I'm starting an AFL team

Okay, that's not exactly true.  But I did get to go to the launch event of a new AFL team.  I know, right?!  How does that even happen??

My company has been involved with the community in the Western Suburbs of Sydney and became involved in a partnership/sponsorship of this new AFL team.  That being said, the event sort came up last minute and they needed people to go so about five of us from the office were able to make it work on such short notice.

Luckily my first weekend in Sydney I went to an AFL game with my husband, so I at least know a little bit about the game.  I'm no expert by any means, but I actually enjoyed the AFL game (more so than the NRL game we went to) and get the basics of the rules.

The event was at the Olympic Park with several hundred people in attendance.  They broke up the event into 'quarters' as they lead up to the big reveal of the team, the jerseys, and drumroll.... the team name.

The biggest to do about the event is that some young, big deal player who was playing in the NRL had signed with the new team and was at the event that night.  I of course have no idea who this person really is, but when I was on the plane to Melbourne for work the next day, the sports page was plastered with his picture and a full page article about the new team - The Greater Westerns Sydney Giants.  There was a big to do about the name, because apparently 'Giants' is a very "American" team name.  I don't think so, but I guess they do have a team here called the 'Magpies'.... yeah.  We'll just leave it at that.

I wasn't able to get a picture of Isreal (the big deal former NRL player) but I did get him to sign a poster for my husband.  Pretty cool, right?!  Hey, at a minimum it'll be great decoration for the man cave one day.

What a great weekend

After another fun Saturday night at the Fitz, myself, Marc, and Fitzy (no relation to the Fitzroy except for the proximity of his house to the bar) decided to head to Sculptures By the Sea on a Sunday.  It was the last day of the exhibit and it ended up being a gorgeous 80 degree day.  Sculpture By the Sea is an art exhibit of sculptures.... you guessed it... by the sea.  It's along a beautiful stretch of coast and is a few km walk from Bondi Beach to Bronte Beach.

We decided to start in Bronte Beach and grab a bite to eat.  We magically found a decent parking spot, which was amazing given the number of people that were out that day.  This was early/mid November so late spring/early summer here in Sydney.  We'd been getting a lot of rain and the Sydneysiders were ready for some summertime weather.

After a quick bite in the park we strolled up the coast taking in the sculptures along the way.  It's one of the things I find really neat about Sydney - the city is very art friendly and finds really interesting ways to share art with the public.  Besides the fact that the views are breathtaking along the sea, there were some pretty neat sculptures as well.  Now, don't get me wrong, there were definitely a few that I was clearly not cool enough to appreciate, but there were quite a few that I liked as well.  Here are some of my favorites:

Check out that view!  That's  Bondi Beach

And here are a few pictures of the sea:

Now how to end such a lovely, Sunday?  Well, you gotta stop in the Fitz for a cheeky pint, right?!

One of the great things about my apartment is that it's walking distance to The Fitzroy.  We dropped off my car, and had a leisurely walk towards The Old Fitzroy.  The Fitzroy is in the Wooloomooloo area of Sydney.  This is one of the signs along the walk.  It's not the greatest picture,  but I just love this sign....

And that's how you pronounce Wooloomooloo

The other nice thing about the walk is that at this time of year there are these trees with bright purple flowers all over the city.  Fitzy actually took this picture along the walk that day and it's one of my favorites of the day:

And that's that.  A beautiful day, some art, and a pint or two.  What a great weekend.

Team Days

I know I'm really behind, so there's quite a bit to catch up on.  Back in October (I know... October!  Where did the past month and a half go?!) we had team days for work.  If there's one thing that the team here knows how to do, it's getting out of the office and having a little fun.

Although really swamped with work, I was actually pretty excited about the team days.  For one I'm still getting to know everyone so I thought it would be fun to get to spend some time together.  And second, I knew what we were doing for the second day of the event... and it's really good!  But we'll get to that.

The first day was all about team building.  It was really well facilitated and ended up being really fun.  We did some 'speed dating' where we had to spend three minutes talking about the other person - initial thoughts, what we like about them, and what we want to know more of.  It was really interesting to hear everyone's feedback on me, especially being the lone American on the team.  In the afternoon we spent the day outside in Rushcutters Park on a beautiful, warm, sunny day.  We probably looked like crazy people as lots of the activities required at least half of us to be blinded folded (yeah, that was great for my trust and patience issues).  Finally we ended the night with a barbeque in the the hotel.  The food was tasty and we all just relaxed, had a few drinks, and of course Liz and I decided to play matchmaker/love advisor.  Not sure we'll be starting a side business anytime soon, but it was fun for the night.

The big surprise for the team, was that for day two we did a sailing adventure in Sydney Harbour!  How awesome is that?!  I love sailing and I love a good competition.  We arrived at the marina first thing in the morning, split into two teams, then headed out to our sail boats.  Now if you are my husband, you want to know lots of details about the boat: what kind of boat it is, how big it was, blah, blah, blah... You know I don't pay attention to things like that.  The important thing is, it was big enough, warm enough outside and not raining.

Our sailing adventure consisted of a dinghy race (the winner got a 30 second advantage in the sailing race - we did not win this), a type of trivia/navigation challenge, and a sailing race.  We had a really nice skipper, Wendy, who taught us everything we needed to know.  While sailing around the harbour to answer the trivia questions, we were also able to start learning how to sail.  (The rules were that you could not ask your skipper sailing questions during the race portion of the day, only during the trivia portion).  We sailed all through the harbour seeing the Harbour Bridge, the Opera House, and all of the neat bays and inlets in the harbour.  It was amazing.  I can't believe this was a work day!

Sydney Opera House

We also started practicing our roles that we would have during the race portion.  The challenge was that there was no wind!  There's always a breeze in the Sydney Harbour!  Not today, my friends.  It made it a little slow, but we made it work.  I was on the main sail on the starboard side (sounds so official, right?!)

Okay, I'm not doing anything yet, but I'm about to!

And finally, the race started.  The other team had won the dinghy challenge so they had a 30 second head start.  But that didn't matter... we smoked them!  It was pretty amazing.  We were yelling sailing terms left and right "Tack!" "Main On!"  It was like a movie!

The Winning Team!!

It was great getting some time out of the office and getting to know the team a little better.  And for it being my first time in the Harbour besides on a ferry, I couldn't have asked for a better day.
 

My First Trip to Bundy

Bundaberg Rum is to Australia what Budweiser was to America (until the whole InBev thing at least).  To call it an iconic brand here almost doesn't do it justice.  The distillery was built in 1888 and the rest is Aussie history.  It's especially popular in Queensland where the town of Bundaberg is.

Bundy (I told you everything is shortened to end in a y or ie) is only really sold in Australia, so it's quite exciting as a visitor to finally get to go to the infamous distillery.  My team is doing quite a bit of work with the team in Bundy, so it made sense to take a trip up to meet the team in person.

First of all...everything is far here!  I don't know if the map is just deceiving or if it's because in the US there are so many more towns in between, but it was a lot farther than I thought it was going to be.  I flew from Sydney to Brisbane, then Brisbane to Bundaberg.  Bundy is a smaller town so its a regional jet when flying in from Brisbane.  Over three hours later, I finally arrived at the distillery.

Queensland is north of New South Wales and thus was a lot warmer.  It was much more tropical than I expected and several degrees warmer than when I left Sydney that morning.  (Degrees C, so several degrees actually makes a big difference).  Bundy is quite a popular tourist attraction - there are several public tours daily and also a bondstore that sells products and branded wear.

One of the most fun things about the distillery is the giant bottle of Bundaberg Rum outside of the main building.  It's one of those things that everyone wants to see and get their picture with.  So of course....

After a long hard day's work, I headed to the hotel - which was... at the beach!!  How awesome is that!  Are you kidding me?  It can't really be work when your hotel is a beach resort, right?!  It was quite a nice end of the day to get checked in to the hotel, then head for a walk along the beach.

The hotel was across the street from the beach

As we get closer and closer to summer, I keep trying to strategically plan my next trip to the beach...I mean, Bundy.... for work...

There's No Place Like Home...Or At Least Your Own Apartment

I finally have an apartment!  It took a little longer than expected but I've finally got a place.  The serviced apartment that I was living in was nice, but it was a little 'hotel-ish' and impersonal, so it's nice to have a place that I can get a little settled in.

I had what I'll call an 'interesting' experience with my relo agent... let's just say there were a few things lost in translation.  In the end we worked it out and after 2 days of looking I found the perfect place for me.  I'm right in the heart of Sydney in Sydney CBD across from Hyde Park.

I'm excited to live right downtown.  In Chicago I always lived in neighborhoods, never in the loop or River North, so it's great to get that experience here in Oz.  I'm really central to everything and I can walk, bus or train to pretty much anywhere I want to go on the weekends.  I'm across the street from a train station as well.

The building is really secure which I like and has a parking spot - even better!  The best part is that there is also a pool and a gym.  Bring on Operation Kilo Drop/Project Fiji! (Subject of a later post).

Here are a few pics of the place.  I'm on the 10th floor with a city view.  Not too bad, I say!

A View from the Top!    

Needed: Friends

I made it through my first weekend without my husband okay, but as the next weekend began to creep up on me I realized, I've gotta make some friends.  So what do you do when you're new in town and need to meet some people?  You do what any Chicagoan would do - head to the bar.

A few of my mates from work invited me to hang out with them for the day on Saturday.  We met at what is quickly becoming my new favorite bar The Old Fitzroy.  The original plan was to head to the finger wharf or to Manly for the Jazz Festival.  Unfortunately about 30 minutes after we got to the bar, the skies opened up and it pretty much rained for the rest of the day.  Well, I guess we're going to have to stay here and have a few more drinks, gang.

We had a beer or two then headed to the Swans Club to watch the AFL Grand Final (the Superbowl of AFL).  I realize that except for the beer part that sentence makes no sense to anyone not living in Australia.  All of the sports teams here have clubs that you can become a member of.  At the club you can drink and gamble and of course, watch the game.  The Swannies didn't make the Grand Final but the club was still packed with people watching the game.  For my friends in Chicago, it reminded me a bit of being at Joe's for Sunday Funday.

After the game I was in desperate need of food so we headed across the street to a de-lish pizza place.  The area of town we were in is called Wooloomooloo (I think that's how you spell it).  It's a neat part neighborhood with cool vibe and apparently Russell Crowe lives there.  I'm not a big fan of Russell, but people don't like it when you say that here.  He's a Kiwi by the way, he's not even Australian.

Moving on, things got quite fun once we got to the pizza place.  The pizza was delish (did I mention that  already?) and we were all getting into our prime.  There were a few other people there so the boys began chatting up a few of the ladies.  One of the girls in that group came to sit by me as my friends were hitting on her friends.  In the end, I ended up chatting with the girls and headed to another bar with them for a while.

It was a group of girls that all went to uni together in WA.  Sorry... I'm starting to talk Aussie speak.  "Uni" = university/college; "WA = Western Australia".  They were fun and I needed some new friends, right?!  I hung with them for a bit (don't ask me where I was because I have no idea) then headed back to the Fitz to meet up with the boys again.  It's always fun to end the night where you started it.

The Fitz was quite full at this point, so the rest of the night was filled with meeting some of the regulars and all of the other patrons.  I met some great Aussies that gave me the low down on all of the places I need to visit; some expats from London; and of course some proper Irishmen.  All in all, fun day/night.  Not sure that I have any new friends yet, but at least I'm on my way!

First Weekend without Hubby

It was a great 11 days having my husband with me in Sydney.  Even though I had to started working the Monday after we landed, we were still able to have two full weekends together down under.  It was great for him to get to meet some of my co-workers, see where I was living, and of course sight see all around Sydney.  I had been avoiding thinking of it, but eventually the day came and he had to head back to the states.

The work week went by really quickly as it wasn't much different than when we were living separately in Chicago and Peoria.  But then the weekend rolled around....oh...hmmm....

Okay, obviously I knew that we would have to be apart while I took this assignment but you still always kind of hope that a miracle happens and he magically gets to stay.  No miracle here.  Being alone in Chicago is one thing, being alone 10,000 miles away from my husband, family, and friends is quite another.  Well, I happen to be in one of the most beautiful cities in the world so better make the best of it, right?

Luckily the weather that weekend turned out to be gorgeous.  It was 26 or 27 Celsius on Saturday and Sunday (yeah, i know, whatever the hell that means...it was really warm out).  So I decided to go to the beach.  My husband had gotten the chance to go to Manly during the week while I was working and everyone at work said it's one of the nicest beaches in Sydney.

One of my favorite things about Manly is getting there.  You take a ferry from Circular Quay.  It's a beautiful 30 minute ferry ride and you get to see the Harbor Bridge and Opera House all along the ride.  Arriving at Manly Wharf it's a short walk through a sort of walking zone through shops and restaurants until you get to the beach.  Glorious!

It was one of the warmest days of the year since last summer so it was full of people.  It didn't exactly plan that well so I hopped into one of the beach shops and bought a beach bag and towel.

It was quite a perfect little Saturday.  Just enjoying the sunshine and people watching and a little reading.  For some reason it reminded me of the time that my best friend Jaime and I went to Virginia Beach together.  You'll have to get her to tell you that story.

On Sunday I decided to explore a different part of town.  I walked over to Hyde Park which was only a few blocks from my apartment.  I always love when there's a park in the middle of a city, so I stopped by Starbucks (I know, but hey, I was homesick... and it's not the same anyways - everything's in milliliters) and went over to the park to soak up the sunshine and do a little reading.

The park is broken up into two sections, so after a little reading I strolled up to Hyde Park North, just across the street.  There was a really neat art exhibit.  Every year Sydney does 'Art & About' - a way of showcasing different types of art and artists in interesting and non-typical venues throughout the city.  It was a nice surprise to get to explore some art during a walk through the park.

Feeling the art itch, I walked about 10 minutes or so to the Art Gallery of New South Wales.  It was so nice outside that I didn't want to be inside a museum, but it was free so I spent an hour or so wandering through some of the exhibits.  It's on my list to go back and spend some more quality time there.

Not far from the art gallery are the Royal Botanical Gardens.  This might be one of my new favorite places in the city.  Like I said, I love a park in the middle of the city, and this is just beautiful.  I'm sure it's even more breathtaking in the summer as more flowers bloom.  The flowers are gorgeous and there's also a view of the Opera House and the bridge.

I didn't realize how far I had walked until my husband emailed me that he was home and wanted to Skype.  It was late Saturday night for him, so he was just getting home from going out with friends.  I started walking back (okay, I was pretty much running) and 15 minutes later I was huffing and puffing over Skype.

Chris: "Why are you breathing so heavy??"
Me: "I walked really far today"
Chris: "Soooo.....why are you breathing so heavy?"
Me: "I was all the way at Circular Quay when you emailed me, so I pretty much ran home"
Chris: "You ran all that way to talk to me?!"

Of course I did.  It was a tough first weekend, but I had a really nice weekend, enjoyed some sunshine, got in a quick jog, and got to Skype with my husband.  I think I'm going to make it.

In English, please.

My friend Lisa lived in Sydney for six months about a year or so ago.  She emailed me with some advice for translating from American to Australian.  Here's an excerpt from her email:

Tip of the Week: Everything in Aus ends with an 'o' or a 'y/ie'
Instead of Football, it's Footy
Instead of Service station, it's Servo
Instead of afternoon, it's Arvo
Instead of Fitzgerald, it's Fitzy

She's not kidding.  The Aussies have a nickname for everything and everyone.  They're still trying to figure out how they can make Pam even shorter.

Some of the others that I've noticed:
Breakfast = Brekky
Truck/SUV that a tradesman drives = Tradie
Mobile phone = Moby

And it's not just in casual conversations, it's in print in advertisements and on commercials!  It's so funny to me.  It's amazing how even though we speak the same language, we really don't speak the same language.  My first few days here I literally had no idea what people were saying.  "Umm... I'm sorry, what?"  It gets pretty interesting in the office as we have people from all over the world - Ireland, England, Scotland, the Philippines, Indonesia, France, Brazil... and of course, me - the American.

Footy

Our first weekend in Sydney my husband and I found ourselves at an Aussie Rules Football game.  Why not go two for two?  I managed to score tickets for another finals game for NRL, which is the rugby league.  They call Rugby footy as well - it's all footy.  

I got the tickets at work, so they just said that my husband would need to wear a collared shirt.  Okay, whatever.  As we walk up to the stadium, Chris and I take a closer look at the tickets.  "Private suites"  What?!  Approaching the gate, the sign overhead says "Players/Coaches Entrance" to the left and "Private Suites" to the right.  Well, Pam you done good.

My company has a box at Sydney Football Stadium and we were able to be there for a finals series game for the Tigers versus the Roosters.  It's a pretty big rivalry as the Roosters are the Sydney team and the Tigers are the Balmain team which is just ten minutes over the bridge from Sydney.  Even though Sydney was the home team, the crowd was definitely heavy weighted towards the Tigers.  The Tigers have this amazing player (the dude is a beast) who is one of the best players in the league, so the crowd was pretty pumped to see him play.  

I tell you what, I know we think football is really rough and violent in the states... we've got nothing on rugby.  It is literally 70 minutes of beefy dudes with no pads just running into each other.  Seriously.  Head on.  Uhh... can't you see the line?  Where's Devin Hester when you need him?

It turned out to be a really great game - even not totally knowing the rules.  The Tigers were heavily favored to win and the crowd favorite.  At the 68th minute, the Roosters tied up the game and we went into overtime!  That's what I'm talkin' about!  The Roosters ended up pulling it out in the end and won the game.

A Try is like an extra point.  Final score Roosters 19, Tigers 16.  

I think Chris and I are good luck for all of these Sydney teams.

Driving...on the left

Although I'm living in downtown Sydney, my office is actually in the western suburbs, about 40 km from CBD.  My work provided me with a car - great!  Now I just figure out how to drive on the opposite side of the road.  Hmmm....

The car company actually delivered the car to my office the week before I started, so I took a taxi out to the office on my first Monday morning.  My first day went well and then the end of the day came.... I think I may have been more fearful of driving than I was of living by myself on the opposite side of the world for six months.  Okay, here we go.

I go to put my computer bag in the back seat like I always do in my car at home and of course, I walk to the wrong side of the car.  Oh boy.  This is going to get interesting.  I walk over to the 'proper' side of the car, buckle up, and take off for my next Aussie adventure.

I don't know if any of you have ever driven on the left side of the road, but it is so wrong on so many levels.  It is literally doing the opposite of what you've learned your entire life.  Within the first 5 minutes of being in the car I got honked at for drifting into the left lane.  Sorry!  I'm new here!

My office is really close to the highway, so after I get honked at and get back into my lane, I head on to the highway.  Scariest thing ever.  It was like being 15 again and being on the interstate for the first time.  I had a death grip on the steering wheel and just tried to stay in my lane.  Now might also be a good time to mention that I had no idea how to get home.  I mean, I had a general idea (just follow the signs back towards Sydney, right?) but not so much the specifics.  Being on the highway wasn't too bad - it's a divided road and everyone is going in the same direction, so it was a little easier to relax a bit and just go with the flow.  Unfortunately the highway I take turns into more of a larger city road than a highway, and I'm pretty sure the lanes are not regulation space. Luckily I've been driving in downtown Chicago for seven years and I'm comfortable with city driving.  Otherwise, I would have really been up the creek.

So, I'm trucking along (radio off, of course) concentrating more on driving than I have since 1995, and I'm getting closer to the city.  About 30 seconds before the lanes fork, I realize I'm on the wrong side of the fork.  Awesome.  I'm driving on the wrong side of the road and I'm about to be lost.  Sydney is a pretty small city and fairly easy to navigate and since my husband and I had explored the city the day before, I at least had a feel for where I was going.  I may have accidentally entered a parking garage, but other than that, I knew how to get to the apartment.  The problem was being in the city there are a lot more opportunities to make a decision while driving.  That is not a good thing when you're driving on the opposite side of the road.  It just means more opportunities to turn the wrong way into incoming traffic.  I managed to stay behind someone at all times as to be able to just follow what they did (even if they weren't going in the direction I needed to go).

Eventually I made it to the apartment building and pulled into the parking garage.  The dreaded parking garage.  Parking garages are hard to park in when you're in your own car driving on the side of the road you know how to drive on.  Pulling into a parking garage (to the left - weird!) in a rental car and feeling like I'm driving from the passenger side was not fun.  Thank goodness there was no one else in the garage that day.  There may or may not have been a few curb checks, and I may or may not have taken some extremely wide turns.  Finally, I made it into a parking spot.  Man, I have never been more happy to get out of a car in my life.  Oh wait, I have to do this every day... twice a day!  Didn't really think that one through, huh?

It's been about three weeks now, and I'm finally getting a little more comfortable with the driving.  It helps that I go exactly the same way every day, so at least I know where I'm going.  By the end of the first week I was finally able to turn on the radio while driving.

You don't have to worry about me texting and driving any time soon that's for sure.

Operation Fight Jet Lag

We landed in Sydney around 7 am or so Saturday morning.  I didn't quite mention in my previous post what a trooper my husband is.  While I was galavanting around in business class on Qantas, he was flying economy on United.  Sorry honey!  But you know him, he made a bunch of new best friends and got the low down on what to do in Sydney.

Even though we were on different airlines, both of our flights arrived at the same time and luckily both in the same international terminal, so we were able to meet up in baggage claim and head to find our car service.  I have to admit, I was a little disappointed at first.  It was an overcast rainy day, so there wasn't much of a view from the plane and it seemed like our driver was taking the most un-scenic route possible to the apartment.  I don't know what I was expecting but I guess I thought the pilot was going to buzz by the Sydney Opera House just for me.  I'm just sayin'...

We get to the apartment by around 9 am, get checked in and then the wall of tired hits.  Oh boy.
Pam: "We HAVE to stay up as long as possible tonight."
Chris: "Yeah, yeah.  Totally"

10 minutes later...

Pam: "Maybe we can take a quick nap this afternoon?!"

Needless to say we were pretty exhausted.  After the long flight and all of the excitement around getting here, it finally hit us all at once.  To keep us occupied/distracted we went downstairs to the coffee shop and had a bite to eat for breakfast and a shot of caffeine for a pick me up.  With a little more energy we were able to relax for a bit and take in the apartment.

My company helps me with housing so I'm in a 'serviced apartment' for about 4 weeks.  It seems to be a pretty popular thing here as there are constantly people coming and going.

Welcome to my new home for the next few weeks:

It's a great, cute little one bedroom right in the heart of downtown Sydney.  We're walking distance to a train station that can pretty much get us anywhere in Sydney and we're only about a five minute walk to Darling Harbour.

Unfortunately, that is about the extent of the excitement of our first day in Sydney.  We did end up taking a nap in the afternoon.  I set an alarm otherwise, we would have really been in trouble.  And even with the nap we were still asleep by about 8:30 on Saturday.  Pretty glamourous!

With all that rest we were bright eyed and bushy tailed Sunday morning.  Time to explore Sydney!  We got a map of downtown and just headed out the door.

First stop Darling Harbour.

Darling Harbour is one of the many harbor areas in Sydney.  It's of course got plenty of boats (which Chris loves) and a shopping and restaurant area.  Also in Darling Harbour is the Australia National Maritime museum and the Sydney Aquarium.  Chris was able to go to the Maritime Museum later in the week.

We had breakfast.... well, I should say 'brekky' at a delicious pancake place on the water, then walked around and enjoyed the sunshine and the views.

Sydney hosted the Summer Olympics in 2000 so we wanted to go and see the Olympic Park as well.  We had looked online and there happened to be an AFL game at the stadium there as well.  We weren't sure if we wanted to go to the game (or if tickets would be available) but it was a nice day so we figured it was worth the train ride just to see the Olympic Park.

We hopped on the train, followed the jerseys, and went out to the Olympic Park and ANZ Stadium (which they pronounce "A-N-Zed").

AFL is the league for Aussie Rules Football.  Of course, they just call it football, or footy, but they also call Rugby and soccer football, so it can get kind of confusing.  Somehow, just walking up to the box office we were able to get tickets.  They were in the 'end zone' of sorts, but they were really close to the field so we didn't care.  That and the fact that we have no idea what we're actually watching.  We tailgated for a bit with the locals and found out that this is the finals series so it was actually a pretty big game.

Tailgating and enjoying a Bundy & Cola

AFL doesn't allow pictures so of course I snuck one

The game turned out to be a really good one and lucky for us there was a dad explaining the game to his son sitting right behind us so we were able to follow along.  It's a really fast pace game with a lot of scoring and tackling and such so it was really fun to watch even not fully understanding the rules.  When in doubt, just cheer when the people in red are cheering.  Go Swannies!

Operation Fight Jet Lag Day 2 - success.

The Longest Flight Ever

You know how when you fly across the US on the redeye back from Vegas, and you're like "wow, that's a really long flight!  I feel like crap"?  Well.... let me tell you something my friends.  You've never traveled until you've been on a flight to Sydney, Australia.  Holy smokes is that far!

I flew from Chicago O'Hare to LAX to Sydney.  Whew!  We left on a Thursday and arrived on Saturday morning.  You literally lose two days flying.  It's kind of hard to wrap your head around.

The flight from Chicago to LA wasn't too bad.  I tried to stay awake and not read any of my magazines or books since I was saving everything for the 15 hour flight from LA to Sydney.  I was lucky enough to be able to fly first class on that leg of the trip, so there was a meal and enough on the tv to keep me entertained for four hours.

Upon arrival in LA I headed straight the the American Airlines Admirals Club.  I like to call it a little piece of heaven.  It's so nice and quite in there.  No screaming babies, no loud obnoxious cell phone talkers, plus free snacks and soda.  Glorious.  I was joking with my husband over text that maybe I would be sitting next to someone famous on my flight to LA.  Hey, there's a chance - I was on a flight from Chicago to LAX with Jeremy Piven once (no, we didn't 'hug it out').  Unfortunately, no dice.  However, I had forgotten about the Admirals Club.  I'm sitting in a nice cozy corner, near a window, charging all of my electronic devices when in walks.....

Okay, so I didn't exactly know who it was, but I knew they were famous and he had some Ari Gold type agent with him catering to his every need.  So, who was it?!  Thank god for Google.  I knew he was in a movie with Beyonce (of all things, go figure) and from there I figured it out.  It was an actor named Idris Elba.  He's actually been in quite a few movies.  Check out it out on Wikipedia (my source for all solid, verified information): Idris Elba.  So not super exciting, but hey - it was something.  And we were on the elevator together back down to the main entrance.  He's a really nice guy.

There concludes my adventures in the airport and in America for that matter.  On to the dreaded 15 hour flight.  I was definitely a little worried about being on a plane for that long, especially with 90% of the flight being over water.  I mean, even if you sleep for 8 hours, you're only half way there!  How do you entertain yourself for that long?  I'll tell you how... Qantas business class, baby!  I was on the Qantas Airbus A380.  Yeah, that's the way to do it.

It's still a fairly new plane and pretty fancy, so all of the flight attendants have to explain how your seat works when you board.  I didn't want to be the girl in business class taking pictures, but when other people starting doing it I figured I might as well!

My seat/bed for 15 hours

That was my seat/bed for the next day....seriously.  It actually turned out to be quite manageable.  My flight was delayed about 2 hours so it was after midnight Pacific time by the time we actually boarded.  I was pretty tired by then so I skipped dinner and went to sleep right away.  The seat actually lays completely flat and they give you noise canceling headphones (I know, my life is really hard) so I actually got about 7 hours of sleep.  Woo hoo!

Oh wait.  There's still about 8 hours left.  Oh snaps.  Since I skipped dinner, everyone else was still sleeping. I got up to use the restroom and stretch a bit then headed back to my seat.  Except for the fact that it was pitch black and I couldn't remember where my seat was.  I literally stepped over into a seat that I thought was mine (I was sitting by the window) and there was a body there.  Whoops.  I was one row back.

After that debacle, I was pretty much wide awake.  I watched two full movies, ate, watched tv, read, tried to look out the window but it was pitch black out (since you leave at night you chase the dark all the way to Sydney), and watched more tv.  You have your own tv/entertainment center loaded full of programs so I got caught up on The Office and Modern Family.

Finally, 14.5 glorious hours later, our captain came over the intercom to announce that we were making our initial descent to Sydney.

After all the build up of the past few months and the packing and the flight, I had finally arrived.

Today's The Day!

I should be doing my final packing, but I wanted to make a quick post before my insanely long travel day.  Today I say goodbye to Illinois for a few months and G'day to Australia!  I'm getting really excited.  I somehow managed to fit six months worth of clothes into three big suitcases and one carry on - whew!  Packing was not fun at all, but it will be worth it soon.

I checked the weather for Sydney for the weekend and it looks like it will be a nice sunny 68 - 73F all weekend.  Perfect.  Now all I need to do is get there.  In prep for my 19 hours of flight time I've loaded up the Kindle, made the ultimate playlist on my iPod, and charged both of my computers.

See you Sydneyside.

Holy Crap I'm Moving to Australia!!!!!

Obviously I knew this was coming, but who knew it would come so fast.  All of the time spent talking and negotiating and waiting and all of a sudden - it's here!  Maybe it all became real when I booked my ticket, or maybe it's the fact that I literally leave in three days.  Yikes!

So as I think about the next six months and living on the other side of the world, of course I'm thinking of the things I'm going to miss.  The obvious of course is my husband and my family, but there are a few random/funny things that have popped into my head over the past few days that I thought I'd share.

My short list of things I'm sad to miss over the next six months:

• Football.  Watching a few preseason games has gotten me so excited for football season.  Especially college football.  I love the game, I love tailgating, and of course, I love trash talking.  I'm going to have to find an American bar in Sydney that will air the games.... of course the games will be on at 3 in the morning, so I guess I'll just have to watch the highlights online.  The bright side?  Given the Bears performance on Saturday, I don't think I need to worry about them making it to the Superbowl this year.  
• Fall clothes.  Okay, I know I can't really complain since I essentially get two summers in a row (which also means skipping a Chicago winter) but I really love fall attire.  It's really strange getting the September issues of Elle and Vogue with all of the fall trends and knowing that I won't be wearing any of them.  I do still plan on devouring both magazines on the fifteen hour flight, but I guess I'll just have to pick up an Aussie fashion mag or two upon arrival.  
• This next one is super lame, but hey we all have our guilty pleasures.... Season 2 of The Vampire Diaries.  Ridiculous, right?!  I know, I can watch it online but it's just not the same.  I love this show!  Also, this was always, my fun thing to do for myself on Thursday nights.  Chris would call me at 8:01 because I'm the worst phone talker when I'm watching any of my favorite shows.  

All that being said, I am still super excited for this next adventure in my life.  I'm going to be working like crazy, living in a new city, driving on the opposite side of the road, and exploring an entirely new part of the world for me.  

Okay, Sydney.  Here I come!

True Dreams of Wichita

Since we only have a few weekends left together before I ship off to Australia, my husband and I are trying to spend as much time together as possible.  That means I got to spend this past weekend in Kansas.  Yeah, that's right...Kansas.

It was a last minute plan...obviously - no one plans to go to Kansas for the weekend. I found a cheap one-way ticket back to Illinois from Wichita on Sunday night, so it was a go.  Chris and I left at around six in the morning and headed on the long drive down to Kansas.

As weird as it may sound, I think the drive was my favorite part of the trip.  I don't know what it is about being trapped in a car with the worst scenery ever, but I always love road trips with him.  Maybe it's the undivided attention... or maybe it's the singing.  Either way we had a fun relaxing ride down and made it into town around 4 or so Friday afternoon.

All I can say is Kansas looked exactly like what I expected.  Really small town-ish, if that makes any sense.  Very flat... and plain.

So what do you do on a Friday night in downtown McPherson, Ks?  You go to one of the two nice restaurants in town.  We went to a place called Amics, a little tapas right in the heart of downtown.  I use the words 'tapas' and 'heart of downtown' very loosely.  We were lucky enough to go to Amics when they were hosting a wine tasting.  It was really fun!  Seriously.  There were about twenty five to thirty people in the back half of the restaurant and they had the local wine distributor lead us through a tasting of five different white wines.  Besides tasting the wines (we loved all but one of them) it was great to get to know some of the people of McPherson.  Everyone was really friendly and in true Chris Olson style, we had a few new best friends by the end of the evening.

Chris had to work most of the day on Saturday so the wife of the owner of the local office offered to take me around town.  "Sure, that would be great!" I said, wondering how this was going to turn out.

Michelle picked me up from the hotel around 11 and off we went!  Well, not exactly.... I hop in the car and she says
"Well, what do you like to do?"
"Uhh... what is there to do?"
"Hmmm.... yeah, not much"

Oh boy.  This is going to be a long day.

Somehow, by the power of greyskull, we were able to stretch what really should have been a five minute drive around the town into a few hours of chatter, lunch, and a little shopping.  Of course we ended up, you guessed it, downtown.  There actually were a few cute little knick knack stores, and it was fun to see Michelle talk to literally every other person that walked by.  I'm still trying to figure out if it's because the town is that small or if everyone really knows each other.  I think it's a little bit of both.

So what do you do on a Saturday night in McPherson, Ks?  No, you don't go to the second of the two nice restaurants in town, you go to the country club.  Oh yeah, up in the club!  Of course we were li-ter-ally the only people in the club, but the drinks were delish and the food was surprisingly tasty.

I didn't get to see Chris as much as I would have liked to, but it was great having a few extra hours that I wouldn't have had otherwise.  And of course having a few fond memories of Kansas too.

The End of an Era - Chicago, It's Been Real

After living in downtown Chicago for 7 years, I've sold my condo and moved.  Gasp!  Don't worry I'm not moving to the 'burbs.... but I'm not sure if Central Illinois is much better.

Maybe I should back up a little bit.  I'm an army brat, so I've moved around my entire life.  And until living in Chicago, I had never lived anywhere for longer than five years.  I never in a million years thought I would end up in the midwest.  I honestly don't even think I really realized that Chicago existed (except for Oprah, maybe).  But through a series of life events and jobs I found myself in downtown Chicago.

I moved to Chicago the summer of 2003.  I lived right in the heart of Wicker Park on Division.  I lived above a breakfast place, had to street park.... the whole nine.  I don't know if it's the city of Chicago or just the age I was when I moved here, but Chicago is where I really found myself.  I've been fortunate to travel a bit with my family growing up and for work and Chicago is hands down one of my favorite cities.  I've met some of my best friends here, partied like a rock star, become a die hard Chicago sports fan, and tried as many new restaurants as physically possible.

On Halloween weekend 2006 I closed on my condo.  Yeah, not good timing on my part, but hey - I just bought a condo all by myself!  I took the plunge and bought the perfect place for me - a super cute, top floor 1 bed/1 bath in Ukrainian Village.

I was an official Chicagoan!  And of course about a week later I started dating my now husband.  We've had a good run of "time sharing" between Chicago and Peoria, IL but alas it was finally time for us have a home together.  After a little over three years of living in my condo it was time to say goodbye.

Now, I've moved a million times.  Across the country and across the globe, but this was different.  This was my home that I purchased all by myself in my city where I had finally put down some roots.  I was a little nervous about how I would feel as I walked out of the condo for the last time.... no more living in the city, no more walking just a few blocks to grab the Ashland bus, no more walking to the corner to Oggi for dinner, no more just swinging by Nordstroms on Saturday afternoon.... but honestly, it was surprisingly painless.  Of course, I'll miss all of those things, but I'm so excited for the next chapter and the next adventure on the horizon.

Maybe it was the distractions of planning the wedding and now planning for a short term assignment in Australia (extending that city living just a little longer!) but I think I've made the transition pretty well!  Although I'm no longer a Chicagoan, it's still got a pretty big piece of my heart.

Chicago - it's been real.  I'll miss you.

Let's get this party started!

Okay, so I'm totally new to this blogging thing so bare with me.  I figured now is the best time to get it started with all of the big changes going on in my life.  I'll add more later in separate posts but in the course of a few months I've sold my condo in downtown Chicago, gotten married, and now I've accepted a short term international assignment in in Sydney, Australia.  Whew!  Let's just say things have been busy.

Enjoy the blog, check in often, and drop me a line every once in a while.