Resolutions in Single Word Form
Monday, January 5th, 2009
Posted in Positivity by Vanessa | 3 Comments - add yours now!
Execute. Meaning. Fun.
What will your 3 words for 2009 be?
Car Goodness, etc.
Sunday, January 4th, 2009
Posted in Gadgets by Vanessa | 5 Comments - add yours now!
Val! and Ness - Christmas
After being somewhat productive this morning (I started washing the dishes, Justin finished), we decided to go for a drive. Wow! A drive! It is nice to have a car here! We drove to Brooklyn and used our newfangled GPS (thanks Mom and Dad!) to find a nearby restaurant. The joint was called “Buffalo Cantina.” It reminded me of something you might find in Austin, so I liked it. I had a torta, Justin had a burrito, we ordered chips and salsa and chicken strips in hot wing sauce - two of which were in the “suicidal” sauce - the hottest you can order. The cashier attempted to dissuade us from selecting aforementioned sauce, but we wouldn’t hear of it.
Justin and IKEA furniture
After lunch we drove to IKEA where we purchased a TV storage unit/organizational system. Score for functionality! After arriving home, we spent approximately 2.5 hours putting it together. Now we just have to rearrange the rest of the living room. I guess we know what we’ll be doing Sunday… :)
Personalized Poetry Just for You
Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008
Posted in Fun by Vanessa | 1 Comment - add yours now!
Life is a strange confluence of coincidences. Just a week or so ago, Val! was walking around Union Square and an NYU student came up to her and sold her a freshly written (on the spot) piece of poetry for $1. She thought it was awesome, as did I. The poetry was nice, but it had nothing to do with her chosen “theme” of Romania.
Today, a StumbleUpon friend of mine sent me a blog entry of his that is in the same vein. He is an extraordinarily prolific writer and I enjoy reading his pieces when they’re brough to my attention. Check out this short story of his that allows you a glimpse of Dublin’s less illustrious side. His blog post today is about how he’ll write and mail you a piece of poetry (or a rant if you’d prefer)… I’d probably prefer a rant myself, but I’m open. No one has ever written poetry for me. It might be nice. :) At any rate, I really think you should take him up on his offer. How often do you get meaningful snail mail, especially of the artistic variety?
Concluding Australia
Tuesday, December 9th, 2008
Posted in Family, Travel by Vanessa | 7 Comments - add yours now!
Related Australia Posts:
5 Days in Melbourne | Sydney and the Blue Mountains
First Day in Sydney | Planning an Australia Adventure
Sorry we were such unreliable updaters while we were gone. The truth of the matter is, internet ain’t free (anywhere really, but especially in Australia). Most of the places we stayed didn’t have wifi and many didn’t offer LAN connections in the room. We were lucky enough to pay almost $100 at one place for 3 days worth of internet access. That’s the last time we updated. I am sure you understand! ;)
We were lucky enough to make it to the Yarra Valley and taste some incredible wines. We returned with 9 bottles! It would’ve probably been ten, but we had to remove one due to weight restrictions when flying out of Tasmania. No big deal - it seemed to make the gate agent’s day a lot better to have a free bottle of wine. We did buy three bottles of one fun fizzy sweet wine to share with friends when people come over to be bored to tears by our photos. Wee! So yeah, the Yarra Valley was beautiful, fun, and tasty! It definitely seems like a cool place to spend the weekend as many of the wineries have weekend events and concerts. One winery we visited had a band shell that can accommodate 10,000 people. Whoa! The show that was supposed to happen the Friday before we arrived was canceled due to weather; it was John Cougar Mellencamp. Crazy!
After the Yarra Valley we drove down the Great Ocean Road. We’d planned to head out on the Great Ocean Road first, and the Yarra Valley the next day, but sadly, in the night a truck driver perished on the road outside of Geelong - his truck completely incinerated, flames scarring the hillside opposite where it caught fire. The Great Ocean Road was closed for the whole morning. That evening we drove through the accident site - everything was pitch black for 20 feet in all directions. The view from where the fellow died, well, it could’ve been a lot worse. The area around there was stunning. Actually, many spots on the road were panoramically perfect.
(That evening was saw a cute light house and beautiful coastline at sunset. We continued the drive to the area where the 12 Apostles rock formation was located, arriving sometime around 11 PM. We rolled down our seats (yeah, they were the crank kind - grr) and slept fitfully in the car, having to turn the engine on intermittently when the cold woke us up. I am pretty sure I was able to spot the Southern Cross - though in that middle-of-nowhere darkness, there was so many stars vying for attention it’s tough to be certain. We were out of the car by 6:30 AM and on our way to photograph the 12 Apostles at sunrise.
So. Beautiful. *sigh*
We drove back along the Great Ocean Road, stopping for breakfast at a cute place in Apollo Bay that occupied the second story of a builing along the main street. It afforded amazing views of the curving bay outside. In a parking lot across the street, a man practiced tricks on his bike for over an hour! He was quite good and I had a rather enjoyable time trying to capture his stunts in photos. They don’t do it justice though. You really need to see the motion for something like that - especially when it was choreographed like a beautiful dance. See, I can appreciate art in some forms! :)
We secured a room in Melbourne, quickly showered, and set out again for Phillip “penguin” Island. After hearing the different ‘penguin encounters’ you could have at the mega-commercial research and preservation facility, we opted for one of the more private and ‘authentic’ options. Instead of sitting in bleachers on a beach lit up by floodlights with hundreds of other people and lots of screaming kids, we opted to go with a ranger and 4 other people in wind and water proof suits (thankfully provided by the company as it did start raining) to the opposite site of the penninsula (the ranger pronounced it peninshoola) and sit on a dark beach with night vision goggles clutched to our faces and watch little penguins clamber to the dunes. We then followed some of these penguins along the road back to the facility; many of them have their homes in burrows there. They were cute, but the best part was how happy Justin was to see the penguins coming up the beach. He kept pointing them out to me. I really never see him that excited so it was well worth the drive, cold, and cash.
The next morning, we flew to Tasmania! The flight in alone was breathtaking. The water was so clear you could see straight through it down to the rocks below from 1,000+ feet in the air. The ocean presented myriad shades of blue from the palest sandiest blue to deep sapphire. The island itself had a mountaineous green landscape remniscient of the Carribbean. The small towns we glimpsed while flying in were subtley colorful and absolutely adorable. We both liked Tasmania immediately. It didn’t hurt that we lucked out and stayed at a really nice, comfortable hotel right across from a lovely little harbor. The day we arrived we were pretty beat from all our going so we just took it easy. I got my haircut, Justin got a massage, and we both napped before getting ready for a night on the town. Justin surprised me by ordering a “Taste of Tasmania” from room service which included a selection of Tasmanian cheese and a bottle of wine. After this, we had a good dinner at an Indian restaurant in an area of town known as Salamanca. Search for a dance spot mentioned in the Fodor’s guide led us to a pub where music by the Smiths flowed softly out. We ducked inside. It turned out to be a cozy joint with a roaring fire. The bar tender, a really pretty gal with freckles, informed me that the club (upstairs) was no longer opened on Wednesday nights. Oh well. We got into a conversation about travel in which she told me she’d just returned from a year in Central America. She flew in to Costa Rica and traveled around - starting out by herself and making some friends along the way. Her boyfriend came and spent the last four months with her. She quite enjoyed her time there and even went to Nicaragua. And no, she doesn’t speak any Spanish whatsoever. I was a bit envious of her guts and lengthy journey. She seemed like a cool chick. Upon leaving this pub, we found a bar serving mixed drinks that had a DJ, but also no dancing. We weren’t here for too long before calling it a night.
The following day, Justin and I were bound for Port Arthur, a penal settlement from the 1800s. Along the way, we stopped to take some photos and then at a Tasmanian Devil (and other wildlife) park. Wee!!! We saw several adorable devils walking around in their enclosures, foraging for food, taking a dip in the water, and basking in the sunlight. They’re SO adorable. We also fed more kangaroos. These were also lazy and lethargic, but not as bad as the others. It was a much more enjoyable experience. We ended up being there for quite a while, so our visit to Port Arthur literally consisted of glimpsing it and leaving with out paying the $20/pp entry fee. You see, we had to make it to Kettering in time to catch the 6:30 ferry to Bruny Island. We stopped to photograph more cool Ocean rock formations on the way back home - the neatest of which was the tessellated pavement. Weird stuff!
We arrived at the ferry landing at 6:15 - phew! - crossed to Bruny Island, seeking out food, and then proceeding to the main attraction. Why did we go to this incredibly remote island off the already somewhat remote island of Tasmania (I mean, come on, only 500,000 people live on the entire island of Tasmania!)? To see penguins in the wild!!! Well, they were sort of in the wild, if you consider a boardwalk through their burrows “the wild.” It was ultra cool and we were able to take photos because no one was there to tell us not to (yes, I realize I sound like a bratty little kid by saying that). Oddly enough, there were also 6 other people viewing the penguins with us this time, but I felt like we were all much more intrepid than the viewers at the last penguin outing. On the way to our lodging that night (we were stuck on Bruny Island due to the fact that the last ferry leaves at 7PM), we saw lots of penguins and marsupials including kangaroos/wallabies and two brushtail possums! Man, it seems like all those weird Australian critters ar marsupials. In our room, there was a small fireplace that we got going and sat around talking about the day and trying to stay warm before turning in for the night under electric blankets. This trip was much chillier than we had anticipated!
The next day it was rainy on Bruny Island, which dashed our hiking plans, so we head out first thing back to the main land, visiting Australia’s Antarctic Headquarters, the Cadbury factory, and a winery before returning to the airport for our flight out. That night we arrived out our hotel in Sydney at midnight - argh! We’d been hoping to fit in one more night out, but it was not to be. A line of Japanese people with some Caucasians mixed in snaked out the door of the hotel when we arrived. Apparently a Qantas flight to Narita had been canceled and many of the passengers had been put up at our hotel. As a result, our room had been upgraded to a gigantic executive suite. After checking in, Justin and I tried to order room service but were told it would be over an hour before food would arrive. We gave up and walked to a nearby 7-11, grabbing soup, a slushy, a meatpie (I think is what Justin got) and chips before heading back to the hotel and watching their incredibly informative news program. We passed out shortly thereafter.
Our flight back to the US the next day was at noon. It was pretty full so we weren’t sure we would make it on. We did but our seats were on opposite sides of the aircraft. Thanks to tons of luck, some passengers were not feeling too well and deplaned, so the flight attendants were able to put Justin and I together - in two middle seats in the middle of the plane. It was worth it.
We opted out of the second leg on our Qantas flight from LAX to JFK and took a shuttle over to Long Beach to fly to Austin. Mom and Dad picked us up - the puppies were with them. It was a really nice reunion and we got bubble tea from a delicious place in Austin before heading back the Mom & Dad’s house and forcing them to sit through photos. Luckily, Sheila and Sharlin had been visiting Nanny and all three came down for a little while. We watched a video of Brennan, Sheila’s baby -er- fetus (no longer dubbed Peanut). It looked like a freaky skeleton baby with a beating heart. Yikes! Good to hear the development is going well, though. Mom, Dad, Justin and I continued to my favorite Mexican restaurant for dinner that night (Tomatillos) where I had one too many margartias (2) and that was that. The next day we flew back home to a COLD NYC night.
5 Days in Melbourne
Monday, December 1st, 2008
Posted in Adventure, Travel by Vanessa | 6 Comments - add yours now!
Today, Justin and I are concluding our 5 day stretch in Melbourne. We wandered around a lot just browsing shops and looking at different areas, went to museums, ate a variety of foods - from pancakes to “Australian food,” visited an old jail and watched two performances. At the jail, we caught a dramatized story-telling of the life of Australia’s notorious ‘wild west’ bushranger, Ned Kelly. At the theatre, we saw Moliere’s The Hypocrite.
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- Justin and I having breakfast at a pancake restaurant. Yummy!
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- Justin visiting with penguins in Melbourne's aquarium
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- Vanessa looking out over Melbourne from the Eureka Skydeck
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- Above Melbourne
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- Vanessa in front of the West Gate Bridge(?)
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- Gondola on the Yarra River
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- Ready for the play!
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- Justin as Ned Kelly with the actors
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- Vanessa with the actors at the Melbourne gaol
What is blatantly and oddly obvious is the lack of integration of blacks in the society. I saw only one black business person since we’ve been here. We saw some aboriginal children in Sydney that had a white teacher and were doing a tour of the Harbor bridge, but we just haven’t seen any interracial couples or many black people at all. Aside from one aboriginal man selling his artwork on the street, the only black people we’ve seen have been tourists from Africa dressed in traditional garb and speaking in a tribal language. From that standpoint, it’s incredibly different from the states. Perhaps this is because the history of the murder and attempted assimilation of Aborigines in Australia is gruesome and evil. Also, there aren’t very high numbers of aboriginal people in Australia compared to the rest of the population. Anyway, it still seems very odd to me. The only groups that seem to be fairly integrated here are Europeans and Asians. We’ve seen plenty of Asian-Caucasian couples.
On a less shallow note, most people that have been to America really like it. The attitudes of those that haven’t visited America are about 50/50 like and dislike. Those that have been to America’s southern states really like it and commented on the southern hospitality. Those that haven’t been don’t think they’d like it and don’t want to go. Most Australians we’ve talked to really want to see NYC. Most that have been there really like NYC. I met one girl who worked at the Aquarium that said she liked New York but also visited Chicago and absolutely loved it. We shared a few moments gushing about how awesome Chicago is. In general, the people here REALLY want you to like Melbourne. One fellow at a cafe where we stopped for lunch pummeled us with questions about the US, our lives, and what we thought of Melbourne. He also asked us of we thought it was strange. He also wants to move to the USA.
I also got told I had a “cool American accent” by a guy that works in an Australian restaurant here. I told him that was the first time I’d ever been told that and had actually heard American accents were awful. His response was that “those people are just idiots.” haha That works for me, especially since the guy gave me a free espresso and a cookie. He really wants to move to New York. It seems like the “American dream” is alive and well for a lot of people here in Australia.
Just watching the news here, America is mentioned a lot, especially with the global recession that began in America. Here (as in many places, I suppose), America is truly viewed as the most important, powerful country in the world and Americans make headlines in the newspapers as well as on TV. However, the papers here tend to have a global focus anyway, which I quite enjoy. It’s nice to know what’s happening around the world and not only what pertains to America. There is news in the papers of so many different countries and random happenings—both good and bad.
People from Melbourne are very proud of their “cafe culture.” There are little coffee shops with prepared food pretty much everywhere. Almost every single one of them also serves wine, and most serve mixed drinks as well. Coffee and wine is served throughout the day and people seem to partake whenever the mood strikes them. Tons wines from all over Australia are on all the menus… I read, before coming here, that you’d be hard pressed to find wines from outside of Australia for purchase at restaurants. That’s not far from the truth. I keep getting confused when I see a wine from “SA” on the menu, then remind myself it stands for South Australia, not South Africa.
Aside from some of the differences here, Australia really feels a lot like the US. Not much like New York, per se, but a lot like the US in terms of the people, the dining and entertainment options, the cities, the history (or lack thereof), the way it was settled, etc.
As I mentioned, today is the end of our lengthy stint in Melbourne. Justin and I are taking to the open (Great Ocean) road to see the 12 Apostles - cool rock formations off the coast. Do a web search! We’re also heading to the Yarra Valley which contains over 70 wineries and to Phillip Island to see penguins. We have 2 days to cover lots of distance and site see before we fly off to Tasmania. Wish us luck. The three major points we want to hit are plotted on a map here.
Happy Thanksgiving from Australia!!!
Friday, November 28th, 2008
Posted in Seasonal by Vanessa | No Comments - be the first to comment
Hi guys! We’re actually a day ahead of you here in Australia, but it’s Thanksgiving at home right now and that’s what matters. We hope everyone had amazing turkey days.
Happy Thanksgiving
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