Melbourne Trip

Tuesday, May 17, 2011 9:42 AM Posted by Mimi and Joe
I had heard a lot about Melbourne before we went for our visit - in retrospect, I probably heard too much because my expectations were sky-high.  I was impressed driving in from the airport on Thursday night - the streets were wide (if you live in Sydney you will get why that is a big deal) and the city looked large and very planned.  We finally arrived and checked in to The Rialto around 10pm - I knew it was going to be a good stay when they took our bags from us and took them up to the room while we were getting checked in.  The room was sumptuous - not huge; but well appointed.

Every single detail was perfect and the shower alone was worth the price tag.  Joe immediately collapsed into the luxurious bed; but, me being me, I needed to take a couple of hours to wind down.  I decided to unpack and settle the room - and check out the mini-bar.  Then I decided that I wanted a bourbon and ginger; but there was no little ice/freezer compartment in the fridge.  I pressed the "instant service" button on the phone, asked for ice and was promised that it would be delivered promptly.  It was...  in a silver bucket big enough to bathe a baby in, on an additional silver platter, with a doily.  I could have made hundreds of drinks with all that ice!  Anyway, drink in hand, I finished unpacking and then decided to give the shower an inaugural run still with drink in hand.  It was perfect.... enough said....

We ventured out the following day for a self-guided walking tour of the city...  It was very quiet since it was Good Friday and not much was open; but we still had a great little wander.  There was a lot that I liked about Melbourne; but there was a lot that I didn't.  The little lane ways were gorgeous.... This one in particular, full of graffiti art was one of my favourites.  We walked around the CBD, went to Southbank, walked around Federation Square and rounded out the day with dinner in Fitzroy.  Back to the hotel for a nightcap and called it a day.




Saturday the city was much more vibrant - everything was open and there were tourists everywhere!  We had to pick up our rental car around 3 so we had an early breakfast at the hotel and headed out again.  We went to the Observation deck at the top of the Eureka tower.  It was cool seeing the city laid out like that and I got to see where the Australian Open is held (fairly easy to spot due to the massive quantity of blue courts).  It made me realise that we still have not been to the top of the tower in Sydney - We will have to rectify that this Spring (Fall if you are reading this in America) when Joe's parents come to visit.  We wandered some more and ended up at a Yum Cha restaurant looking out over the river for lunch and then went to pick up our rental  car.

Side note - I was nervous using Europcar as I had never used them and they seemed very "Budget-esque"; but they were the only ones with cars left when I was planning the trip so I had no choice.  I have to say though, very very good service - nicer even than Hertz!

Anyway, that was the end of the Melbourne portion of our trip - here are some more photos for your viewing pleasure.....





This guy was crazy-talented!



I've just realised that I now have a picture of Australia's highest restaurant and now Australia's highest postbox - apparently, instead of getting into the giant things that are so prevalent here, I am now into the highest things!

This picture is for Matt



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A lead up to the Melbourne Trip...

Monday, May 16, 2011 10:51 AM Posted by Mimi and Joe
As some of you may be marking off the days on a special calendar and trembling in anticipation may know, Joe and I are leaving on Sunday the 22nd for an almost 3 week holiday in the States.  Excitement abounds and I am even more busy than usual - what with the packing and preparing...

You would think that being busy would be bad for blog writing; but, in this case, it is forced me to get some stuff done.  I've been wanting to blog about our Easter holiday; but the photos have been sitting - leering at me from my sadly neglected pictures folder.  How do you choose 4 or 5 good photos of the 12 Apostles when you have about 40 photos of them in different shades of sunset?  See... you understand now...

Well, Joe's mom (i.e. the greatest MIL ever) has planned an open house for us during our visit so that we can see the whole family without having to cram a bunch of individual visits into our time there.  We decided to put together a folder of pictures so that people could see where we have been and how beautiful this country is...  Well, actually, I was just going to throw everything into a folder and let it play at random; but Joe has been nice enough to put together something with some heft and depth.  The photos will actually be in order and there will be some labels and explanations as needed.  That will save us from standing next to the tv all day saying - "Yes, this was our trip to Thredbo" - "Oh, that's an Echidna".

Anyway, this whole process necessitated an afternoon on the couch with Joe going through my pictures folder.  I have come to realise that I am not nearly as organised as I like to think I am...  The pinnacle of embarrassment came when I had to show him a folder entitled "Random Australia" in which I had pitched an alarming number of completely random photos.  Add to that the existence of additional random folders in my on-line Picasa account that I had uploaded from my phone; and I am truly feeling sorry for him.  We had many conversations like this one yesterday:

"Oh honey, I don't really like that photo - you should really put up the one of the Botanical Garden"

"Where are those ones?"

"Oh, they are in the folder called Nature - Sydney - Garden"

"That one is empty"

"Oh.....  Did you try Random Australia?"

"Yeah"

"Oh....  Here, let me have the mouse"

click.... click.... click... click...

"Here they are!  On-line in my Uploaded Blog Pictures folder"

"Thanks (almost invisible eyeroll)"

Anyway, the upshot of all of this is that we went through all the photos from our Easter holiday and they are now sorted and done.  I was going to have this blog post actually be about Melbourne with some pictures; but now it's sort of long and I don't want to blow everything at once!

Tomorrow my pretties - tomorrow....

But here's an arty picture of the Opera House to tide you over (I know that it doesn't have anything to do with our trip to Melbourne; but I'm feeling guilty for not having any other photos in this post!)

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Wherever a man turns he can find someone who needs him

Saturday, May 14, 2011 4:36 PM Posted by Mimi and Joe
Hey All,

I know this is supposed to be a post about our trip to Melbourne and our drive on the GOR; but that will have to wait.

There is a blog that I have been following for a while - My best friend Meaghan introduced me to it and I was hooked from the first entry I read.

http://www.jennepper.com/ - Please make your way over and check it out.  It's a very funny account of infertility... until she has a baby - then it becomes a very funny account of pregnancy and motherhood in general. The story turns sad though and Jen and her family need help - here is a link to her friend Andrea's blog with all the donation links and information - http://dixonsmakeitwork.blogspot.com/p/just-relax.html - Please go there and donate... And if you are living in Cleveland, please consider attending the fundraiser.

I would try to write my own synopsis of the sad story here; but I would do a horrible job.  So, I am going to unabashedly copy straight from her friend Andrea's blog:


I am lucky enough to have known Jen (you might know her as Jennepper!) for a few years and to be able to call her an "in real life" friend. Gianna even considers Oliva one of her BFF's

Jen is amazing. As is her husband Mark. And their girls.

It took 3 years for Jen & Mark to successfully conceive Olivia. Miss O was born on valentine’s day 2009 and has been adorable, dramatic and awesome ever since.

Last summer, Jen & Mark decided to add to their family and after a successful FET they found out they would be having identical twins. Unfortunately, her pregnancy wasn’t all roses & sunshine – there were lots of concerns and doctors and drama. In the end, Jen ended up in the hospital around 32 weeks with hopes of seeing her girls very soon. A c-section was scheduled and the wait began. 
Things went wrong. Very wrong. The girls were born via emergency C-section on December 29, 2010. Itty Bitty Baby, Ainsley, was small but mighty and taken straight to the NICU. Hog Baby, Evelyn, was just as beautiful but born perfectly still.
Ainsley is a fighter. A beautiful little girl who is surrounded by so much love, hope and prayers. She has been through a lot in her short little life – including spine surgery, G-tube surgery and most recently a tracheotomy. 

The road ahead is long and her family has been adjusting to their “new normal” that includes 2 full time working parents, spending time with Olivia and spending whatever time they can with Ainsley along with countless hours in the car coming to and from all of these places.

Who knows what the future holds, all we can do is focus on the now.

When someone is hurting, or in need, as friends we want to do SOMETHING. If we could take away their pain and their hurt we would, but since we can't we typically try to fill their bellies and put a smile on their face in any way possible.

A group of friends, and mom’s, have come together to do just that – support, fill bellies and make smiles. At first our small group of amazing women were able to provide them, amongst other things, a basket full of goodies including gas cards, parking passes, groceries and dinners.
With the long road ahead for the Knepper's, we want to do something more and we want to reach out to all of YOU – all of the wonderful people who follow Jen’s blog, know her in real life and just want to extend their prayers/thoughts/hope into action.

Please share this page, Jen’s story, and ALL of this information in whatever way you can.

Blog about it and link back here. Share the button we have created on your blog. Tweet it. Facebook it. Email it. Donate. Pray. Love. Hope.

We are accepting donations, of all shapes and sizes – there is no such thing as an amount too small.




There is also an event.

Myself along with several other "in real life" friends have put together a fundraiser dinner & Reverse Raffle where 100% of the profit will benefit the Knepper family.
There will be food, booze, reverse raffles, live entertainment, lots of goodies to be raffled off with a side of relaxation.

The event is planned for Saturday July 23rd in Northeast Ohio.

If you are interested in attending the event or if you would like to donate an item to be given away (we’ll take whatever you want to give us!) please contact us for further information.

If you have any questions at all – email us.
We can’t wait to hear from you!

No family should have to go through something like this. No baby should be in the hospital for this long instead of at home. No parent should have to experience loss and joy on the same day, and no one should have to travel this long road without support. As a mother, I can't imagine her loss. As a friend, I can't imagine her strength.

Please share this page, Jen’s story, and ALL of this information in whatever way you can.

Blog about it and link back here. Share the button we have created on your blog. Tweet it. Facebook it. Email it. Donate. Pray. Love. Hope.
Are You Listening


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Home Again Home Again

Wednesday, April 27, 2011 10:37 AM Posted by Mimi and Joe
Well, we arrived back to Sydney last night to find rain and a 25 minute wait in the taxi queue.  It didn't do much for my feelings of homecoming; but walking into our apartment did.  I forgot all about our view - about the water and the lights from the city.  I had to run around to all the windows exclaiming over every familiar sailboat.

The cleaners had been during our absence so the place was clean and looked so darn welcoming.  Sleeping in our bad last night was a perfect end to the long holiday weekend.

I have oodles of pictures and much to tell you about; but I also have 2 suitcases of dirty laundry to deal with.  So, give me a few days to get myself in order and then this weekend I will go post-crazy with our gorgeous photos.

Hope you all had a wonderful Easter!
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I’ve been putting off this entry for months…. I’m sure you’ve noticed

Monday, April 18, 2011 2:31 PM Posted by Mimi and Joe
It’s a bit embarrassing how long I’ve gone without updating this space and it reminds me of my own frustrations when I was reading Aussie ex-pat blogs before I moved here.  The blogs would be full of information, pictures, details… They were engaging and I was completely hooked on them.  They would start off strong and then, as people got jobs and settled into normal routines, the updates would either come less frequently or stop altogether.  Even when the updates would continue, the tone would change in a huge way – it would go from Adventure! Excitement! Discovery! to Boring! Tired! Routine!

That’s about how I’m feeling right now…  Joe and I are both working full time so there is no time for me to go on little day trip adventures or to go explore a new market on a Tuesday morning…  Weekends seem sacred now – A time for us to recover from the week and to do things that are enjoyable to us (mostly that involves sleeping in and having quiet dinners with friends).  The idea of going on some huge trek across the city via public transport on a Sunday, quite frankly, makes me want to crawl back under the covers and sleep for the rest of the day.  I also don’t have the free time to spend an afternoon writing three or four blog posts complete with pictures.  Any of you readers who works all day and then comes home to make dinner and do laundry knows exactly what I mean.  The “me” time is the first to go away.

Not that I’m complaining – not by a long shot….  Joe loves his job.  I love my job.  We are perfectly happy with our weekends of indulged laziness.  I guess this is just my explanation (or my half-hearted apology of sorts) to you for not having more of an exciting life to post about.  

I’m not making any promises to be better about posting; but I do have some exciting things planned in the next few months that might make posting more of a joy.  Joe and I are going on holiday to Melbourne over the Easter break.  It’s only five days and we have a lot that we want to see and do; but I think it will be incredible.  We are spending the first two days in Melbourne proper and then spending three days at a B & B on the Great Ocean Road where we will get to relax and look at beautiful scenery.  I’m sure I will have pages and pages of photos to post after we get back.   There is also a tentative weekend trip to the Hunter Valley planned for early May with our two favourite couples.

The most exciting travel coming up is a 16 day trip back to the States!  We are going back in late May (Yay!  We will be there for Memorial Day) and returning home in early June.  I’ve know for a while that this trip was in the works; but we hadn’t finalised anything until last week.  Now that we have our leave scheduled at work and our plane tickets bought, I am getting practically dizzy with excitement!  I am starting to form mental shopping lists of all of the things I want to stock up on while we are there.  It’s a bit mad to me to think that we have been gone for almost a year.  We landed in Sydney on the 23rd of June.  We’ll be landing in LA on the 22nd of May – 11 months already gone on this adventure and it seems like it’s just been about half of that.
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The Lady Meets the Queen

Thursday, February 24, 2011 7:00 PM Posted by Mimi and Joe
Two mornings ago there was quite an event in the harbour.  It was billed as "The Lady Meets the Queen".  Basically, there were going to be two cruise ships passing each other in the harbour - the Queen Mary 2 and the Queen Elizabeth.  I heard some folks talking about it and I also saw some signs up on the ferry wharves advertising it.  Quite frankly, I was pretty underwhelmed...  There are always cruise ships coming in and out of the harbour - after a while you just stop noticing them....  I wasn't about to take time out of my snoozing time to go look at some boats for goodness sake!  

Well, Tuesday morning the alarm went off at 6:30 (ugh!) and Joe went to take the first shower (I have arranged it this way so I can loll around in bed for a few more minutes and make myself tea without feeling too guilty).  Suddenly there was noise assaulting the peaceful morning - helicopters mostly; and two of the loudest ships horns (whistles? Do ships have horns?) I have ever heard.  Joe and I both went out to the office to check it out; and I have to say I'm glad I got to witness it.  I learned later that the Queen Mary 2 is the third largest cruise ship in the world and the Queen Elizabeth isn't much smaller so it was pretty breathtaking to see these floating cities pass each other in such a narrow part of the harbour.  

Luckily my camera was nearby so I have some shots to share with you; but really, they are pretty crap - you can blame it on me still being half asleep and not wanting to open the window and let the cold wind in!  Also because I had not had my tea yet.  

Oh, and did I mention the choppers?  There were eight of them circling the ships as they moved like snails through the water.  I'm guessing security was pretty tight on this - they didn't even have eight choppers for Oprah...

The next day when I got home, I checked the mail and got a nasty surprise - No, not the usual spiders and webs that are pretty much always in there.  It was a letter from the US District Court - Eastern Division of Kentucky!  I had one of those moments where your heart stops for a minute or so and then starts flinging itself against your ribcage.  Horrible scenarios started running through my mind - I was being summoned, subpoenaed, sued or something else equally as awful.  I ripped the letter open only to find a jury summons - Ha!  What a trick!  Needless to say, I do not qualify for jury duty in my present situation, i.e... living outside of Boone County for more that six months out of the last year and also living out of the actual United Sates. 

Back to the pictures of the cruise ships - I wanted to share them right away so I plugged in my camera that same morning and was completely embarrassed to see photos downloading from as far back as Australia Day (for those of you who don't know, that was on January 26th.... Oops).  So, it seems as though I need to do some serious photo editing and then start sharing them.  Maybe I'll work on that tonight?  Then again.... maybe not!
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Helloooooo Manchester!! And...some pictures of Thredbo!

Monday, February 7, 2011 11:11 AM Posted by Mimi and Joe
Hello all you eager blog readers!

First off, I want to congratulate the little town of Manchester, NY for bravely stepping into the breech left by the absence of South Korea - You are the number five city that visits my blog!  Hurray for you!

Secondly, I want to talk about the last leg of our Christmas trip.  Thredbo was gorgeous - the mountains were stunning of course; but what really made the stay there so great was the level of relaxation that we were all able to reach by the end of our stay.

There was plenty of hiking of course (like when Joe started at the bottom and climbed to the top on the most difficult track); but mostly I remember the spa treatments, the monopoly games, the yummy dinners and the evenings spent (in one room or the other) drinking wine and talking.  We decided to extend our stay there by an extra day and it was the best decision that we made the entire trip.  We stayed at The Denman which was staffed by a team of the most friendly and wonderful people I had encountered on the trip.  (So nice, in fact, that they did not charge us for a bottle of wine from the mini-bar that we accidentally broke.)

Joe and I went on a ski-lift for the first time.  I expected him to be a nervous wreck since he has a fear of heights; but he ended up being fairly calm.  The ride up was easy-peasy for me; but I surprised the both of us by being more scared on the ride back down than he was! I think I need to visit Cedar Point the next time I am in the States so I can ride some coasters and get back my usual ambivalence to high, dangerous places!

Anyway, here's some photos...  They don't even begin to do any justice to these incredibly beautiful mountains; but at least they can give you an idea of what it looked like!

The View from our Room

At the top of the ski-lift (arrow is pointing to our room)

Views from the top of ski lift and beginning of hike





A list of the available hikes


We did the sissy walk!

Views from the Hike - Notice the snow!!



Reaching the Lookout

The View from the Lookout

Us at the Lookout

Me in my Chrissy Hat and Scarf

This bird was only about a foot away from me and HUGE!

Back at the restaurant for some beer and burgers!



















On out way out of Thredbo National Park - I was obsessed with getting pictures of these signs!  Joe was nice enough to pull over so I could run around on the road and take these...
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