1 year later

Wow how things change in a year. First off, living in Australia at times seems like yesterday and other times seems like it never happened. In case, anyone reading this hasn't heard I slipped one past the goalie (Nikki is preggers). We are pretty excited, moving to Australia was part of the plan of our one last hurrah before kids. However, I had no idea I was shooting like a sniper and Nikki Marie is as fertile as they come... one shot and done! I'd like to claim all the credit but Ashworth girls look at a dude funny and they are popping out a kid. As for the pregnancy, she has been fantastic. One more reason I am such a lucky dude. Most guys complain about their wives being obnoxious while pregnant. If it wasn't for her big ol' belly I might forget.
As for the transition back to the world. It's amazing how you can slip into the same old lifestyle. I got my same old job back and eat lunch with the same folks, most importantly Shane Nixon because he is awesome, so it really feels like I never left. The only add-on is having to teach metals which entails maintaining two shops and a computer lab... but on the worst 16 hour day of teaching at Fife is better than 5 minutes with those evil little bastards at Adass. We've only had some proper curry a few times and we have returned to cupboards full of food even though we committed to maintaining fresh food in the house. Turns out it really isn't as fun to shop for dinner every night when you don't have the Queen Vic market down the street and you just worked a 12 hour day.
In other news, we have recently bought a house. Yeah turns out tripling our apartment sq. footage wasn't quite enough for our excessive American culture. We just NEED more room.
How's about that for a fifteen second update to cover a year of progress?

A month later...

Not sure if anybody checks our blog anymore, but just in case I thought I'd give a quick update on our lives in the US.

We've been back a little over a month (it was exactly a month on Sunday, but who's counting) and are just now starting to get settled in. We stuck around in Billings for a few weeks for my class reunion, Mary's 50th birthday, and my cousin's wedding. Then we drove to Tacoma, stopping in Missoula to see Michael's house (my little brother has a way bigger house than I do and it's in a great spot) and spend a night with Saggy, Rachel, Garrett, and the rest of the Cleveland clan. When we got to Tacoma, we drove straight to our house, but then decided to visit the neighbors before even going in. Usually I'm against the drop-in thing, but I figure'd they wouldn't mind and I was right (we really couldn't ask for better neighbors). They were just throwing some food on the grill, so they invited us to stay for dinner. We had a great meal, played with the kids a bit (boy are they cute and getting big), and then went to Cara and Nick's. We spent three nights with Cara and Nick, which was great. It gave us a chance to take care of stuff during the day, and then return to an established house for the evening. Plus, we got to catch up with our best friends!

Anyway, Mark was chomping at the bit to stay at our house, sit on our couch, and sleep in our bed (who can blame him after a month with everybody else's stuff), so we spent Friday night at our house before heading out of town Saturday morning. It was a bit hectic leaving so soon after arriving, but it was well worth it. We met up with Saggy, Rachel, and Garrett in Spokane, walked through Riverfront Park, and then checked into a hotel for an evening of food, wine, and good company. Sunday morning I rode to Missoula with the Clevelands, while Mark backtracked to Yakima for a conference. My dad, Renee, Michael, Matthew, and his girlfriend, Brooke, picked me up at Saggy and Rachel's and then we drove to Columbia Falls to spend the week at the timeshare in Meadow Lake (Mark drove up after his conference). After a week of golf (and a fair bit of relaxing), Mark and I drove back to Tacoma to finish what we had started.

We've been back four nights and are finally starting to feel at home again. We've unpacked most of our boxes (at least the one's that are going to get unpacked), made most of our big purchases (I hope so anyways), hung quite a few pictures, and hooked up cable and the internet. Our goal is to be pretty much settled in by the end of the week so that we can spend next week getting ready for school. At this point I'm still teaching 8th grade math at Lakeridge Middle School, though I do have an interview at the high school tomorrow morning for a math position. Although it's tough not knowing for sure where I'll be and what I'll be teaching, I guess it's kind of the nature of our lives right now :)

PS- To say a little about our experience in Australia, well right now it seems like it was so long ago or even a dream, which is pretty sad. However, there are moments when I'm reminded that we just spent a year there. For example, we've unpacked all sorts of things that now seem oversized or unnecessary (most of which we either repacked or set aside to be taken to Goodwill). We also did our first major grocery trip and didn't even come close to filling the cart (remember we didn't have any food, spices, or things like sandwich bags and saran wrap). Needless to say we still don't have a lot of those things and we need to go grocery shopping again tonight if we want to eat dinner. I also stopped by the produce stand that I used to go to from time to time and, well, it's not nearly as good as I remember (after a year of the Queen Vic market though, my standards are pretty high).

From there to here...

As my dad pointed out, we didn't update our blog or leave any closing remarks before we left, so for those of you who want closure, here it is. We spent the last few days in town cleaning, packing, selling off the remainder of our stuff (most of it to a grateful American just beginning her year and a half adventure in Oz- who knows how grateful she is now after realizing all of the crap we unloaded on her- good news is we did tour her around a bit before we left), and visiting our favorite spots for the last time. The whole experience was pretty surreal and hard to put into words. I took a lot of pictures of everything, which I think was my way of trying to hold on to things. Mark, on the other hand, accepted and even embraced the idea of moving on, though I don't think it really hit him until we set our keys on the counter and closed the door of our apartment for the last time. We flew out at 6 am, so we decided to just spend the night at the airport rather than try to catch the bus from our apartment at 3 am or pay 120 AUD for a hotel room nearby. We left our apartment around 9-10 pm Wednesday night, dropped off our rental van, arrived at the airport around 11 pm, stacked our luggage on one of those push carts (all 110 kilos/220 lbs of it), and then passed the time reading, playing games, showering, etc. At 3:30 am we wheeled our luggage to the ticket counter and prayed that we wouldn't have to pay an arm and leg to get it home. Fortunately because of when we booked our tickets, we had a greater baggage allowance. Luckily, we pushed the limits of that allowance without going over! After a brief sleep, we boarded our plane and headed to Brisbane. We had a short layover in Brisbane and then took off to LA. When we got to LA we found a place for breakfast/lunch, which anybody who has spent any time in LAX knows is quite a task, and then I took a nap until we left for Seattle. I have no idea what Mark did while I napped because I was pretty much dead to the world for a couple of hours. I do know at one point he grabbed his passport and boarding pass from the Qantas pouch hanging around my neck and I didn't even budge. From LA we flew to Seattle where our friend Karl picked us up and took us back to his place for dinner. I can't even begin to explain how nice it was to leave the airport and step outside in the fresh air. Then it was back to the airport for our final leg to Billings. We arrived in Billings at 11:30 pm, after what we calculated to be 43 hours of travel- needless to say we were exhausted!!! Fortunately we had a really good night of sleep in a comfortable bed on Friday, but even that wasn't enough to make up for all of the sleep we lost. I have to admit that I was pretty stupid on Friday- those who know me well know that I don't function well on little sleep. It started in the morning when I basically tore apart all of our luggage looking for some of my toiletries that I later remembered throwing away in Melbourne. Then I really struggled reading the menu at lunch, it was just a bunch of words and none of it was making sense (though in my defense, the Staggering Ox menu really is a bunch of words that probably don't make much sense). A little while later I nearly left my favorite water bottle at City Brew (an afternoon caffeine boost was necessary if I was to make it through the day) and then even accused the guy behind the counter of hiding it from me only to find it hanging from my finger. I could go on and on, but I think I've succeeded in getting my point across. The good news is that I got a little more sleep last night and was feeling much better (and smarter) today. The bad news is that my mind was clear enough to start thinking about all of the stuff that we have to do in the next few weeks to resettle into our US lives- a bit overwhelming, but sure to be yet another adventure!

A litle more detail

Nichole is a bare facts kind of gal. I, on the other hand like to go on and on. This is why her posts are a paragraph and mine blather on and on. I am a bit bored so I thought I'd elaborate on her last post. As she said we are trying to take care of the last few things we want to see in Melbourne. She is digging it. We go for walks and you can see in her eyes that she is really going to miss it. Me, I figure this is the same path I walk to the grocery store 3 times a week for the last year. Yeah, I'm gonna miss the place, but sauntering down the sidewalk isn't what does it for me, I need a destination. The good news is, we balance each other well and no one totally wins. So, we have been pretty touristy in our town. Like Nikki mentioned before we stopped in to a Aboriginal culture center, followed by the immigration museum. Both were interesting. The immigration museum was like a scaled down version of Ellis Island. They had very cool displays on how people got to Australia just a short time ago. As much as an 18 hour plane ride sucks, it sure beats a boat that sailed along the coast of Antarctica where 1/3 of the people died, or a steamship that took months and went through the Mediterranean, Middle East, and Southeast Asia... well actually that would've been a cool trip.
As for the Dali exhibit, like Nikki said, this was some cool art and a weird dude. I learned more than I ever thought I would want to know about Salvador Dali. On Friday night we went to Circus Oz. This was distinctly Aussie. After the show they invite you to hang out after be proclaiming: "see yuh fo' a be-ah!" Speaking of the glorious amber concoction we did the tour of Carlton Brewery where we learned VB is Australian for beer... not Fosters. Actually we already knew that but it was a clever way of saying it in the blog. We also learned that Foster's was actually created by a couple American brothers, it was huge in Australia until about the '70's and now VB (Victoria Bitter) is the suds of choice.
As for the home life, the apartment is pretty bare. We sold all seating within the first day of posting it (a week ago) and now sit on the floor. For Nikki, this is good reason to get out and about and for me it was a good reason to move the TV into the bedroom. As for the packing... suspense builds as we find out whether all of our crap will fit into 4 suitcases.

Wow, only a week to go...

The countdown has officially begun- we have exactly one week left in Melbourne. It's strange that even though we're sitting in a relatively empty apartment and saying goodbye to quite a few of our friends, it hasn't really sunk in that we're leaving for good. Maybe it's because we've left Melbourne so many times throughout the year that I feel like we're just leaving for another holiday. The reality of it is very different though and we've tried to acknowledge that by taking advantage of the many things that Melbourne has to offer. In the last week we've done a fair bit of walking around the city, made quite a few trips to the Queen Vic Market, eaten out a couple of times, visited an Aboriginal culture center, gone to the Immigration Museum, checked out the special Dali exhibit at the National Gallery of Art (amazing art, pretty weird guy though), experienced Circus Oz (probably not recommended for young children), and toured the Carlton Brewery. In between all that, we've been packing and cleaning. Plus, I attended the Australasian Association of Philosophy annual conference for a day and have been trying to rework my thesis into a publishable article. That's all for now, we'll try for a more interesting post later :)

It's all good

I have loved just about every minute of this year. All those other than the ones spent on that couch, and maybe the hour and a half a week spent at the evil place that need not be mentioned. I have made some friends that I know I will be friends with for the rest of my life. This week has been particularly reminiscent of the great times spent in Melbourne.
First off, we spent Tuesday evening touring the lane way bars of the Melbourne CBD (downtown). Amazing how much you walk by every day and don't even notice when you live in a city of 4 million.
On Thursday evening we hit the wine tasting down at Fed Square. Fantastic to have my carefree, wild, good timing chick back (I know that isn't the typical image most people have of her, but you ain't seen her at wine tasting!). The last few months for her were hectic to say the least. You could almost see the physical weight lifted off her shoulders when she pressed send to turn in her last paper, and it was just in time for our wine tasting. And she came out in full colors.
On Friday afternoon, I went down to the evil place to meet up with my old co-workers from the Jewish school. As much as most of those students were horrible little creatures, the staff were amazing. I don't regret working there even for a minute. The people I met there were among the finest I have ever met on the planet. There was John Wright, my Aussie version of my hero Uncle Hoz. A super cool old Aussie bloke that is phenomenal teacher and a better athlete than most people my age. Then there is Robert Field, a cantankerous Kiwi Jew that will speak exactly what is on his mind. He reminded me of Les Bennett from Fife. He has an absolute heart of gold that seemed pissed off a lot of the time. He is a big reason why I didn't develop a poor opinion of Jews. Speaking of, Ben Oliver was also the biggest stop gap from developing antisemitism. Another Jew that I worked with that was just an absolute sweetheart. Everyone that knows Ben loves him. He is very unassuming and gracious that can hold a great conversation. You can sit down with Ben an chit-chat for hours and feel like you've been best mates with him your whole life. Then there is Vince Curatore, the principal that runs the show. What a job he holds! He is essentially the liaison between the whack-jobs and the secular teachers and he amazingly holds the peace very well. But probably the closest friend I have made in this country is my mate Stuey. When I met him, he didn't really like Americans. He thought we were loud, obnoxious, insular a-holes. Which amazingly enough I changed this opinion. I have met a handful of people in my life (outside of family) that I know would do anything for me. Saggy, Nick, Cap'n Zito, Karl are a few that I would count as near brothers. I didn't figure in 1 year I would develop another here. But it kills me to think I won't be hitting the footy with this silly little Brit. Or drinking beers and watching the fire and listening to Brian play the guitar in his backyard. But the joy of the internet is that staying connected is not a difficult task in today's world. And Stuey has already decided he is willing to invest some money in the American economy to come see Montana.

Last night for the fourth we went to an American diner and had dinner with our American expat club. Just a few more people we'll miss. As much as we wanted to avoid making American friends over here (we didn't move to the other side of the planet to hang with people from around the corner), we just couldn't help hanging out with Marc and Alana and Angie and Kane. Their wit and sarcasm is just too entertaining to avoid, and Marc is a Kiwi so that helps justify it.
This is the reality of this adventure to me. Nikki said it best in her last post when she said: "We've learned that even though life goes on for our friends back home, it doesn't mean that they aren't in our thoughts and we aren't in theirs". It sucks to be away from friends and family, but I could never trade away the experiences and friends made here. And, along those lines, as much as it sucks to be leaving this place and all the great times had here, I can't wait to see my favorite Chicago Bears fan club; nephews Tyler and Wyatt, and niece Abby. As much as it sucks to not have a fire over at Stuey's, I can't wait to have a poker night with Whalen, McClure, and Shane Hosley, and all the other guys. As much as it sucks to not listen to Robert bitch in the staff room and John spout his words of wisdom in the staff room, I can't wait to discuss obscene topics in the lunchroom with Teresa, Nixon, and Karl. As much as I'll miss going to the footy with Stu, I can't wait to go to the a Seahawks game with Nick. As much as I'll miss fancy pants dinners with Tim and Carol, I can't wait to whoop Nick and Cara and Jeff and Dawn at some silly board game. As much as I'll miss gallivanting to some exotic Aussie locale, I can't wait to spend a school break going to Montana and building something in the shop with my Dad or building or fixing something for my Mom. Such is life, as one chapter closes another opens. If we focus on the the sad part of things we're losing we'd miss the great things unfolding in front of us.
So, to answer the question that is always asked: "what did you like best about Australia?" The easy answer is... the people. The sights were amazing, but people made it a home for us.

Two steps forward, one step back...

When we started getting closer to wrapping up this adventure, I was feeling like we were going to take a step back in life. You know- returning to the same house (minus a bed and some other furniture), same jobs (except I'm now teaching 8th grade math- probably not a lot of bioethics to incorporate into that), basically the same life with a lot less stuff (including money). But now I'm realizing, that despite all that, we have so much more. It's amazing everything we've gained from this experience- including weight :)

*We've learned how to establish ourselves in a foreign country and to live in 400 sq. ft., in the middle of a large city, without a car

*We've made friends with a Brit, a handful of Ozzies (including one of the Kiwi-sort), and even some Americans

*Plus- we've learned that even though life goes on for our friends back home, it doesn't mean that they aren't in our thoughts and we aren't in theirs

*We've learned to appreciate our jobs as teachers

*We've experienced nightlife in the middle of the week (and it wasn't even summertime or spring break)

*We've mastered the skills of both press and instant coffee and have an appreciation for them both

*Plus- I can now confidently explain the difference between a long black, short black, flat white, latte, cappuccino, long machiato, short machiato, mocha, etc.

*We've cooked with fresh, locally grown food from the Queen Vic Market and even created meals that we used to get from a jar, box, or frozen food section

*I'm getting pretty good at telling the difference between merlot, cabernet sauvignon, shiraz and even distinguishing between the regions of South Australia, Victoria, and New South Whales

*Mark has figured out how to limit his downloads (though I'm sure he can't wait to get back to the US so he doesn't have to do this anymore)

*Plus- I've found an Aussie series to follow (that in itself is an accomplishment given the shows on tv here)

*We no longer think that the Australian, New Zealander, and English accent sound the same

I'm sure that there's so much more that I'm forgetting and even more that I won't realize until I get home. The bottom line is that I no longer feel like I'm returning with less than I started with- and that's a good feeling!

Cheers!

Way the heck Out Back!

After spending a few days in the bush, we moved on to the outback. In case you haven’t heard, Aussies consider anything not in the city to be the bush, and then as soon as any hint of civilization fades away and pure desolation appears you have reached the outback. Friday morning we moved from that last piece of normal human existence into the great beyond. Coming from the beautiful big sky of Montana, I know what a beautiful sky is, and the outback is certainly that. Nichole was about to shove the camera up my backside as I told her again and again to take picture of everything. It started on Friday morning when we drove through the last bits of eucalyptus forests and the fog was all around. It felt a bit like Ichabod Crane was about to come riding out of the shadows. Then the sun came out and burnt off the fog and this amazing desert came alive. The colors were absolutely indescribable. We drove on through the day to Broken Hill dodging kangaroos, emus, sheep, and goats along the highway. Who knew the outback was so full of goats and sheep? After skating into Broken Hill as the sun just snuck away, we put our tired eyes to sleep. They worked hard after discerning real roos from busharoos (bushes we thought looked like kangaroos), stumparoos (tree stumps we thought looked like kangaroos), and manglaroos (dead roos along the highway).
Saturday morning we went for a hike in a place called “the Living Desert”. It was so cool! There were kangaroos all over the place. At the top of the hill were some sculptures. In addition to being a gateway to outback, Broken Hill is also supposed to be a real art hub. The sculptures at the top were very cool and the views were mesmerizing. After that stop we went down the road to Silverton. This is where a ridiculous amount of movies have been filmed, including Mad Max 2 and 3 and Razorback. They even had a replica of the Mad Max car out front. This isn’t as big of deal until you see the place and that there is nothing there but a bar and some abandoned buildings. Why they would choose this place is beyond me. Just beyond the town was a lookout that the views of the desert were so flat you could see the curvature of the Earth. It is so empty there, there aren’t even power lines, just desert for as far as you can see.
We then decided to dodge to roos again and roll on down to a place called White Cliffs. This is a town so far out that they just got power in the 90’s. It is so far out in the desert that they live in caves! We actually stayed in a hotel that was underground in a cave. They mine opals here and then use the mines from the opal digging to hole out a house. It was something to see. The town even had a golf course, but there isn’t any grass out there so they play on the dirt. The greens were just fine silt. And, because it is so hot out there, they only play at night with glow in the dark balls. This makes any town in Eastern Montana look like an absolute metropolis.
On Sunday, we drove all the way back to Melbourne. It was a long drive back, but worth every last kilometer. All said and done we put about 3000 kms on the rental car. I’d say we definitely got our money’s worth out of that thing.

http://www.whereis.com/?id=844F728C85165F

The bush on the way to the Outback

There are some crazy things way out here. The first stop on our grand adventure was a castle. We were cruising out in the general direction of the desert and saw a sign for a tourist destination called Kryal Castle. Nikki, Tom, and Tina all wanted to swing in. I did not. Australia isn't exactly a castle kind of place, so I figured a total tourist trap. I didn't count on this wack-job place.
The lobby was the typical tackiness you would figure; some dude in old medieval clothes and some silly throne looking things. From that point is where it got real creepy. First of all, there was no one there but us, and there was a strange music playing in the background, it was straight out of some slasher flick. They had some applicable things like a wax museum dedicated to torture, which I can understand being, you
know, medieval and all but that is where this place went off the deep end. There was a gun collection, and medical supply collection (complete with wax display of a gyno exam). Then we walk on to find some real strange puppet machines that just shook strangely and played bizarre music.

Around the corner from that was a taxidermy display. The final kook was walking up this tower and finding a demented version of sleeping beauty that had its eyes all burned out. This was the strangest place I have ever been in my life. The cheesiness just oozed out of the joint. After laughing ourselves nearly to death we rolled on down the road.
Next stop was Sovereign hill. This was another cheeseball tourist trap, but this one was cool. It is an Aussie version of an old west miner's camp. What made it cool is that they not only had all the old machinery but it was in use. The huge mining equipment was built in the 1800's and they were still cranking away. Some dude was showing how they melted gold down to form the bars and he did a little show about it. there was another guy that made hard candy like the old days, that was also pretty cool. And because this place was actually a mining camp it was realistic.. unlike the crazy castle. A bit overpriced but definitely worth the look.

Confession time...

Okay, so I've got a little secret, that I wasn't going to share out of sheer embarrassment, but now I will because it turns out not to be as bad as I thought. Here goes- I like instant coffee. I can almost hear the gasps from my friends back home. I know, how can somebody who has spent the last 10 years in the coffee capital and who now works at a coffee shop like instant coffee. Well, the truth is, they drink a lot of the stuff around here. Initially, Mark and I scoffed at the idea of drinking instant coffee. But then we started traveling and realized that if you stay in a hotel and want a cuppa (as they would say around here) in the morning, it's gonna be instant because that's all there is. So, we started drinking the stuff and realized that it's not so bad. Then, a few weeks ago we ran out of coffee grounds at home and decided that instead of buying more and making plunger coffee (French press) in the mornings, we'd just- gasp- buy instant coffee. Now I can almost feel noses being turned up- I know it's bad enough that we drink the stuff, but to buy it too- but remember that we're cheap and instant coffee is cheaper than the grounds.

Anyway- just as I'm developing a taste for instant coffee and starting to think that I might even buy the stuff back home (of course I'd have to go to a very remote store and probably dress in costume and then hide it in the back of our kitchen cupboard)- my mom and Tom show up with Tully's coffee grounds. The taste of freshly brewed Tully's coffee that first morning reminded me of what I'm missing out on in drinking instant coffee. I thoroughly enjoyed every last drop of coffee that morning (actually- I think it was too early to be classified as morning- read Mark's posts if you're not sure what I'm talking about) and turned down a flat white at work because I didn't want to ruin the taste in my mouth.

So- the good news is that I haven't lost my taste for good coffee, I've just developed a taste for sub-par coffee. And let me assure all of you, that when you visit us back home, you can still expect freshly roasted, ground, and brewed coffee, not the instant stuff.

PS- I suppose I should also say that Tully's coffee isn't the only thing that I've enjoyed and sleep isn't the only thing that I've missed out on with my mom and Tom here. It's been a ton of fun taking them around the city, though I think they were a little disappointed at first that I didn't know the name and function of every building. It's also been fun hearing about their adventures on their day trips- in fact they're at Phillip Island waiting for the penguins as I write this. Tomorrow we're heading off to the outback- at least I hope so. We're renting a car and have a tentative idea of where we're headed, but nothing is set in stone, so we're just going to go with the flow. Hopefully we'll have some internet access along the way so we can post some updates.

Cheers!