Someone's turning 30 (part 2)

Well, day 2 had us off to Dunedin, NZ where we got to go on a Cadburry chocolate tour, visit the castle (inset on right) and hang out with the locals. That's me driving Dupree above and I have learned quite easily to drive from the "wrong" side of the vehicle and road. It now appears strange to see a clip of a person driving in the United States. I always feel like they're going head on into somebody...

The chocolate factory pictures were intentionally left off as I went swimming in the chocolate waterfalls and had to be detained by the Oompa-Loompas.... Once we got the chocolate washed off, we headed for Lanarch castle. The castle tour included some story telling and free reign of the rooms and gardens. The rooms were very intricately designed and took 20 years for 50 workers to construct. The views on the way to the castle overlooked the Otago peninsula and the city of Dunedin.

Notice the charming architecture of the city to the left. The city Denedin is Scottish for Edinborough, oddly enough. The settlement is clearly Scottish and much of the architecture has remained unchanged since the 1800's. The city is actually the 5th biggest city in the world by area (50 kms), but most of the area still contains sheep and the most amazing rolling hills, lakes and ocean.

The picture to the right was us heading into town to party with the local Dundenites. I also thought I knew better than my wife and packed my own bag according to the temperatures posted on weather.com.au, rather than listen to her sound advice. What I failed to take into consideration was the Antarctic winds coming from the south......brrrrrr! So while the temperature might have been a comfortable 20 degrees Celsius, the wind chill was about 5 degrees....and this is the middle of summer. Luckily, Olga brought two scarves as she was prepared for my foolishness - I am learning more and more to trust the wife's instincts. The town hosts a university with 35,000 students and the seniors had just graduated. The city centre (Octogon) was packed with party-goers and we shared some drinks with them before calling it a night. We wanted to get back to our home on wheels and get some sleep for the big drive in the morning. Unfortunately, the pictures between 8:00 PM and 12:00 PM were a bit too blurry and in no way reflect the sobriety of the individual(s) taking the pictures.

Someone's turning 30... (part 1)

Olga surprised me with the most amazing birthday present by arranging an 8-day trip to New Zealand for my upcoming 30th birthday. To welcome in the new decade I decided to shed my old job in chartered (public) accounting. The last day at my job here in Brisbane was Thursday, 27 November. We arrived to Christchurch, NZ on Friday, 28 November. We decided that we would name our new home on wheels Dupree ("Dupskies") after the movie You, Me & Dupree.

We set out for Dunedin in our new ride the first night we arrived and stopped to take a picture at Lake Tekapo. We almost made it to Dunedin when we realised it was close to midnight and we better pull over and get some rest. I followed a sign that said 1 kilometer to the beach and parked amidst pure darkness. The stars were so bright and vibrant and the sound of the ocean crashing in was amazing. Unfortunately, we weren't sure what else was around us and I just parked on the grass just meters from the ocean and decided to call it a night. I wish that our camera was good enough to pick up the stars, unfortunately you will have to take my word for it. When we woke up we found the spot we had chosen for our first night of sleep. We still don't know the name of this little town, but the moral of the story is when in doubt about where to settle down for the night, follow the sound of the ocean and drive towards it. We just had to hope that the animals didn't have the same idea we had.

We woke up and cooked up a nice warm breakfast. Now, I am not one to read an entire set of directions and our portable stove was no exception. I gave it the ol' Lundy try and quickly surmised that the stove must be defective as I could clearly smell gas but had no flame. I even read carefully selected instruction steps (steps 1,2,5, and 7....mainly because they had pictures) and decided that I had executed these steps to the best of any camper's ability. Frustrated, I accepted my fate and grabbed a yogurt when I looked up at my smiling wife delicately holding her hands over an open flame. How did she do that? Had she found a revised set of directions? It remains one of life's mysteries, but I always know that my wife can compliment areas that I may be lacking.

Brissy- Day 171 and counting

A lot has happened since the last blog update on 9 June-

The Dow Jones has gone from 12,307 to 8,480

Avg gasonoline price has gone from $4.04 to $1.89 per gallon
Countrywide, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Bros, WAMU and Wachovia all collapsed

The first black president has been named to lead the United States

Oh yeah, and we bought a "new" car

It has the feel of....."when I was a kid we used to pay 1 cent for a stamp and 5 cents to go to the cinema".....except this is less than 6 months!

So what have the crazy kids in Oz been up to? Well, we took a trip to Sydney in September and have posted a smattering of pictures below from that trip. We saw all the usual Sydney sights and even tried sneaking into a matinee of an opera, but security was pretty tight. We learned pretty quick to stay away from King's Cross unless we were looking for a fight, strippers, drugs or a dirt cheap backpackers hostel (ding-ding-ding!!!). The funny thing is that we were denied entrance into several clubs in the same area because we were not appropriately dressed. I'm all for the dress code, but it's amusing to strictly enforce this code while unspeakable acts are being peformed just meters away. On the other hand, perhaps that is the reason to enforce such strict obedience.

The picture below was from my first day of work at Grant Thornton in Brisbane in June. From memory, this had to be one of the very few days it rained between June - November, but as luck would have it, the puddles only added to my nervousness that day. Olga did everything in her power to make sure she sent me off in style including letting me hold the umbrella by myself all the way to the subway station while she did her did her best popporazzi impression. Shortly after, we went and bought a man-size umbrella so I don't have to withstand the local children pointing and laughing at me. Insert on the left, you will see a cool, confident dryer version of me heading off to the daily grind. I've got my I-pod in hand and what appears to be a beverage....I'm going to assume that was an energy drink of some kind, although you never know.

I have included pictures from Noosa Beach below on the Sunshine Coast. Noosa is a 1.5 hour drive from Brisbane and has some of the best most relaxing beaches in Queensland and has a nice feel to it. Lazy Sundays are what this place is all about. It's actually quite popular among the older crowd- the schoolies (teens/early 20's) actually prefer heading down to the Gold Coast (45 mintues away) for some beach action. This leaves a much more peaceful beach to enjoy for us heading towards our 30's (see below). We also decided to hit up a strawberry farm on our way back into Brisbane. We got to go select our own strawberries from an entire field full and it went a little something like this: one for the basket, one for me, one for the basket, two for me, one for me, four for me. By the time we paid for our kilo of strawberries, I didn't even want to look at one.....that is, until the next day when the entire kilo mysteriously disappered.

The video below is from our trip to the Koala sanctuary. While the name is a bit misleading, they actually have kangaroos running wild there as well as other animals in cages like dingoes and wombats. The sanctuary is strictly Australian animals and is so close to home that trips to the zoo are not even necessary. I highly recommend including this place on your itinerary for your next trip to Australia. The koalas are absolutely adorable, although they sleep 20 hours a day...not a bad life.












The picture below is from an Island just off the coast of Brisbane called Stradbroke Island. The place is pretty remote and there were only a handful of people walking around the coastline. The waves were magnificent and so loud as they came crashing to the shore. We were actually perched high up on some rocks overlooking the water, but they did have areas where you could walk down to a beach. Another peaceful place to visit and we'll definitely be back soon.

We are heading to New Zealand for my 30th birthday tomorrow. We are bringing our smiles and a blank camera. Expect to see pictures posted here shortly of one of the most beautiful places on the planet. Hopefully, if things go well, I will be in a bar in Queenstown, NZ screaming the words to Billy Joel's "Piano Man" and putting another Heffeweissen to bed as I say goodbye to my 20's.

Until then,

Cory & Olga

Brisbane- days 4-7

Days 5-7:

Sorry we have taken so much time off from our last entry. We had allotted 21:00-21:30 for you, diary. Unfortunately, we are finding ourselves quite sleepy at 19:30 where we vow to write our daily entry from the comfort of our pillows…….that hasn't worked yet!

Your first question may be…"What happened to day 4?" Well, when you are in a state of perpetual motion like we are- day 4 seems like an eternity ago. We also didn't want to set the precedent that every day would get equal coverage. The only thing I will say about day 4 is that it was the day when we wanted to take a tour of the XXXX (Forex) beer factory (For the curious, the price of admission of $20 for an 1hr 15 min tour includes 4 glasses of beer at the end-can't beat that!). As we were ordering beer at the brewery bar in an attempt to kill 10 minutes till the tour started, we were told apparently you can only drink their beer after the tour and cannot consume any alcohol before the tour in case the factory catches fire and in your drunken state, you decide to shelter yourself from the fire in a vat of beer. This was an actual explanation…… Unfortunately for the brewery we were really thirsty at the time.

Day 5 started out with an early interview for Cory.
Gotta love the question, "What is your greatest weakness?" Should one reach into the answer bag for the excessive drive & ambition? No, too obvious- how about the tendency to work too hard or the lean towards perfectionism? Needless to say- impressions were made, positive or negative, and I guess we will find out when the offers start flying in…. or we log on to research unemployment applications in Australia.

Since Cory was already in a full suit and there happened to be a mortgage auction on the 17th floor of the same building, we felt compelled to try our hand at finding our dream home amongst the rowdy gathering of locals. Hey wait, I guess we are a local! We held docket # 537…..c'mon lucky 537!!! We just need 1,500 sq. ft somewhere in the city- preferably on a river high-rise building with amazing views with modern/contemporary styling and underground parking. We were willing to go as high as….wait let's check both of our pockets…..yep, $1,150. Any higher than that and we'd be pushed right out of the bidding. The first house was just what we were looking for: high ceilings, spacious kitchen- the mention of granite or marble was made on many occasions- perfect! We were ready to get the bidding started at $500, but were trumped by another man in a suit who got the bidding underway with a bid of $1.2 million. Uh-oh- guess we'll have to wait for house #2. The pace was fast and frantic, but we found it funny that the auctioneer would say going once, going twice….and then crack a hilarious joke right before declaring the house sold in an effort to make bidders jump back in and place a bid. It really eased the tension, but seemed unnatural.


I would be remiss if I didn't mention the chicken kebabs- the aforementioned day 4 ended with a failed kebab run, but we would not be shut out twice. As day 5 (Friday) drew into evening, we picked up South Bank kebabs and sat down by the beach to enjoy one of the finest creations this side of the equator. I don't know what we were thinking when we brought the kebabs into a neighboring bar- "We have our own kitchen, mate" the security guard told us. We think they were just jealous that their kitchen didn't make something nearly as fabulous. Kebabs in tummy, we reentered the bar to enjoy an eerily similar version of Jason Castro playing live. Maybe he and Michael Johns are already on tour here in Australia.

Day 6 ushered in the Greek festival in West End. It was like the New Mexico State fair except with Greek food, a nice grassy area, huge video screens, Ouzo…okay it was nothing like the New Mexico State Fair, but it did have a bunch of "fair games". Cory decided to try his hand at the sledgehammer pound game (I think there is a more technical term for this game). The object is to try and pound the ground with a 20 kg hammer and see how much force you can generate. Cory scored a 114 (out of 150 possible) and was the highest of the evening that we witnessed. There were some poor 6'4" 250 pound men registering a mere 82. What did we get for this accomplishment?? A little blue stuffed dinosaur that we decided to call Mr. Popodopolous, in honour of this great festival.

Side note> We actually saw this on a menu here in Brisbne: fajitas (fah-hee-tuhs)- got a chuckle out of the two of us!

Day 7 was a monumental day. We finally received the keys to our new place and moved out of the hostel. If you have ever tried to move all you belongings across town via city bus, then you can appreciate what we went through on run number one of transporting everything we own to our new house. After making our first run, we decided that a taxi would be a better option for the remainder of the stuff and by 11:00 we had relocated permanently. The place is beautiful in the suburb of Toowong- Ma Dawgs joked that it was Toowong a drive for her to be able to come down……I would agree- WAY outside of her familiar quadrant. Walking distance to absolutely everything, including the park and the river. Anyway, we are renting a two bedroom place at which the landlord also resides. She is away in "bush country" so we have the place to ourselves. We will enclose pictures later as the place is currently a mess. We intend to call this home for approximately 3-6 months and we are on a month-to-month lease with NO deposit- what luck! That is impossible to find anywhere near the city centre so we are very fortunate. We have our eyes on some beautiful places to buy, but we don't want to put the cart before the horse- an annual household income of $0 AUD doesn't look to good to the mortgage underwriter. On the flip side- we have calculated the taxes on this income and are very pleased with the figure. I'm not sure if unemployment would be the best tax strategy.

We woke up early on day 8 as Olga had her first big interview in the city. Cory decided to walk her down to the boat stop to catch the 5 minute ferry into town. The position is for an accounting recruitment consultant in a professional firm and would allow her to thrive in what she does best- make contacts and talk with people. Some excerpts from the brochure are:

Interviewing candidates on a general basis and for specific roles
Managing job offer process and negotiating salary packages
And Olga's favorite:
Organizing and attending regular client entertainment events-including sporting events, wine tastings and other entertainment activities.

Basically we'll need to hit up a lot of bars and hotspots to meet these potential clients- Cory has offered his assistance. We're also preparing for the HUGE game tomorrow! It is the State of Origin 1 between Queensland and New South Wales rugby match. It is the equivalent of the Super Bowl in the States, but the matches are a best of 3 played between Sydney and Brisbane that take place between May 21- August 16th. The match is the talk of the town and we will hit up a local pub and cheer when they do and yell at the referees when everyone is not cheering!
Cory looked up rugby rules on Wikipedia and they are starting to make sense.

Well, we gotta run to the gym. Gotta go burn the 603 kilojoules that we just consumed this morning (is that bad?)- dieting is going to be impossible down here.

20 May 2008

Brisbane- days 1-3

Dear diary.....

Wow, what an activity-packed 3 days we have had! We have visited some incredible sights by foot, bus and boat. We are probably averaging 5 miles on foot per day and our poor tootsies are longing for a well-deserved break.

You know how sometimes fate just throws some obstacles in your way just to make sure you find yourself at a coolest bar ever celebrating overcoming those obstacles? Early part of

....DAY 1...
was filled with "holy cow, we are finally here! Somebody pinch me" screams of joy! In the morning we explored the river and a walk to the heart of downtown. The city is absolutely drop dead gorgeous and much more breathtaking than we ever thought, and our expectations were pretty high :) The chain of obstacles started with being turned down for a bank account by a Bank of Queensland because of the ol' recently government passed "no permanent address-no bank account" rule which as we later found out was just a part of the whole "no obstacles-no beer" plan cooked up by fate, but at the time it was enough to get us bummed out. We then tried to purchase a mobile phone to which we were told we needed a job and an address....what is it with these people. I thought that was why we retired....to get away from these jobs. Down on our luck we attempted to make some pay phone calls, but could not figure out how to ring anyone using our new calling card. After a couple of suggestions from the locals we finally made our first call from Brisbane! Yey! We attempted to take a look at a rental, but were unable to get in touch with the landlord because it's hard to leave a return number to call us from the payphones. Oh Geez... By 6 PM, we realized that it was 2 AM body time and it showed. We dragged our pride back to the hostel and were greeted with the greatest party this side of the P-Diddy's VIP Grammy celebration. We laid down our weary heads to the thumping and screaming of the partygoers......and slept like babies!

Our luck turned on....
Day 2- a day that started with wide eyes at 3AM ready to begin the day. We are here to state for the record that jet lag is a real and serious affliction that affects many airbourne travelers. We popped out of bed with the enthusiasm of a student on his last day of high school. We took a jog around the river into South Bank and the fresh air was amazing (not to mention the 60 degree weather at 6 AM in the beginning of a supposed winter season). We then set out in search of a phone- to our delight a nice man at Vodaphone was able to give me the sleek black cell phone that Cory's inner child has been longing for. An ancient aboriginal burial ceremony was held for the vintage gold cell phone that was fortunate enough to see Reagan sworn into office. Being true to Cory's self he selected the cheapest model available at the store, but as we all know this is the only kind that will survive the global warming. We then set off on foot to check out some nightly hot spots (only we saw them in the day so we could remember how to get there and back after throwing down a few!) We checked on a gym membership that really made us appreciate the benefits of having Ma Dawgs as a tenured member of Defined Fitness. A total of $150/month for the two of us to lift a bunch of weights, throw out our backs and run ourselves into exhaustion....all in the name of fitness I suppose. We then saw a sign for Commonwealth Bank and decided to see if the government imposed permanent address rule was still in effect. To our surprise the requirement was miraculously lifted sometime between May 12th @ 3:00 PM and May 13th @ 2:00 PM.....what luck! We opened an account and dumped all the U.S. dollars that we had inconspicuously been carrying around with us for the last 36 hours. What a relief....let me tell you diary, when you are carrying around that kind of cash everyone looks like a criminal in the making.....even that seemingly innocent toddler on the plane whose cries were just to divert our attention from the cash envelopes. So, with our pockets empty and our money safe in a non-FDIC insured bank, we decided to do some more exploring. We hopped on a city river cat (boat) and toured the river and exited at Southbank for some celebration with our hearts light and pockets empty (thank God!!!). An interview was landed at noon on day 3 so Cory decided to prepare and study up on Australian business law and taxation. Again, we decided to call it a night at 8:00, while the party raged a mere 10 meters from our window.

Even more good luck was had on....
Day 3-what a crazy day- we start out every day by sending out e-mails in hopes that we can go out on the town in the morning and come back and have some replies (this applies to job enquiries (yes I spelled that correctly in Australian) and rental enquiries). Well, now we have a mobile phone # to leave and this particular morning Cory recieved a call from a recruiter who wanted to squeeze in another interview on day 3. Well, might as well knock out 2 interviews with one suit......oh, what I forgot to mention, diary, was that while Cory was cramming for these interviews his amazingly talented and beautiful wife was down ironing his clothes while frateranizing with the turkeys. We have a family of brush turkeys hanging out by the hostel. Anyway, picture this- a man full suit/tie sprinting through downtown Brisbane trying to make a good first impression by arriving to the interview on time. Sweating like a pig, the interviewers must have thought Cory was pretty nervous, but on the inside.....cool as a cucumber. After that interview, a mad dash was made to interview # 2 where Cory dazzled them with interview tricks learned a mere 3 hours earlier. As Cory was sprinting from one interview to the next, his beautiful wife, currently in the posession of the phone was receiving calls from people wanting to discuss job opportunities with Cory-that can't be a bad sign :) That out of the way, the couple headed out to the house they knew they would call home for the next 3-6 months. It was a beautiful 6 bedroom mansion on the river and it would be just right. As we arrived, we were greeted by Lindy Chen and the rest of her sweatshop brothers and sisters. Was this really the house we saw online? There were partitions to separate corners of rooms to turn them into income-producing pockets of space in the house. We would have times posted to clean the toilets and knit her some Chinese scarves and shawls that Lindy would, in turn, sell online and retain the profits. She was all too eager to induct us into her cult and the looks of the faces of the other roommates told us all we needed to know....."GET OUT WHILE YOU STILL CAN!" We hopped on the nearest bus and arrived back to our hostel a little shaken from the experience. We didn't let it slow us down though. After a quick 5 minute nap we headed out to see our 3rd house of the day. We met a couple who let us into a quaint little place in Toowong. It is a beautiful and one of the most highly sought-after suburb only 4 km from downtown (CBD). The owner is a psychologist who is on a mission in Alice Springs (as outback as it gets) to help children who are suffering from alchoholism. Bottom line is that she will only be home 10 days a year and the place will pretty much be ours while we save up money. It was amazing and we knew that our rental search was drawing to a close. We dined with the fine couple who showed us the place (friends of the landlord) and we were so fortunate to have them show us around a little part of the city. They drove us up to Mt. Coot-tha, which is an amazing lookout of the entire city....wow, we took some pictures, but none that do the view ANY justice. Those pictures are sold separately and you must be present to win....he, he! Well, diary, we are now on day 4 and we'll see how that goes- I hope it holds many more exciting things in store. STAY TUNED!

-15 May 2008

We're off to see the wizard... the wonderful wizard of "Oz"

Olga and I are off to the airport- heading for Auckland and then on to Brissy. One last meal with both sets of parents at Gardunos and then off to the friendly skies. We have been packing and scubbing, swiffering and selling and we are finally about to realize (whoops- I mean realise) the dream we had in Nov 2006- to see what life south of the equator has in store for us! We think there's more to it than kangaroos, shrimp on the barbie and Fosters.

Still waiting...

As I sit here, just hours before my wife's big wisdom tooth extraction, I have to scratch my head about a recent event-

The Senate just passed a bill to send every American $600 and add $1.4 billion to the national debt. This took just how long from start to sign-on-the-dotted line you ask: a mere 2 weeks. Meanwhile, on a continent far away, a poor visa application is still being poked, prodded, and given multiple sobriety tests.

Approximately 412 days and 9 hours after this dream was set in motion- we sit on the edges of our seats in great anticipation wondering what complication could possibly pop up next. Perhaps, our case officer just delivered triplets.....or maybe that C- I got in 7th grade art is coming back to bite me in the ass! I knew I should never have tackled that Picasso for my final project. We have successfully completed 21 interim steps- funny because the application could lead one to believe that only 5 steps exist.

Word on the street is that a decision will be handed down within the next 4-7 days. A drop in the bucket compared to the wait we have endured. No matter what the cause for the delays, what a joyous day it will be when we are invited into the great country of Oz! So we sit here, positive, hopeful and .....still waiting!