournaments.  I saw Lleyton Hewitt (the last remaining Aussie) play Novak Djokivic, the eventual champion in the 4th round.  Djokivic won in straight sets but it was a good match and a really neat experience. 

We’ve also been to the theatre (Billy Elliott - quite a fun little musical) and we’ve been spending a good deal of time at the beach.  Visitors haven’t gotten in the way of work piling up either so overall we’ve been quite busy.  Next week we’re hosting a few dinners before Barry and Robyn head across to New Zealand.   They are replaced by Dana’s aunt Patricia, who arrives the following day for a week’s visit.  At this stage we’re planning on the weekend in the Blue mountains, but that depend a bit on the weather.  We hope everyone is coping well with the winter wonderland back in Toronto - remember, we always have an extra bedroom down here!

…the Patriots are going to win the super bowl, but it will be within 10 points.  The Leafs will miss the playoffs, and it won’t be close.  The Raps will finish 4th in the conference with the third best record and make some noise in the playoffs, perhaps going to the conference finals. 

Oh, and so no one thinks I’m holding out I should announce that I finished somewhere in the bottom 1/3 of my NFL football pool this year.  After sharing victory honours for the past two years, including one in which I was able to watch 0 minutes of football apart from the Super Bowl, my lack of actual game footage has finally caught up to me.  C’est la vie.

It’s hard to believe how long it’s been since we last posted to the blog - to our two readers out there, we apologise…  It’s also hard to believe that its been nearly two years down in Australia for us!  It’s really been a great experience and we continue to enjoy ourselves immensely. We do miss our friends and family though and we’re really looking forward to visiting with everyone when we come back for Colin and Joanna’s wedding in September. Hopefully, we also have a few visitors in 2008, as I daresay Australia is a fantastic place to visit.

As for goings on with D&D, we’ve kept ourselves quite busy with work since we arrived back from our trip to Europe in October. The weather has gotten nicer and there’s been the opportunity to go on a camping trip a few hours North of Sydney for a weekend, although it poured rain on us.  We attended our first election party, held by my boss at work on the night the federal election results were coming in.  There were about 80 or so people there and, while it sounds like a strange sort of party, it was quite an interesting experience. 

Just before Christmas Dana’s parents arrived for a weekend in Sydney before heading out to Perth to visit with Dale.  The next weekend we joined them for a weekend while out there for Dana’s company Christmas dinner.  It was a good weekend despite the very un-Perth-like drizzly weather. 

Over the Christmas break Dana and I went to South Australia. We had intended 5 days camping and hiking on Kangaroo Island but our plans were re-routed due to extensive bushfires that closed the island.  We had really been looking forward to all the wildlife we were going to see there.  We made do however by, after a day in Adelaide, moving ourselves to 4 days in the Grampian mountains in Victoria, again hiking and camping.  The weather was beautiful for a two-day hike we did over Christmas and boxing days and we had the entire mountain range to ourselves. 

From there we headed back to South Australia for four solid days of wine tasting and general high living.  We spent one day in the McLaren Vale on the Fleurieu peninsula and the other three in the Clare and Barossa valleys North of Adelaide.  We ate well and stayed in a charming cottage which was a converted church built in the 1800s.  It even had a hot tub, not that we needed as the mercury settled above 40 degrees for the three days we were North of Adelaide! 

So it’s been busy but not too busy. Back to work now and will await the arrival of Dana’s parents in a couple of weeks for a three week visit, followed closely by Dana’s Aunt Trish for another week.  We hope the holiday season treated you all well and wish all of you a happy new year for 2008!

I left Dave in London and headed for the hills - literally.  While Dave was attending his 4 day conference, I was hiking in the Sierra Nevadas.  I stayed in the most beautiful mountain village called Capileira, a white-washed jewel nestled in the beautiful Poqueira Valley.  I spent a few hours each day walking in the area and the rest relaxing with a glass of wine and my book in the main square, taking siestas, and eating THE BEST cured ham ever (if you’ve ever tried Trevelez Ham - that’s from one town over from where I was staying - you’ll know what I mean)

After 4 days in the rural countryside, I picked Dave up from the airport and we spent the next two days in Granada.  Granada is a fabulous city full of wonderful spanish and moorish architecture, great restaurants and tea houses, and a lively student population.  We visited the massive Cathedral, the colourful Monasterio de San Jeronimo, the Banos Arabes El Banuelo (an 11th century islamic bathouse), and wandered around the Albayzin, the islamic quarter, a maze of steep winding streets on one of the hills in Granada with fabulous views of the most impressive sight in Granada - the Alhambra.  The Alhambra is a massive complex, part fortress and part castle perched on a steep hill that has been added to over the generations by various Emirs and Catholic Monarchs.  Inside you’ll find the Generalife (gardens), the Nasrid Palace, the Alcazaba (citadel), and the Palacio de Carlos V.  It’s impossible to describe the impressively decorated Nasrid Palace - the intricately-sculpted stucco walls, the tilework, the use of flowing water and fountains - you really have to see it to believe it.  As impressive is the Generalife - a massive, meticulously planned garden using pathways, patios, pools, fountains, trimmed hedges and heaps of colourful flowers.  It was amazing.

We then made our way to Cordoba, stopping for an excellent lunch at Priego de Cordoba, a small country town perched on a mountainside as well as Zuheros, an even smaller town perched on an even steeper mountainside.

We stayed in the Juderia (the Jewish quarter), a maze of narrow streets and small squares, white-washed buildings with flowers in window boxes and plant-filled patios.  It was a fantastic area for strolling with no particular destination in mind - eventually you would end up in a plaza for a copa de Rioja (glass of wine from the Rioja region) or a cerveza and some tapas. 

Cordoba was once the royal court of Al-Andalus (Muslim territories in Iberia) and one of the most impressive buildings in Andalucia is the Mezquita (Mosque) in Cordoba.  In the 16th century the Catholics built a cathedral right in the middle (yes, inside!) the Mosque. 

Next stop was Seville, the capital of Andalucia.  A much larger, more cosmopolitan city than either Granada or Cordoba but we still managed to find a fabulously small and windy maze in the Barrio de Santa Cruz where our apartment was located.

Two of Seville’s most impressive sights are the Alcazar and the Cathedral.  The Alcazar is Seville’s Alhambra, although on a smaller scale.  Seville’s Cathedral is an immense cavern of a church, and one of the biggest cathedrals in the world.  While we were there they had a third of the cathedral closed for renovations but we hardly noticed. 

A highlight of our trip was a flamenco show we attended while in Seville.  Flamenco includes singing, dancing and guitar, and the show was incredible.  The intensity of the performers was mind blowing.

We left Seville for the “Villas Blancos” - the white-washed rural villages of the mountainous interior straddling Cadiz and Malaga Provinces.  We stayed in the hilltop town of Ronda, dramatically located at the edge of El Tajo gorge and one of Spain’s oldest towns.  It is also the home of bullfighting, and attracted many of the Romantics of the 19th century as well as an array of 20th century artists and writers like Andexandre Dumas, Ernest Hemingway and Orson Welles.  We also visited Zahara and Grazalema, two other mountain villages in the area.

We had an absolutely fabulous time exploring this incredible part of the country - it is so full of history, beautiful architecture, amazing scenery, fantastic food, and passionate people.  We wish we could have stayed longer as we really only scratched the surface. Reluctantly we said goodbye to the Andalucian lifestyle we had adopted and tried to muster the resolve we were going to need for the 35 hour flight home.  

Next stop, London.  We had the weekend to ourselves before Dave needed to be at the conference and I moved on to Spain.  We’d done most of the tourist stuff previously, so decided to take a boat down the Thames to Greenwich.  It was a beautiful sunny day (blue skies!) and a fantastic way to get an overview of the major sights along the Thames.

Greenwich is very pretty, now part of London’s urban sprawl but at one point was a seperate town down the river and today maintains a village-like feel.  Of course one of the main attractions here is the Royal Greenwich Observatory where the Prime Meridian passes through.  There’s also an excellent market on weekends, a maritime museum and (currently a bit burned and under restoration) the Cutty Sark.

The other attraction we didn’t do last time (lines were too long) was the London Eye.  We arrived early enough the following morning to get straight on.  The views from this wheel - the highest ferris wheel in the world - are amazing.

We also took in the Dali and Picasso exhibit at the County Hall Gallery, strolled around Covent Garden & Soho and ate some pretty decent Indian food.  We also went to a Premier League football match, watching Fulham draw 3-3 with Manchester City at Craven Cottage.  David even caught a ball that was kicked into touch and threw it back to the awaiting player.  All in all a good two day excursion.

It’s 5am and I’m still jetlagged from our most recent trip so I thought I’d use these early hours to update the blog.  Dave is still asleep having experienced no after-effects of the 40 hours it took to fly home.  I could say something here but I’m not going to…

This unexpected trip came about as a result of a conference Dave attended in London.  For a flight that long Mercer employees travel business class, however, you are able to turn your business class ticket into 2 economy tickets and bring the spouse if you choose.  So we decided to tack on an extra week of vacation days and make a real trip out of it.  The trip was extended even further when Dave was asked to attend some meetings in Hong Kong prior to the London conference, so all up we were away for about 3 weeks.

I’d previously been to Hong Kong, but this was David’s first visit.  I’d tried to describe the pollution you encounter when in Asia, but words are meaningless if you’ve never encountered pollution on any sort of major scale before.  Needless to say he was dumbstruck.  Our hotel was on Hong Kong island side right next to the waterfront, but Kowloon across the harbour was nowhere to be found.  Our cablecar trip up to the Peak for a “bird’s eye view” of Hong Kong also yielded little.  It was like soup. 

Even so, Hong Kong was a lot of fun for the both of us.  David met with some pretty interesting folks during the two days of meetings, and was able to spend time with some Aussies he used to work with in Sydney who are now in Hong Kong.  While he was doing work stuff, I was left on my own to explore.  The first time I was in Hong Kong I didn’t get to the Bird Market, so that was on my agenda for this trip.  It was amazing how many birds were for sale, and the market itself was very serene, bounded by gardens and courtyards.  The other item on the agenda was to ride the Travelator from bottom to top.  The Travelator is an outdoor escalator (one way - Up!) that climbs halfway up the mountain so people who live in the “Mid-Levels” can get back to their apartments in the evening.  It took a good 40 minutes to get to the end, and then I had to walk back down again! 

The following day I took a ferry to Lantau Island, one of the many islands in the area although this one has a particularly large Buddha at the Po Lin Monastery.  The Buddha was impressive and the monastery very pretty.  Lantau Island is very lush and green and would have been beautiful had the skies been clear.  I also visited Tai O, one of the last places in Hong Kong that still has the traditional stilt housing of southern Chinese fishing villages.  There were signs pointing to a Shaolin Kung Fu temple so I decided to follow them - about 15 minutes later I was fairly far away from the main drag, no one around, and unfortunately for me when I arrived at the entrance to the temple I was met by 4 very large, very unfriendly dogs who did not want me to come in.  I turned around in one fluid movement and started walking away, only to meet two more rather unfriendly dogs coming at me from the other direction.  I escaped unharmed, but rather shaken.