Trivia

Last week Will and I decided to reinstate a long-held Stone tradition and visit pub Trivia Night. We used to participate in a trivia game at least once a week or so, but hadn’t had the opportunity yet here.

Now, let it be said that I am no great prize when it comes to trivia, choosing instead to sit quietly by and pretend that I am the humble yet mastermind force behind Will’s genius. (Sooooooo not true, in case you were wondering.) Will is truly the one-man-strong cavalry of the Stone clan when it comes to the game of trivia, as he is finally able to utilize his under-appreciated gift of remembering lots of useless crap in a newly popularized pastime that has been deemed not only socially acceptable, but also rewarding for those who have no other outlet for this store of unnecessary knowledge. My primary contribution, on the other hand, usually comes in the form of remembering that someone had said something about something once upon a time, and while never exactly sure where it might lead, occasionally my aimless mental meanderings manage to jog at least one [smarter] person's memory and land us a point. All in all, however, while we were by no means undisputed champions, we Stones did okay for ourselves on the trivia front.

Until last week.

Over the last seven months we have driven on the left side of the road, had winter in July, grilled kangaroo, and eaten Lamingtons and Tim Tams for dessert, but leave it to Trivia Night to make it hit home that we are really in Australia. Who knew trivia could possibly be so different from one country to the other? Gone are the days when questions about national parks, American football players/teams, and David Hasselhoff were not only expected, but a given. Wake up, America: Australian trivia is playing by a whole new set of rules.

Sink-or-swim contests: will the Indian curried potato dumplings float in a jug of water or sink to the bottom?. Skulling (aka chugging) contests: will the poor smuck who volunteered to chug the Indian curried potato dumplings with his pants around his ankles be able to keep them down or not? Bogan Bonanza: a Price-is-Right-like competition in which you have to guess the price of a junker based on its actual classified ad. I said $500. Others said $3500. Of course it's $3500, because everything's absurdly expensive in Australia. Karaoke interludes: there's only one possible, painful meaning for that.

All part of Australian trivia.

But wait, there's more!

Not only were Will and I flailing in the unknown seas of trivial despair, left to navigate these unfamiliar, unwelcome additions to the game that we had come to know and love, but when it finally came time for the actual questions, we realized we would suffer no better fate. All sporting questions were hopeless, as they only pertained to footy, cricketers, and famous yacht races (to which we responded, "Who knew there even were famous yacht races?"). Music, a category Will normally excels at, turned out to be no better than sports once we realized that one-hit-wonders that made it big in Australia didn't necessarily find their way across the Pacific. Even the one question actually pertaining to America--a celebrity baby photo of a mini-Obama on a tricycle--turned out to not be recognizable to these particular American expatriates (maybe it's because we haven't been watching the news as much lately???).

Australian Trivia Night was an interesting adventure in a sort of detached, Discovery-Channel-esque, bird-watching way. To the casual observer, Australian culture is very similar to American (I mean, they actually have trivia nights, for one, which is more than I could probably say for Beirut or Bangladesh, among other countries). Only when you get a little deeper, dig a few centimeters below the surface, do you realize that this is a different culture, with different influences and values. Cricketers to the American football stars. British boy bands that never aired a single song on American air waves but hit it big here. Crappy Australian TV shows to, well, crappy American TV shows. But different crappy TV shows. Except for Two and a Half Men, which is the same crappy TV show playing in both countries.

It's important to appreciated these nuances in culture. It's what makes Australia the amazing country that it is, not the UK or the USA's little brother that it sometimes gets the rep for being. But I guess we're also really lucky, because when it comes to adjusting to a new country, it's nice to know that the biggest differences are, well, still rather trivial.

Happy Birthday, Will!

Today/yesterday (depending on the location of your friendly international date-line) was Will's Birthday! Though he and I both had to work, we tried to make the most of it by celebrating over dinner last night at Prime Steakhouse. Besides our taxi debacle (we waited 35 minutes last night for a cab that should have been there in 5, thanks to the dispatcher hearing the street number "9" instead of "49") it was a very pleasant evening with really good food. This weekend we're doing a combo birthday/anniversary celebration and heading to a bed & breakfast in Yarra Glen for a couple of nights. Yarra Glen is another wine region with beautiful scenery, wineries, and nature walks, so we're pretty excited. (Sidenote: my parents just informed us that we had a ticket delivered to them in the US from our time spent driving around when they were in Australia. [The ticket is delivered to the address on the driver's license, so it circuitously made its way to them.] The kicker: we got dealt a $146 ticket for going 107 K in a 100 K zone. 7 KILOMETERS OVER THE SPEED LIMIT. Oh, Australia. But anyway, it's a good thing to keep in mind right when we're about to rent a car again!) I also gave Will IOU tickets (the good kind of tickets, unlike the traffic tickets I was just speaking of) for the Australian Open in January. They don't go on sale until October, so we will be buying some good tickets for that event. Woohoo!

So happy birthday, baby. Thanks for being such a perfect partner, an amazing friend, and the father of our dog. I love you!

Homeward Bound

I did it. I just bought a plane ticket to New York City from October 21 - 29. Twenty-five hours each way. I must be crazy.

Why did I do it? One of my best friends, Carissa Lucyk, is getting married to Taylor Smith and I had to be there for it.

In some ways it was perfect timing moving to Australia when we did--economic crisis, being young and unfettered, and Darcy being young enough to pick up the language fluently (hardee-har-har). But in other ways, the timing was less than ideal. Three of my best friends chose the year 2009 to get married, and I could hardly go back for all of the weddings. It pains me to make choices like these, and pains me even more to miss such big events in their lives, but hopefully making at least one of the three weddings will be like honoring all three of them.

Carissa and I have been friends since freshman year when we lived on the same hall. We first bonded over her having the same name as my sister's, and the same middle name as me (Joy! Best middle name ever!). You have to admit, that's weird. Will and I have had a long history with Carissa and Taylor as a couple, beginning when Carissa and I started dating each of our future partners ON THE SAME DAY. Again, that's weird. Since then (when we started dating ON THE SAME DAY), we hung out a lot as couples, and our relationships have taken similar paths as we moved beyond college and into the real world. This past May, Will and I had the opportunity to visit Taylor in Indonesia, where he was teaching English for the Fulbright program. While Will will not have the vacation days to go back to the US with me, I will be the symbolic reminder of how far they have come since they started dating (ON THE SAME DAY AS ME AND WILL. So weird).

I'm a little bit nervous about going back to the States... and it's not just the fear of 25 hours of travel. (Sidenote: when I got back from Thailand I told myself I wouldn't travel internationally again for at least a year. Goes to show how much I listen to myself.) But it will be strange interrupting my Australian chapter in life with an American intermission. Another reason why Will is staying: I have to have a reason to come back. (And if he went, he might get caught up in football season and never come back, even if I was here waiting for him!) I'll probably post more about my thoughts closer to the date of travel, but I just thought I'd admit that it feels weird.

And at the same time, I can't wait! Oh, and if anyone wants to visit me in NYC, please be welcome. I will not be traveling around the rest of the country at this time (25 hours each way is more than enough travel for me, thank you very much). But I would love to see you Americanites.

Just a few things...

Just a few events that have been keeping us busy lately…

I went to a chocolate festival last weekend with Liz, my American neighbour (who is also my running partner. We motivate and drag each other down on a pretty equitable level. It's all about balance). It was pretty awesome—lots of chocolate and such. Of course, both of the men wimped out at the last minute, opting instead to stay home and do “manly” things (which for Will included cleaning the house and going to the grocery store… very manly). But once I found out that the festival was a little stingy with their chocolate giveaways I was glad we had only paid for one ticket.

Liz and I eating chocolate deliciousness covered with fairy floss
(Australian term for cotton candy)

More chocolate deliciousness (don't be fooled -- you had to pay for most of this stuff)

Last Thursday night Will and I met up with our quarantine friends (I get a kick out of calling them that. They’re really people who we met while Darcy and their dog Tofu—also a Westie—were in quarantine) for dinner. We went to a Spanish tapas restaurant that—no joke—takes three weeks to get an available booking (if we wanted to eat there on a weekend they wouldn’t have been able to fit us in until the end of September). The food at MoVida was amazing, albeit small. I was glad I had the straight hair for such a highfalutin restaurant, though.

Will and Kim at MoVida (hey, check out the straight hair on that chick! She fits right into a restaurant that has a capital letter in the middle of its name!)

Wayne and Deborah, our quarantine friends

Friday night I went out with some girls for my Borders friend's birthday celebration (a friend I met in Borders, so I call her my Borders’ friend... same vein as the quarantine friends. I think you're getting the idea), and Will hung out with his co-workers. We both had quite the time.

Sunday Will and Darcy went down to Melbourne University with me for the Open Day (aka open house recruiting event). I had to work a booth and try to convince people to come to our Summer School in December, while Will and Darcy hung around campus. It's my opinion that the little white dog scampering around Trinity College did much in the promotion of the college.

As you can see, we’ve been quite busy… not that we’re complaining.

Good [Hair] Days

Astounding.

Earthshattering.

Momentous.

A sighting every bit as rare as that of a mythical real estate agent.

Kim with straight hair.

Date of last attempt to straighten hair: September 8, 2007 (my wedding day)

Previous attempt: October 18, 2006 (I went to a classy party and thought that straight hair would help with the charade)

Previous attempt: I have no clue, but it was 2004 sometime

See a pattern? This is a once-every-few-years occurrence. And what makes this even better is that it was totally unplanned.

Last week I had a hair appointment. Now, the average hair dresser will cut and color my hair (after commenting several times on how much hair I have), then when it gets time to style it, will just say, “Well, we’ll just go with a natural style this time.” (aka, I’m going to slap some gel on and you’ll be good to go because there is NO WAY I’m getting close to that mess of a briar patch you call hair). This time, however, my lovely hairdresser said the words that were to lead to a sore shoulder and an hour of his time being occupied: “Do you want to go natural or straight?”

Gulp.

“You-you-you’re offering to straighten my hair? Well, straight please.” [insert sly, impish grin on my part, fully knowing he will never make the same mistake again]

Of course, it’s not like I wasn’t inconvenienced either—now I have to go out and buy a hairbrush!

Romeo and Juliet

Every mother prepares for their child’s first love—the moment when their kid realizes there is someone more important in the world than mommy and daddy, the ephemeral infatuation with another being that surpasses all semblance of rationality and reason. First love is an inevitability, a hard and cruel fact of life that every parent must resign themselves to.

But what’s the only thing worse than a child’s first love? The forbidden kind.

And that, my friends, is where I find myself. Darcy has fallen in love. With the cat across the hall.

Mordi is an eighteen pound tomcat that belongs to our American neighbors. He, like Darcy, went through the quarantine process and now embraces a rabies-free, cat-like lifestyle in the great land of Australia. One night, Darcy was scampering about the hallway as Liz and I were talking, when Mordi escaped from the apartment. Liz caught him in her arms and kept him from running away, but Darcy was never the same. Ever since that fateful night, she spends hours pining away at the door, can’t pass the neighbor’s apartment without stopping and wagging her tale (and occasionally yipping a message of love), and even wakes up whining in the middle of the night.

Alas! Of all the forbidden relationships that have graced the pages of well-loved stories—Capulets and Montagues, vampires and humans, little children and their stuffed teddy bears that are imagined to live in the Hundred Acre Woods (I’m looking at you, Christopher Robin)—isn’t this the most hopeless of them all? Cats and dogs: sworn enemies since the dawn of time. Opposites at their very core. The whole different species thing, for crying out loud.

I knew it would happen one day, but I didn’t think it would be like this.

On the other hand, who ever does?

Six Months

I can barely believe it. Will and I have been here six months today. In tribute to this momentous occasion, I thought I’d take stock of all of our accomplishments and more significant experiences during this time. So without further ado…

Six months and …

• We learned the ropes of renting, sighted a mythical real estate agent, and found our lovely apartment—all in the first two weeks of being here!! (sidenote: the apartment downstairs from us is in the process of being rented out, and, just like any metropolitan citizen worth her salt would do, I discovered that they’re charging $20 less a week than what we pay—and they have a courtyard!!! Stupid one year lease.)
• Visited Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand
• Said travels have brought our number-of-countries-visited tallies to 22 (Kim) and 13 (Will)… and they’re still growing! (sidenote: my countries-visited tally now surpasses my American-states-visited tally: 22 countries to 20 states.)
• Walked at least 1,000 miles (I’m sure of it! I can’t prove it, but just trust me), thanks to our lack of automobile status
• Ridden hundreds of trams and trains… again thanks to our lack of automobile status
• Paid out $400 dollars in fines to the Melbourne transportation division, thanks to not having a valid ticket for above-mentioned tram
• Driven a manual automobile on the left side of the road on several different occasions (that was Will, not me)
• Seen little penguins, koalas, kangaroos, and really weird-looking possums, all in the wild
• Eaten many meals of fish’n chips
• Drank hundreds of lattes, cappuccinos, and flat whites
• Driven the Great Ocean Road, seen Phillip Island, visited the Yarra Valley wine region… and are currently planning a Christmas holiday! (plans to be announced in a subsequent post)
• I have read over 100 books since arriving in Australia (107 to be exact)
• Will has read about 30 books since arriving in Australia (Will would like to point out, however, that the average page count of his books is over 800, while mine hovers around 350. I find that highly irrelevant.)
• Written four different versions of the first four chapters of my novel and have not been satisfied with any of them, so am now taking a break. Maybe I will revisit novel writing at a further date.
• Eaten kangaroo! This past weekend we grilled out in the park with our neighbors, and kangaroo fillets were part of the menu. See picture below for further proof:

Kangaroo on the barbie

Americans enjoying a delectable Australian icon

• Will has been with his company for six months now, and has designed a subdivision, figured out what Tim Tams are (and that they’re hidden in the conference room, which comes in handy whenever he wants a snack), and what to expect from morning tea.
• I have been working at a café for over four months now. The accomplishments are few, but include serving many pizzas and pasta; figuring out that entrees mean appetizers, lemonade means sprite, serviette means napkin (napkin means diaper), and stubbies mean bottled beer; and learning how to make good coffees (what, the foam on a cappuccino is supposed to be creamy? Bubbles mean that you’ve burned the milk? Oh Bread and Co., you allowed me to serve some truly lousy coffees).
• Got a job at Trinity College, part of Melbourne University, planning and recruiting for our Summer Schools. Awesome job in exactly the field that I want to stay in.
• Brought Darcy through quarantine.
• Taken Darcy to the dog park many, many times. And if we miss a day without taking her to the park, beware of any loose articles left alone in the house. Most recent victim: my retainer that I’ve had since tenth grade. Victim before that: Will’s prescription glasses. Things on our to-do list: schedule visits with the orthodontist, optometrist, and obedience school.
• Made many acquaintances, some good friends, and a couple of enemies (just kidding about the enemies part… hopefully).
• Been to an Australian Rules Football (footy) game, and pretended like we understood the rules.
• Had a lovely visit from my parents, and hope for many more… from them and others.
• Have added “How you going?” (instead of “how are you doing?”), “lead” (meaning “leash”), “uni” (meaning “university”), and “Dahhhcy” (instead of “Darrrrcy”) to our vocabulary.
• Have started introducing Will as my “partner” because, well, that’s just what they say here. I’m really hoping it becomes so ingrained that I go back to the States and keep using it!
• Have loved the last six months, and can't wait for the next six!
  

Authentic Australia

When my parents were in town they introduced us to a few songs that were popular in their day, all pertaining to Australia of course. Since they've left we can't get them out of our heads, so we thought we'd share them with you.







*Note: these are not really accurate representations of "authentic Australia," but illustrate a pretty accurate perception of outsiders' views of Australia.

Frozen

Somewhere along the way, winter settled into Melbourne. While it’s not quite as cold as Atlanta—and definitely not as cold as Nashville—winters, considering Will’s and my primary mode of transportation is our feet, and add to that no central heating and an apartment made out of concrete walls with no insulation, I think it’s safe to say that this winter has been one of the more frigid that I have experienced. The kind of cold that settles into your bones and makes you want to huddle on your couch and wait it out until spring.

And that’s exactly what we’ve done. With the onset of winter, we have—as unconscious an act as it may have been—stripped away a lot of the “unnecessary” activities that take us away from the nice, warm nest we’ve made of our couch. Working out? It’s too cold to jog outside, and gyms are expensive! Going to the store? Why, when there’s delivery? Finding events going on in Melbourne? All we really want to do is read and watch The Wire!

Even though we’ve been nice and comfortable on our couch, the cool temperatures have still found a way to freeze us.

But in the last few weeks, I’ve felt like we’ve been emerging up from a long hibernation period. I think a lot of it has to do with me getting a “normal” job at Melbourne University. Working a few days a week helps me keep a regular schedule, and motivates both of us to brave the temperatures and get out and do things in the city. Last week Will and I joined a gym—his is near his office, close enough to go during lunch, and mine is at the university where I do boot camp three days a week. Even on my days off I spend the time with friends, taking our dogs to the park or going on long lunches. We still spend plenty of time reading and watching The Wire, but it’s a whole different ballgame when you feel like your leisure time is earned instead of just taken for granted.

Even though the temperatures haven't changed, Will and I have.

I can feel it, spring is right around the corner.