Erin and Kevin Visit!

Erin and Kevin, friends from business school visited Australia for a little over a week. While we were not the main attraction (a wedding in Perth was) we loved to see them and hang around Sydney! Having friends around is just what the doctor ordered!

We packed a lot in the few days they were here! Christmas Eve drinks with our neighbors, Manly, Bondi, Coogee, Sydney to Hobart race start, well really it was just the longest ferry ride EVER, Chrissy with Jules and Oscar, Speed Boating, exploring the city. We also got to meet with with Curtis and Allison who were enjoying a Sydney holiday for a BBQ on Boxing Day at our apartment.

How is this the only photo of all of us I have????

Walking around Bondi! 

Bone Crusher says, DON'T LEAVE!

Thanks for visiting, we miss you guys and can't wait to see you again soon! XOXO

Exploring the Northern Beaches

A few weekends ago we decided to rent a car and take a day trip to some of the hard to get to Northern Beaches. The Northern Beaches are across the harbor from the Opera House and are definitely less crowded. We traveled about an hour North of downtown Sydney. We visited West Head Lookout in the Ku-Ring-Gai Chase Notional Park, Church Point bay for lunch, Clareville for a coffee and Palm Beach to relax on the beach.

Here was our route

Chris made me drive most of the time and I am happy to report that I did not drive on the wrong side of the street once. I did, however, run over a massive snake, which I did not like. I thought this was very Aussie, but apparently its rare and I should feel special about it.

Here are a few photos form our little day trip. Its definitely worth the trip if you visit!

Lunch in Church Point Bay 

Coffee stop in Clareville

View of Palm Beach from the National Park 

Palm Beach

Rugby 7s in the Gold Coast

On our road trip through the States (well before we got to Australia) we got an email from Oscar about a Rugby 7s getaway with some of his mates (yep I said it). He basically said, you're going, its going to be awesome. He didn't need to twist our arms, we were all in. The weekend did not disappoint! Our trip to the Hong Kong 7s in March is being discussed - if you are interested, let me know!

I didn't know much about rugby before this weekend (and I'm not gonna lie, I still don't know that much, but I can hold my own now). Seven's is a different variety of the traditional rugby I had seen, it much more fast paced that typical 15s. There are two 7 minute halves with 7 players on the field for each team. This was a tournament, so there were games from about 9am to 8pm Saturday and Sunday.

The other awesome thing about the weekend is that everyone dresses up. Australian's love a good costume, we should do more of this in the states! Probably 90% of attendees are dressed up. I tried to snap a few photos of great costumes, but I had just gotten the iPhone 6 and was terrified of drunkly shattering it.

Here are our costumes in all their glory - grass skirts, umbrella hats and AUSTRALIA love, oh and Matt's monkey. My sorority days came in handy with the painting of these letters.

Put some bottoms on Jules! 

We had a great time also spelling other words.

Our boys did not disappoint! 

And as the day went on there was a little of this... The other favourite was two A's (AA) walking around together with massive amount of drinks in hand.

These boys had a strong neon Sunday showing.  My other best dressed were entire family of about 15 that dressed up in different Alice in Wonderland charters. Then there were a group of Umpa Lumpa's with Willy Wonka.

Sunday Funday with these bros all in neon - there were about 25 of them 

This poor dude was at his bachelor party...and his lovely friends dressed him.

Not a great photo, but you can see how everyone is dressed up - crayons and pirates

Enough of costumes, back to the rugby. Here is America warming up. It was really cool to be able to get up close and personal to the teams for warm-ups!

I had, I man have, a serious crush on this dude.

Here are the Kenyan's - These dudes are HUGE! They had a massive support section in tow, but didn't prevail.

I don't know what this is called, when they lift someone up to catch the incoming ball, but I thought it was funny. Here are the South African making it look easy!

And then America won! Well, they won their pool, which I think was the third teir group, but they still won. So clearly I decided to take some selfies with them. I'm officially the worst selfie taker....there is no reason the person taking a selfie should not be in the photo or smiling....I have some work to do

These Aussies were obsessed with Carlin Isles (left) - the fastest man in 7s 

Carlin Isles is an native of Ohio. He is a fast dude and people love to watch him and heckle him if he is not running fast enough.

Thanks to Matt (bottom right) for not making me feel so creepy hanging out to see my rugby BF.

Other things I noticed at my first rugby tournament - the kiss cam or fan cam is awesome in Australia - anything goes - I mean anything. People would be kicked out of the venue in the states for way less. I tried to record some of it, but no luck.

Oh yeah, in between games we got some beach time too.

The gold coast beach goes on forever - its beautiful! 

Road Trip Re-Cap

This post has been staring at me for 2 months now, just mocking me. So here it is, our final re-cap of our Great American Road Trip!

The final route

Some of our final journey stats:

• 38 Days on the road (thanks to all the friends with washing machines along the way!)
• 22 States and 2 countries visited
• 6,539 miles traveled 
• 100 (ish) hours spent side by side in the car - that's a lot of radio lab podcasts! 

The final speedometer photo before we sold the Jetta in Tucson and continued to LA in a rental car

• 61 friends and family seen along the way in the order we saw them and lots of new friends that we didn't list
• Emily, John & Graham; Marlene & Bill; Julie & Ben; Nick & Marie, Dan & Steph, Scott, Sarah, Ava & Ella, Bowen, Rebbie & Chuck; Layla, Jeff, Jammi, Kathy, Mary Beth, Nanny, Ant the Man & his lovely girlfriend Marisa; One last fill of Alex; Uncle Ray & Aunt Susan; Tom an SAE brother and great friend; Alejo & Marcela for the amazing wedding; Max & Meng, Brad & SK, Jessie & Katie (the cutest couple); Melissa, George & Ryman, Glynn; Ian, Emily & hot mess Hattie; an unplanned next-door camping visit with Kyle in the Grand Canyon; Chris, my Mom, Bone Crusher & Reily; Uncle Nicky, Sue, Jerry & Holly, Lisa, Colin & Rob, Jude & Payton at Pastiche; Shane in his new SD home; Katie K & Charlie in LA!  
• 1 successful license plate game - we saw all 51, can't forget about DC
• A few notable finds....Alaska was one of the first we spotted outside of Columbus, OH, I speed down the Rocky Mountain Highway after a PT cruiser from Delaware, we found Hawaii rolling into Austin and the last plate we found 1 hour outside of Tucson - South Dakotan's need to travel more.  
• 113 was the hottest temperature we hit in good ol' Yuma Arizona

Our trusty Jetta made it the whole way with no breakdowns. The human travelers also made it all the way with no breakdowns, just a few minor hangry moments (mostly from me). Our little Jetta was heavy on the first leg to Cincinnati where we dropped off more stuff at Chris' parents house (thanks!).

La Jetta will be missed, I do wonder who has her now! 

We also learned a few valuable lessons along the road (as you can tell, I started this list, but never really finished it!): 

• Texans like to speed, which should really be no surprise to anyone, the top speed limit was 85 mphs (137 kmph), yowzer! 
• You never know when you will come across an old friend. We randomly camped next to Kyle and his Grandma in the Grand Canyon North Rim, which is pretty remote. Kyle is an SAE Chris met at Leadership school years before.
• Skunk sprays don't take the cut out of a dog & two baths also do not take the skunk smell off a dog. Poor Ryman! 
• Desiel cars give you street creed with truckers, even if its a Jetta.  

It seems so long ago, but we had a blast and I am so glad we did it! If you ever get the chance to road trip, do it!

Random Things From Our First Week

Moving here has been awesome - the city is beautiful, the people are great and we of course have great hosts/guides, Oscar and Jules! I can already tell I am going to love it here. There are definitely differences to the states, but to be honest, so far I generally like the Australian version more.

Chris and I were walking the other day (between apartment inspections) and talking about how it hasn't really felt like that difficult of a transition. I'm guessing that is mainly because it is an english speaking country and we have Oscar and Jules, seriously they are the best. We really have only had one hickup thus far with our bank account getting set-up - we didn't sign in one place so had to go back 2 days later to sign...hopefully we get the cards in the mail today...

Here are a few fun/interesting things from our first week.

1.  Winter in Sydney is way, way better than winter in Chicago - I am currently sitting on Jules and Oscars porch at 3 PM in a tank top soaking up some sun, and the view isn't bad either.

Seriously, this is O & J's view!

2.  People think we have accents. We have gotten comments like, "oh I rather like your accents" or "I thought you had an accent" when we said we were from the states. We don't sound like hicks or valley girls, so I guess we are harder to place....actually a few people have thought I am Canadian, not Chris, just me :)

3.  We have caught ourselves picking up a few new phrases - like "wildly" or "rather like", they just come out. I think wildly might be more of an Oscar phrase than an Aussie phrase.

4.  Everything is expensive, except cell phone plans, those are reasonable and cheaper than the states, but that is the only thing :)  Things are also priced by the week....when its priced by the week, you can't just multiply by 4 to get the monthly cost, there are a sneaky 4 extra weeks in there. Here is what I mean:

• The Crossfit down the street from our apartment is $99 per week, $5,148 per year or monthly cost of $429!!!!!! Yep you read that right, I miss e-town for more than one reason!
• Rent....same story, we are paying under $3,000, which is not crazy and what we expected but, we did pay less in Chicago for way more space.

This is a microwave that cost $890, yep a microwave and yes $890 is not a typo

5.  Sweets are much different and better here! They are not as sweet as in the states, if that make sense at all. At its called lollies, not candy. There is a lemon club soda drink called a lemon squash that is delicious!

6.  Breakfast (brekkie) is also delicious. Avacado, but you call it avo, is on everything, so I obviosuly love it. And the bacon, the bacon is so good, its much different, more meaty than we are used to in the states.

7.  Everything is called a burger, a chicken sandwich, nope its a chicken burger.

8.  People sit in the front of the cab here with the driver. Yesterday I opened the cab drivers door, oops, wrong side!!!

9.  Walking has been more of a challenge for Chris than me, you give way to the left not to the right.

10.  It is beautiful, this morning we did about a 2 hour walk with Jules along the North Shore, so we were weaving in and out of the harbour bays.

11.  Some of the birds sound like dying children, but they are beautiful. I was much more excited about the birds than Chris.

How pretty are these, they are everywhere, you just have to look

12.  We won a meet raffle, twice! Basically at a bar they sell tickets for these awesome meet trays and toward 9ish they have the drawing. We then went to another bar and they stored the meat in their fridge for us :)

Meat tray #1, breakfast with 2 dozen eggs

Meet tray #2, steaks that will be consumed this evening

Next up, sign lease, pay bond (hopefully with our Australian bank account), move into apartment, finish updating my CV and cover letter, look for a job, pick up Bone Crusher from jail, celebrate Jules birthday, buy furniture and send Chris off to his first day of work next week! Jules and Chris did find a job lead for me in the Sunday paper...

Road Trip - Day 32 - 36: Tucson, AZ

I always love coming to Tucson! I stopped calling Tucson "home" after a few years of being in Chicago, but now since we are technically homeless and unemployed, this is the closest place to home :)

Not only did we get to see my Mom, but we also got to see Bone Crusher! After almost 6 weeks in Arizona, to say he was excited was an understatement! He did lots of showing off in the pool, diving for balls, chasing lizards and harassing the cats!

Water pup

Victory!  

My Mom will probably be mortified that I am putting this pic up of Reily because it is not representative of him at all, but its too funny! He is the most mild mannered, gentle dog, until you get bones in the mix, which should be no surprise to anyone. This is actually a play action shot, they never stop playing. I think they are going to miss each other big time!  

Reily can fit Bones' whole head in his mouth!

We did all of the normal delicous Tucson spots - Rosa's (best white people Mexican food EVER!), Beyond Bread (yummy), La Salsa (fish tacos and salsa bar), El Charro (Chris' new favorite Tucson place) and Pastiche, where I worked in college. Pastiche had a serious makeover! Its open and the bar is expanded, loved it, we missed Julie and Pat, but we got to see Peyton!

Peyton even let me behind the bar, Rickster never would have done that :)

The El Charro Patio 

And then we tried some new places downtown - which is completly different than even a year ago.  We went to Thunder Canyon Brewery, Reily's, Hub (OMG, the ice cream is so good!) and tried to go to Pizzeria Bianco (a James Beard Chef's restaurant) that just opened that week, but the wait was too long.

Downtown Tucson, so hip right now

My mom also threw a little party for friends and family to say goodbye - it was awesome to see everyone - Lisa, Rob, Colin, Uncle Nicky, Holly, Sue and Jerry all where there.  I didn't take any photos....my cousin did, she of course did not send them to me....I hope she is reading this and feeling bad :)

The trip ended with us selling our trusty dissel Jetta - La Jetta Blunt at Car Max. They gave us a great offer and it only took 38 minutes to sell our car!

La Jetta got us though the whole road trip (well not to LA) with no issues! However, she was the source of our one and only fight on the road - I wanted to take her mid trip to get checked out, you know, just in case there was an issue, I didn't want to be stranded in the middle of nowhere America. And on the other side, Chris thought that was dumb, if something was wrong he didn't want to know. Well, he was right, I was wrong.

It's been real

Thanks Mama for everything! We took over the house for five days packing and re-packing for hours on end. Bone Crusher also ruled the roost, we are forever grateful for you taking care of our furry kid while we had a crazy road trip adventure! 

Mama - AKA Shorty!  

Peace out Tucson, see you in a few years! Love you Mama!  

Road Trip - Day 30 & 31: Grand Canyon

The Grand Canyon was the perfect last adventure on the road trip - we still have Tucson and LA, but this felt like the last real part of the road trip. I've hiked the Grand Canyon as a kid, but had never been to the North Rim, neither had Chris. So we took our last shower for 3 days and hoped in the car at 7 AM.

Warning, this is going to be a longer post because we saw so many cool things, (bison, deer, California Condors) but it will be mostly pictures.

Night one we camped in Jacob's Lake - its about 45 miles from the North Rim in the first come, first serve campsite, we were thrilled to get a spot!  Then we explored around Jacob's Lake.

I am beginning to think Chris is not actually afraid of heights, he's 90 feet up on a rickety fire tower

Our campsite day one and the beautiful Arizona sunset!

The next morning we woke up, packed up camp to move to a closer campground, De Montte, which is about 20 miles from the north rim. As we drove into the park this is what we came across....

Well hello, Mr. Buffalo

And then we got to the canyon. WOW! The North Rim is much different than the South Rim - there is much more detail and it way less crowded (its harder to get to, we added 3 hours to our drive each way for North v. South Rim). From the South, I remember the canyon looking very wide, just massive. The North is 1,000 feet higher and I am no geology expert, but I will try - this side has receded more due to more rain and snow creating more "stuff" to see in the canyon. Pictures just don't do it justice, especially ones I take.

We drove 45 minites to the tip of the North Rim stopping along the way for hikes, this hike was a 4 mile loop 

   Before the storm, you could see the mountains of Flagstaff 66 miles away 

The window rock, you can walk out on it

View down from right on top of the window

South Rim is across to the right of the storm

On the way out of the park that night we saw more buffalo. We saw them outside of the park about 2 miles from our campsite, which is apparently rare. There have been recent car accidents killing the buffalo, so Arizona is trying to separate. We also learned that buffalo are not native here, they were brought in by someone in the early 1900s to breed with cows, when it didn't work they sold them to the state of Arizona who now owns them.

There were so many - look in the background

Some up close with the babies 

While we were in the park we went to a ranger talk about the California Condors. If you don't know the story of the condors, I'll give you a re-cap. They were almost extinct, there were 19 left in the wild. A conservationist group worked to capture the 22 birds and breed them in captivity. To make a long story short, it worked. There are now about 400 of them total and 230 in the wild. They are the largest bird in North America, they have a wingspan of 9 feet! You can learn more about them here: Peregrine Fund

We also learned that there is a popular nesting area on the way out of the canyon on the Navajo bridge, they hang out on the getters of the bridge, so we decided to stop to see if we could see some....and we did! We saw 5 birds total, it was pretty cool! You can also look them up by number online.

See, not afraid of heights

Its also a beautiful area - there is a driving and walking bridge

This is F1, 30 and 54. We thought F1 was a juvenile, but according to the internet it was born in 2007. At one point F1 was flapping its wings and 30 got closer and closer....until it basically attacked it and then it flew off the bridge. We thought it was the Mom encouraging the baby to fly, but we were wrong (they are all males), no idea what was happening.

In order F1, 30 and 54.  

Close up, you can see the numbers

This is where it was flapping its wings, 30 was quite interested

This one is H9 and we definitely thought is was a juvenile since he has a black head, which is what the babies have according to Ranger Charlie. But online it says he was born in 2008....I think something is off, because we also saw 77 and online it says he is dead.....

He is super tiny! 

The Grand Canyon North Rim was awesome - definitely go if you have the chance!