An Awesome Anniversary

Chocolates and flowers-the way to a girl's heart!

Yesterday afternoon, I received an e-mail from Zack, cordially inviting me out for a romantic evening to celebrate our fourth anniversary. I met him downtown last night, where he greeted me with red roses. We went to the Lui Bar at the top of the Rialto Tower (55 floors high). The view of Melbourne was incredible! It's not quite as high as the Eureka Skydeck, but you don't have to pay to get this view, although the price of drinks is "dear" (Australian for expensive).

They had the coolest pop-up menu with a story behind each drink. I had the Koala Stinger, which was a creme de menthe drink with infused eucalyptus. Zack had a honey scotch drink that came with a cool ice ball in the glass. He pulled out another surprise-a box of chocolates, and we enjoyed a few of those with our drinks while admiring the view. It was an awesome place; I'd like to take visitors and friends there for sure.

Our delicious drinks.

He should be on that show Mad Men!

After drinks, we headed to an adorable French restaurant a few blocks away. It's called Bistro Vue, and it really felt like we were sitting in a little restaurant in Paris (at least how I imagine it). Zack had scoped out the place the day before and reserved us the best table, a plush corner booth, and we shared a bottle of French wine while an accordion player played familiar tunes. We had a delicious dinner (I had steak), followed by my favorite dessert of creme brulee. Then our waitress brought us a surprise "Happy Anniversary" plate with two little donut treats! 

It was an awesome, romantic night (thanks Zack!), and a great way to celebrate four years of marriage. We don't know what we'll be doing or where we'll be next year at this time, but we're happy for nights like this in Australia right now. Happy anniversary to us!

A Bit American

We didn't really celebrate the 4th of July. Well, I did wear my Americorps sweatshirt. And I made these apple puff pastry desserts in honor of the holiday, because they tasted like a good ol' American apple pie. But that was about the extent of it. Instead, because it's cold outside, we are going to celebrate Christmas in July this weekend with a party at our place. And today, Zack and I are celebrating our fourth wedding anniversary. I'm supposed to meet him downtown tonight; he's taking me out for dinner somewhere fancy! Woohoo!

Our One Year Australia-versary...and a Contest!

Is it just me, or does Zack look a little nervous here? Maybe he's just tired after such a long flight!

If you had told me on January 1, 2011 that within four months I would quit my job, sell my car, pack up everything I own, say goodbye to my dog (sniff sniff!), and be living in another country halfway around the world, I would have told you that you were crazy. But here we are! Even as everything was coming together, I kept saying, "I won't believe this is actually happening until we have landed in Australia and I am sitting in Melbourne drinking a glass of wine." The picture on the left shows that famous glass of wine!




On April 29, 2011, we landed in Melbourne, Australia with eight boxes, four suitcases, a couple of instruments, a bike, and golf clubs (which Zack still hasn't used!). We had no idea where we were going or what we were doing, but we made it work. Now we have jobs, friends, furniture, a few more bikes, a couple of new hobbies, and lots of awesome memories. We've had family and friends come visit, and we've seen so much of this beautiful country. Oh, and we have almost 30,000 hits on this blog!




When trying to think of how best to summarize our first year here, I decided to get the negatives out of the way first. There are eight main things that have bothered me while living in Australia. The links will take you back to related blog posts.

1. Missing our dog Molly.
2. Little annoyances and inconveniences.
3. Difficulties with airlines.
4. Zack's ridiculous workload.
5. Rainy, gray weather.
6. Being so far away from family.
7. The lack of holiday celebrations.
8. The loud and/or annoying birds, especially the pooping pigeons.

I was flipping through my online picture albums and realized that there are hundreds of happy memories I could share, but I've really kind of already done that on this blog over the past year! So instead, I narrowed it down to ten memorable moments that made me think, "Wow, being in Australia is an amazing experience." I've included the links in case you want to reread the old blog posts related to each memory. These are in no particular order:

1. Wading through knee-deep water with my sister Morgan while seeing hundreds of waterfalls stream down Uluru.
2. The feeling of awe upon seeing the Sydney Opera House for the first time.
3. Mountain biking among the huge, hopping kangaroos at Lysterfield.
4. Hanging out on beautiful Johanna Beach on Christmas night with glow sticks.
5. Seeing hundreds of incredible sunsets and several fireworks shows from our apartment balcony.
6. Belting out 80s songs on our walk home from the tram after the Rock of Ages show for Zack's birthday.
7. My brother Justin showing me "Nemo" while snorkeling at the Great Barrier Reef.
8. Surfing alone in the clear, blue water at Bondi Beach and treating myself to an ice cream cone afterward.
9. Biking to go see Queen Elizabeth II ride down St Kilda Road in a royal tram on a random weekday.
10.Watching wombats crawl around our tent at Wilsons Promontory.

Okay, contest time. This one is meant to satisfy my own curiosity, reward our readers, and help me plan for future blog entries. To enter, please leave a comment on this post with answers to each of the following questions:

1. Who are you, and where do you live?
2. What has been your favorite blog post, and why?
3. What is your favorite picture on this blog, and why?
4. How long have you been a reader of this blog?
5. How often do you check or read this blog?
6. What are some topics you'd like to see covered in upcoming blog posts?
7. What is one thing that you think Zack and/or I should be sure to do before our second year Australia-versary?
8. Anything else you'd like to share? Compliments, bribes, etc. are all accepted. :)

The winner will be chosen at random. Your comment with answers to the questions above is worth one entry. But you can earn extra entries! With each person you get to "follow" our blog either as a member or by e-mail, you get an additional entry. If you share a link to our blog on your Facebook page, Twitter, or on your blog, you earn three extra entries! Just let me know if you have earned additional entries somehow. The deadline is May 5 (yes, I'll wait until the end of May 5 in the United States!).

Now I suppose you want to know what you will win? Well, if you live outside of Australia, I will send you an Australian prize pack. I'm not quite sure what that means yet, but I promise it will be worthwhile. Trust me. If you live within Australia, I'll send you a United States prize pack. And if you're American but live in Australia, well, then I'm not sure what I'll do, but I'll work something out. Good luck, and thanks for playing along.

Happy one year Australia-versary to us!

Our last "family" photo on the shores of Lake Michigan before leaving. Molly does not look amused that we are going to Australia without her. And our lovely mix of cold weather gear borrowed from my parents is especially attractive!

Happy 3rd Anniversary to Us!

Last night, Zack took me to dinner at The Press Club in downtown Melbourne.  This was a delayed celebration of our third anniversary (July 5), because I wasn't able to join him in Sydney earlier this week.  This restaurant is owned by George Calombaris, one of our favorite judges on MasterChef Australia.  No, George wasn't there (bummer!), but we had an awesome time at this fancy place.  It is described as combining "modern Greek cuisine with contemporary dining."  Our reservations were at 9 pm, and we were there until after midnight!

We ordered the symposium degustation, which means we each got eight courses of smaller sized portions of various things from the menu.  We started with rolls, olives, and olive oil with black salt.  We moved onto sweetbreads, a mushroom dish, a crab dish, salmon, duck, venison, some sorbet (to refresh the palate), and then dessert.  By the end, we were definitely full!  I'll go into more detail on the pictures I'll post on Shutterfly, but I've put a few of my favorites here.  This was the venison.  It had a raspberry sauce, and it was awesome!

This was the dessert.  On the left is chocolate mousse, and it was so thick and velvety.  On the right is creme fraiche, which is a French version of sour cream (it tastes like yogurt).  There are some salted caramel dollops (so good), chocolate crumbs, a cube of tea-flavored jelly stuff, and some sort of fruit in the middle of the plate.  The green things are tubes of apple-ginger flavored something or other.  All I know is that the whole thing tasted great!

It was really fun to try so many different dishes.  We were always excited for the next course to come out, and I could definitely see George's influence on MasterChef with some of the techniques and ingredients used.  We also had fun using our favorite MasterChef phrases ("This dish is a cracker!") and pretending like we were judging each plate.  The kitchen area was open and facing the restaurant, so it was also interesting to watch the chefs cook and plate up the fancy creations.  They were so calm and precise.  I guess they can't really yell at each other or look stressed out if everyone's watching!

Our first anniversary was spent on the beaches in Puerto Vallarta, our second was spent summiting four 14,000+ foot Colorado mountains in one day, and our third was spent (pun intended) at dinner at a fancy restaurant in the middle of Melbourne, Australia!  What on earth are we going to do next year?