5 Minutes or Less: It's a family affar (part deux)

A more substantial post to follow, but just wanted to share that Lydia and I had the pleasure of showing my sister and her boyfriend around greater Melbourne and Tasmania when they were in town a couple of weeks ago:

Thanks guys for coming to visit and for all of the fun!

5 Minutes or Less: How to Catch a Kangaroo

I can't say that I've tried this yet, but I may start carrying around a Woolworths bag just in case...

Given this fine gentleman's appearance, one might suppose that he enjoys catching kangaroos for more than just the sport of it.

5 Minutes or Less: Possums Love Pizza

We've neglected our blog terribly this past month, but to break the silent streak, we'd like to share an important lesson learned last Friday night while at a work-sponsored Lawn Bowling event; Possums love pizza:

I'm told these guys can be quite aggressive, but this little guy and I formed a bond that other's just can't understand.

More posts to follow shortly to catch up over the past month and a half!

Coke Marketing Strategy

Being that Matt is from the home of coke (Atlanta) and I'm, well, addicted to it, we took a particular interest in Coke's new marketing campaign. Coke cans have recently been labelled with people's names. It makes it fun when you find your name (no Lydia cans so far), find obscure friend's names (I was excited to be my childhood neighbor Brendan for the day), or realise you are far from home (heavy Asian name influence).

Coke must have realized that the *my name, my Coke* campaign was slightly selfish. Recently, "Share a drink with your ______ " cans have started sprouting up. To the chagrin of my work colleagues, I got really excited and touristy when this popped out of our vending machine:

In addition to the fact that Australian Cokes are made with pure sugar (corn syrup in the US), this is just one more thing to love.

Also - I'm writing this post from a Blogger app on my phone! Hopefully my new smartphone (more on that to come!) will help increase my *ahem* slightly lacking frequency of posts.

5 Minutes or Less: Weezer in the Land o' Oz

JOY!  It would seem that Weezer (irrefutably the best band of all time) does occasionally make the hop down to Australia to perform, at least they did in 1996 after the release of Pinkerton. Below is a notably awkward interview with a half-awake and jet-lagged Rivers Cuomo:



No word yet, as the Weez is focusing its efforts on the upcoming Weezer Cruise, which I would most definitely book were I still living in the States. For now, I'll have to settle with simply listening to them on my iPod, which I am much obliged to do.

5 minutes or less: More Australianisms

Today was the first time I head somebody use Oi in day to day life (vs in drinking games or at a sports game). When a girl saw her friends on a tram she said, "Oi!" and when she couldn't get their attention, she repeated it (as in "Oi, Oi, Oi!"). I got a huge grin on my face, as I felt very much in Australia. So, below is a "5 minute or less" post on more "Australianisms."

If you are in a store looking for shoes, sales people will often ask "Are you right with sizes?" The appropriate response to this is not "I'm sorry, what ???" but rather, "I'm still looking around," or "I need this shoe in a size 8."

To end a sentence you use a "full stop" not a "period". Saying period repeatedly when dictating a paragraph at work will bring giggles and odd stares. I guess the typical use of saying the word period to make a point doesn't really work here either, as in "You are not allowed to go to that party! Period Full Stop."

Continuing the punctuation mark differences, ( ) are called brackets not parentheses. I still can't figure out what Australians call what the US refers to as brackets [ ], much less braces {}. Apparently they are all just different types of brackets.

The owner of the pizza shop below our apartment always says "Good on ya!" It think it is generally used here to mean "Way to go!" but he just says it a lot in place of "good luck!" or "sounds good guys!".

Besides often replacing Z with S, which we mentioned in an earlier blog post, the letter Z is pronounced "Zed"  instead of "Zee." This makes the common phrase "X, Y, and Z" sound pretty goofy.

Jelly here is called Jam. In Australia, Jelly actually means what the US calls Jell-O. Hence, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are not a thing in Oz. Interestingly, peanut butter and jam sandwiches are also not a common thing, as either a phrase or a common sandwich. When I bring my beloved PB&Js in for my lunch, my co-workers consistently smile and shake their heads at me saying "Sometimes, you are so American...."

How quickly weather can change in Melbourne

I thought I would take some pictures of views from my office on a pretty day and share them with you. You all would both get to see Melbourne, and see what my office is like!

But then the clouds started to roll in.....

And this became a post about how quickly weather can change in Melbourne!

Thunderstorm video below:

5 Minutes or Less: Times are A-Changin

This weekend marked two important events here in Australia:

Lydia and I attended our friend's Grand Final barbeque, where we were treated to shredded beef and pulled pork sandwiches (cooked on a computerized barbeque grill to optimal temperature), cole slaw, and variety of deserts.  Lydia, being the bogan she is, chose to barrack for the Collingwood Magpies (last year's winner, after a controversial tie with St. Kilda), whereas I chose to barrack for the underdogs, the Geelong Cats.  Geelong had a come-from-behind victory over Collingwood to win 18.11 (119) to 12.9 (81). 

Highlights of the game included a pre-game show featuring Meatloaf, Geelong scoring the first goal within 15 seconds, and five minutes of continual replay of a player dislocating his shoulder and being (unsuccessfully) treated on the field.  Amittedly, the shoulder injury was not quite as unbearable as Willis McGahee's knee injury in 2003.

Also, on Sunday evening, our clocks sprung forward an hour, placing us now 15 hours ahead of our home time zones, that is until November 6th when the States "fall back," putting us 16 hours ahead of EST:

	October 2 - November 6	November 6 - March 11
EDT	EST (Interim)	EST (No DST)
12:00 AM	9:00 AM	8:00 AM
1:00 AM	10:00 AM	9:00 AM
2:00 AM	11:00 AM	10:00 AM
3:00 AM	12:00 PM	11:00 AM
4:00 AM	1:00 PM	12:00 PM
5:00 AM	2:00 PM	1:00 PM
6:00 AM	3:00 PM	2:00 PM
7:00 AM	4:00 PM	3:00 PM
8:00 AM	5:00 PM	4:00 PM
9:00 AM	6:00 PM	5:00 PM
10:00 AM	7:00 PM	6:00 PM
11:00 AM	8:00 PM	7:00 PM
12:00 PM	9:00 PM	8:00 PM
1:00 PM	10:00 PM	9:00 PM
2:00 PM	11:00 PM	10:00 PM
3:00 PM	12:00 AM	11:00 PM
4:00 PM	1:00 AM	12:00 AM
5:00 PM	2:00 AM	1:00 AM
6:00 PM	3:00 AM	2:00 AM
7:00 PM	4:00 AM	3:00 AM
8:00 PM	5:00 AM	4:00 AM
9:00 PM	6:00 AM	5:00 AM
10:00 PM	7:00 AM	6:00 AM
11:00 PM	8:00 AM	7:00 AM

Although we're still adjusting to the time difference, we're enjoying our extra hour of sunlight after work!

5 Minutes or Less: Breaking Into Aussie Music

Since being here, Lydia and I haven't really had an opportunity to be exposed to a lot of Australian music; what little music we do hear is either on buses or when passing restaurants, much of which is mainstream top 40 anyways. At the suggestion of one of our good friends, Gabs, I've started listening to a bit of Eskimo Joe. Out of Western Australia, Eskimo Joe is an "Alternative Rock Band" (whatever that means these days) with considerable notoriety here in Australia. I've just started to poke through some of their albums, here's one of their singles, "Foreign Land," from their 2009 album Inshalla:



That's my favorite so far (I've only just started listening), though I have a good bit more listening to do as they have 5 albums released, starting with the first from 2001.

5 Minutes or Less: Brewing Beer

This subject deserves  much more real estate on this blog than this post has granted, but I haven't posted too much about it up to this point as I fear once I get started, I'll never finish... so for now, we'll keep it confined to "5 Minute or Less" posts.

Thus far our beer adventures have turned up rather disappointing.  While we've only scratched the surface of the Australian Microbrew market, there is no doubt that it includes far less diversity than that of what it is in the States.  While we've discovered a few gems (though nothing on the magnitude of Terrapin Rye), we're still only just beginning our quest; after all, these things take time.  As both a means of furthering our own interest, as well as fulfilling a need not currently met by what we can find in stores, we've started to brew our own beer here in our apartment.  Our first brew is none other than a classic American Pale Ale (from a brew kit- no all-grain brewing yet...).  In our corner stands a 30L fermenter currently filled with 23L of fermenting golden deliciousness:

As part of the home-brewing process, we've had to start collecting empty crown-top beer bottles in which we will bottle our final product on Tuesday to bottle-condition and ferment.  We've enlisted the help of the Internet Cafe pizza bar downstairs, who have graciously provided us with their otherwise discarded empties- in return we've foolishly promised a bottle or two of the final brew, but failed to consider the potential that the beer turns out in a state that isn't consumable... only time will tell.

We'll keep our loyal readers posted as to how the Seppo Ale turns out!

5 Minutes or less: Likes and Dislikes

Note: I started this list a few weeks ago but never actually published it... better late than never, I guess...

A quick and dirty list of likes and dislikes of Melbourne thus far (in no particular order):

Likes:

1. Variety and quality of restaurants.  Italian, Vietnamese, Chinese, Japense, Korean, Indonesian, Greek, Vegan, etc, they're all available and all are authentic (except for maybe Mexican...)
2. Proximity to mountains, ocean, and forests, all accessible via public transportation
3. Public transportation.  We can pretty much get to anywhere we want to go in greater Melbourne via tram, metro, or bus
4. The people.  Aussies are in general incredibly easy going and friendly, not to mention non-Aussies
5. The weather.  The day can start grey, wet, and gross and end sunny, warm, and bright
6. Melbourne is distinctly Australian, and as Americans we're "special" (in both senses of the word).
7. Aussie Rules Football.  Still figuring out the rules, but its definitely entertaining and everyone has an opinion about which team to barrack for.  In general, Collingwood fans are bogans.
8. City planning.  Upon first arriving in Melbourne, it is quite obvious that a lot of thought was put into the planning of Melbourne.  The streets are in a grid pattern, the trams run down every other major street, and the CBD is quite manageable and walkable
9. Regional pride.  Similar as in the US, but perhaps more widespread, Aussies are very proud of their respective cities and have little reservation in asserting that their city is the best
10. Animals.  Aussie animals include some of the most exotic and interesting animals on the planet.  We don't have an opportunity to see a ton of animals given that we're in cooler Melbourne, and we're in the city, but when we do see them, they're pretty awesome.  Although many locals consider them a nuisance, the possums are ADORABLE

Dislikes:

1. Absence of abundant and good mexican food.  Trippy Taco is the best so far, which is nice since its a 5 minute walk from our apartment up in Collingwood.  Other than that, Taco Bill can satiate an appetite if in dire need...
2. Public transporation.  While the public transportation is amazing, it is nonetheless public transportation.  Waiting for a bus/tram/train sucks, compounded with the fact that there exists no easy way to determine where tram routes go, and the routes aren't outlined on Google Maps like in NYC or London, getting around can prove difficult
3. The weather.  As mentioned above under "Likes," although the weather can start out cold, wet, and ugly and transition to warm, sunny, and pretty, the inverse is true as well... We'll see as summer approaches, but leaving the apartment this time of year without rain protection and a spare layer of warmth is a risky endeavor
4. The cost of EVERYTHING.  Nothing is comparatively cheap here... well except for wine.  Some standard price indicies:
1. Half-gallon of milk: $4.50
2. 24-case of mediocre beer: $45
3. Can of Coke: $2.00
5. Notable lack of robust and diverse microbrews (nitpicky I know, but I'd kill for a Terrapin Rye right now...)
6. Time difference between Melbourne and the States.  It's just part of moving so geographically distant from your home town, but it has proven a bit of nuiscance in a number of key areas; calling friends and family, watching sports, and catching up on news.  Lydia and I agree that the time difference is more significant of a factor than the geographical distance.

That's the quick list, I'm sure I'm omitting many others from both categories, but I've hit my "5 minute" mark.  In an effort to post more on the blog, I'm going to try to include more "5 Minute or less" posts