Food Stuffs

In case you’ve ever wondered how much food you can fit in a dorm-sized fridge, it’s this much.

 

Which is to say not much at all.  And don’t kid yourself and start wondering what’s behind that mostly squished loaf of bread.  Nothing is behind it.  The back of the frigging fridge is what’s behind it.  Kind of makes you wonder why they bothered with the light.  It’s not as though I’ll have occasion to go mining the depths of my dorm fridge.  At a maximum depth of about 8 inches, you can rest assured that if it isn’t readily observable after you open the door, you don’t have it.

We may be on the brink of acquiring a full-sized fridge, which would do wonders for my mental health.  Had a bit of a melt-down today when I couldn’t jam a half-bag of frozen peas into the the freezer of our dorm fridge.  A freezer that is approximately the size of a box of kleenex and already houses a couple ice trays and at least three inches of frost.  So guess what we’re having for dinner?  Peas!  You betcha!  Lots and lots of peas.  I suppose that’s one way to plan a menu.  *sigh*

The offending bag of peas.

What Have You Done For Me Lately?

Okay people.  I have to say I’m a little disappointed in you.  I didn’t think it had to be said, but this blog is a two-way street.  I supply you with semi-regular rants and observations concerning my arrival and adjustment to the Land of Oz, and, in return, you keep me up to date on the goings on back in the U.S. of A.  And before you go racking your brains to figure out what sort of interesting fodder you might have to share, permit me to save you the trouble.  You could, for example, mention…oh I don’t know…the fact that there is a Kwik-E Mart in Mountain View! 

(For those of you who do not live in the Bay Area, you are excused…for now.)

http://www.7-eleven.com/kem_san.asp 

I had to find out from the Daily Show!  A week-old episode of the Daily Show, mind you.  You guys are really falling down over/out/up there.  I need the info!  Look sharp!  Step lively! (Lively….Livelier!)  Has no one investigated Krusty-Os or the thirst-quenching allure of a can of Buzz Cola (twice the caffeine! twice the sugar!)?  Well, get out there and start living!  And then report back in detail.

I shudder to think what other cartoon-y commercial promotions you are enjoying without me.

Who Needs Clothes Anyway?

You may have read in one of my earlier posts that we are anxiously awaiting the arrival of the things we shipped from California.  These items were picked up in Redwood City on April 23rd and we were told to expect them to arrive in Sydney this weekend.  HOWEVER, we just now received an email informing us that the new ETA is now August 18th.  Frigging August!  Unbelievable!  The worst part is that we are pretty much powerless to intimidate better performance from these people.  We’ve already paid them their fee, so we really just have to hope they do what they say they would and actually deliver our stuff some day.  It seems like all I do these days is complain, but COME ON!  The movers initially quoted us 4-6 weeks transit time for our things, which I (being the skeptical, untrusting person that I am) assumed meant it would actually take 6-8 weeks.  BUT 4 MONTHS!

And so the saga continues.

Perspective

My sister currently lives in Kashiwazaki, Japan where she teaches English to middle and high school kids.  Yesterday Kashiwazaki was hit by a 6.8 magnitude earthquake.  The good news is that she is fine though a little shaken up and nervous about the situation.  The latest news I have from her is that there is no power, water or gas and many houses and roads have collapsed or been damaged by the quake.  This was to be her last week of school before leaving Japan and heading home to Guam, but it sounds like the school year may be concluded early as the schools are being used as emergency shelters.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/16/world/asia/16cnd-japan.html?ex=1200196800&en=e10005c55179d9b1&ei=5087&excamp=GGGNjapanearthquake

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6900156.stm

Suddenly having to ride the bus in the cold doesn’t seem so bad.  If I can avoid earthquakes, I think I’m doing a-okay.

Where’s an El Grullense When You Need One?

Another foray this evening into what Sydneysiders call “Mexican food.”  Another rip-roaring disappointment.  Don’t get me wrong – there is plenty of good food to be found here, but none of it can fairly be called Mexican.  We tried a little place on Oxford Street out at Bondi Junction called “La Fiesta.”  The decor was appropriately festive and there were pinatas hanging from the ceiling, so we thought we’d give it ago.  The most unsettling feature of this place was the crazy prices.  The completely lackluster “beef burrito” I ordered was priced at an ungodly AU$21/US$18.  WTF?  That’s too much for a good burrito and far too much for a bad burrito.  Nevermind that in my current state of need I’d pay $50 for my standard carne asada super burrito from El Grullense.

Seems like it was not so long ago that I was foolishly taking El Grullense (http://www.elgrullensegrill.com) for granted and wondering aloud at the speed at which its franchises were popping up like mushrooms on every street corner in my former neighborhood of Redwood City, California.  Little did I know that I would soon be craving a carne asada super burrito with no relief in sight.  Shame on me.  Shame!  I wonder if El Grullense would consider opening a franchise in Sydney.  They’ve got to have the Bay Area saturated by now.

The good news is there are at least four El Grullense locations between SFO and the South Bay.  Another month to go and I’ll be eating a carne asada super burrito out of each hand!

Sydney – They say they need the rain but I’m not convinced

The first time I visited Australia and Sydney was about 4 years ago.  It was the end of April (autumn in the Southern hemisphere); the weather was idyllic and I whiled away each afternoon strolling around Circular Quay people watching before going to dinner at some swank and happening venue.  I had fantasies of never leaving, of starting a new life in Sydney and never looking back.  The people were friendly, the city was beautiful and inviting, the food was great – every street was bespeckled with bars, restaurants and cafes chock full of boisterous patrons celebrating their collective zest for life.  It was a city I was sure I could get used to.

And so here we are 4 years later and I’ve somehow managed to find myself living in Sydney.  As those of you less naive than myself have probably guessed, it’s not quite as permanently paradisical as I had imagined.  It was silly of me to think it would be – I know – but that’s still what I had in my mind’s eye when we arrived.  The first major complication is that our timing was just flat wrong.  We moved from California at the beginning of May, thereby guaranteeing as long a winter as can be achieved on the planet, with the obvious exception of actually moving straight down to Antarctica.  This unfortunate scheduling snafu is not helped by the fact that I do not like winter and I do not like the cold.  I can barely eat ice cream.  I am a warm weather person going on like 8 months of winter and I’ve officially lost my sense of humor.  Also, it’s been raining to beat the band.  Sydneysiders keep telling us they really need the rain because they’ve had droughts and water rationing for years…all I know is that it’s done nothing but rain since I got here and waiting for the bus in the rain is no fun.

To be fair, some of my angst and frustration stems from the fact that moving in general is pretty awful.  Just moving across the street is hard enough, nevermind moving to another continent.  The movers picked up our stuff in California on April 23rd and we were told we could expect it in Sydney in 4 to 6 weeks.  Well, surprise, surprise, here we are 11 weeks later and we still don’t have our stuff and the movers are strangely nonresponsive.  Excellent.  Meanwhile I’ve been wearing the same two suitcases worth of clothing for the past two months while temperatures have fallen from 80 to 40 degrees.  So lately while I’m standing in the cold rain waiting for the bus, I like to dream about all the coats and other water-repellent clothing I own that I cannot wear because they are all in the middle of the ocean somewhere.  (Assuming, of course, that they have actually departed the US – we’ve had no confirmation of that fact.) 

All I can say is that when spring finally arrives, there had better be a rainbow in the sky everyday, flowers had better burst from the earth like geysers overnight and strangers had better profer unsolicited compliments on the street or the wheels are going to really fall off this bus.

I am counting the days until we go back to California in August.  I am going to spend the first two days just thawing out (and the next two days eating Mexican food).

James Brown Is the Boss of Me

For those of you not keeping score at home, James Brown is our dog.  He is a chocolate Labrador.  We brought him with us from California to Sydney, which involved a long flight in a kennel and 45 days in quarantine – an unfortunate episode for all of us and one which we’d all just sooner forget.

Anyhoo, now that he has been sprung from quarantine and has returned to his regular self (after a regretable bout of kennel cough), he thinks he’s the boss of me.  Maybe it’s his way of ensuring there is retribution for the whole quarantine thing, but – as I keep telling him – that was not my idea.  I would have been more than happy to let him sleep in the aisle on the flight over and bring in whatever strain of hoof-and-mouth disease he might be harboring, but, for some inexplicable reason, the Australian Quarantine Service elected not to leave that decision in my hands.

Since I don’t currently have a job (another post for another time), James and I spend much of our days together, by which I mean that he has ample opportunity to mount his ever increasing campaign of bullying against me and my weak defenses.  I’ve started taking him on morning walks down to the dog park by our house where he gets to smell a bunch of other dogs’ crotches and we have a nice game of fetch with a tennis ball before returning home where he spends the next two hours panting and slobbering on himself.  It’s got to be like Christmas for him. 

So it’s been a couple of weeks since we started with the morning walk ritual and now James clearly thinks that he is entitled to a morning walk and he’s not taking “no” for an answer.  A couple mornings ago it was rainy and windy and more awful than usual outside, so I had another cup of coffee and wrote some emails and waited for the weather to clear up so we could go outside.  Well, someone wasn’t satisfied to wait for the weather to subside.  Someone wanted to go for his morning walk immediately – weather be damned – and he communicated this by picking up his tennis ball and dropping it at my feet…repeatedly, which precipitated the following “conversation.”

[Drops tennis ball]

“Yes, I know you want to go outside.  I would like to go outside too, but have you looked out there?  It is not a fit day out for man nor beast, so just take it easy and we’ll go out in a bit.”

[Picks up tennis ball.  Drops tennis ball.  Hops around. Picks up tennis ball.]

“Yeah, I get it.  It’s time for a walk and some fetch.  I understand what you’re saying, but it is raining unusually hard outside, so I’d prefer to wait and since I’m the one with the opposable thumbs and a mastery of opening and closing doors, I’m making the rules.”

[Drops tennis ball.]

“Now you’re just being bossy…and mean.  You’re just being mean.  It’s not my fault it’s raining outside.  Do you think I’m happy it’s raining outside?!?!  You think I wouldn’t enjoy some sunshine?!?!  Is that what you think?!?!  Because you don’t know what you’re talking about mister!

[Picks up tennis ball.  Leaves the room.]

“Well, that’s nice!  THAT’S JUST GREAT!  Go ahead ignore me!  See if I care!  I’ll tell you who’s not using her thumbs to open the door and take you to the park later!“

And by then it had stopped raining, so we went to the park and played a little fetch, but that talk with James really got me thinking.  I need to get a hobby or some friends or something.  It’s just that he’s so bossy sometimes!  Sheesh!

Chicken Chips

There are a lot of “chicken” flavored things here.  For example, chips  and biscuits (read “crackers”).  From what I can discern, it closely approximates licking a cube of chicken bouillon.  Yum!  I recommend avoiding the chicken chips.  But that’s just me.

Fruit on the Go! Get Some!

Here is the first of several food observations/reviews.  Fruit on the Go is my current favorite Australian snack food.  Remember that red box of Sunmaid raisins your Mom used to cram into your lunch?  Well this is the grown up version.  It’s as handy as it ever was, but now, in addition to raisins (“sultanas”), you also get dried peaches, dates, and coconut!  Add this to the list of “Things that should have occurred to America” because it’s not like it’s a difficult concept.  Maybe they have this in the US, but I never saw it there.

Incidentally, I haven’t quite figured out the raisin vs. sultana designation.  I have a hunch that golden raisins are called “sultanas” and regular raisins are “raisins,” but they have “Sultana Bran” here and that appears to have regular raisins in it, so I guess I’m really no closer to cracking that riddle.

As ever onward.

Beer at the Movies!

As mentioned elsewhere, I recently moved from Palo Alto, California to Sydney, Australia.  This blog will be primarily dedicated to a chronicle of the ups and downs of my move abroad.  There have been plenty impediments and disappointments, but I thought I’d lead off with a highlight.

Just last night I discovered the “Gold Class” theater at my local cinema at Bondi Junction.  Hands down the best movie-viewing experience of my life!  The move itself (“Knocked Up”) was not so hot, but the theater itself was fantastic!  The movie seating is comprised of pairs of full-on living room recliners anchored around a dining console table that includes its own bottle chiller.  The chairs recline all the way and have foot rests!  That alone would have been enough to sell me, but it gets better.  When you arrive, you check in at the dedicated bar and order whatever food and beverages (read “beer and wine”) you might like to enjoy during the show and instruct the barkeep when you’d like the various items delivered to your seat during the show.  For example, you can have fish and chips and a beer delivered to you at the start of the show, another beer an hour into the movie and dessert and coffee a half hour before the end.  Amazing!  Also, given the availability of alcohol, all patrons must be 18 or older.

This is now officially my happy place.