The Great Leap Forward

(This was supposed to be published last week but I couldn't get it up. So read it in a "Sunday night" state of mind.)

No, it's not Mao's Revolution--it's the Big Leap towards Sydney! Last week, Jeremy was offered a job with Thompson Reuter's as a legal editor for their Laws of Australia encyclopedia! Yay!! The 13th is his first day so we're outta here early tomorrow morning and hoping to find a new home before next week.

So, this week was my last day at Bella Donna! Yay for that too!! It seems that the job is consistently sliding downhill as out owner really has no motivation at all to make her business succeed. We're nearly out of cups, spoons, napkins, milk (essential to make gelati) and even some of the core ingedients. The one thing that does seem to be in abundance is some extra weight which unfortunately, I have found myself wearing. Humph. So, with the move to Sydney, Jeremy and I are embarking on a 6 month ice cream fast! No, I'm not psycho and yes, I can do it. I did it for 4 months once before so I feel confident that I can do it again. :)

Last night we said our goodbye to several of his friends by having one last dinner at a Korea restaurant. It was so great to be eating galbi again. I forgot how wonderful Korean food can be. I can't say distance has made my heart grow fonder of kimchi but my love for bean paste is ever abundant. We got to speak a bit of Korean with the staff and teach all of his friends about Korean table manners and how to toast someone in Korean. It was really fun. I will certainly miss these guys. They have been so accepting of me and have certainly made my time in Brisbane fun. I hope we'll find new friends soon in our new home in Sydney!!

Ralph and Linda



Sean and Ian

So, I'll say goodbye with just a few shots of the Brisbane city skyline.

The previous two photos were taken with Jeremy's camera. I love my camera and think it takes beautiful photos but his definitely does better night shots. The following two are from my camera...

Goodbye, Brisbane!!

Lone Pine Tasmanian Devil

The elusive Tasmanian Devil. We were all looking pretty hard to find one at the Australia Zoo but it seemed that they were either out of their enclosures or sleeping. However, Lone Pine has two and they were out, about, and having fun.



The Tasmanian Devil is not quite like the one from Looney Tunes. He's got similar markings but doesn't exactly spin in circles.



This video will tell you all about their diets and their behaviors. I can't remember if the movie makes this clear, but the Tasmanian Devil eats EVERYTHING when it comes to it's prey--that's bones, fur, meat and all!



Tasmanian Devils are decreasing in numbers throughout Tasmania (the only place in the world where they live) largely because of hunting before becoming a protected species in 1941 and since then because of a cancerous tumor that attaches itself to their face. Because Devils have very little genetic variety in their young, scientists are trying really hard to weed out the infected ones and monitor the spread of the disease. Several colonies of healthy Devils are being cultivated in order to reintroduce them should extinction be inevitable for those in the wild.



Tasmanian Devils are also marsupials (a surprise to me) and their pouch, like the wombat, is backwards as well. Not exactly sure why... When scared, the Devil emits a powerful odor which is supposed to be like a skunk's. The Tasmanian Devil also has the most powerful jaw of all... Well, Wikipedia says mammals but since he's not one... I'll just say of land animals. :)



I'm pretty sure I'll never see one of these in the wild but none the less, I'm fascinated. What a cool looking animals! It's like a mouse and a cat in one!

Lone Pine Wombats

Also at Lone Pine were wombats!! Wombats are awesome.



Wombats are burrowers and when Australia was first settled, they were mistaken for badgers! They are HUGE! Wombats weigh between 44 and 77 pounds and surprisingly for their size and lumbering nature, they are also fast! Wombats can run up to 40 kph or about 25 mph for up to 90 seconds!! It's the cheetah of the underground world!!





This video will tell you all about wombats and their underground mazes (plus give you a look at how they protect themselves and what a baby looks like).

Wombats are also marsupials. Unbeknownst to the average on-looker, wombats have a pouch like their cousins but strangely it's backwards! This is so that while digging they don't kick dirt into it.



Wombats are vegetarians and eat lots of roots and vegetation, however, a few animals eat them too. Dingos and Tasmanian Devils are their main predators.

Lone Pine Koalas

Adventures are afoot!! Monday was my day off and Jeremy and I finally headed out to visit Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. They have more than just koalas there (but of course these little guys are the main attractions) which made it an interesting little day trip for us. You know I'm a sucker for cute animals. Surprisingly, even though this place is only a couple miles from Jeremy's home, this was his first time there too!



We found ourselves arriving just in time to catch the koala presentation at the park which was really quite interesting. Of course, these guys made us all laugh right from the start. First, this little guy popped his head over the projector screen to see what all us visitors were looking at!



Then, this other guy in the park, started making these strange noises which you can hear in this YouTube video. These are the mating and territorial sounds of koalas. Can you imagine walking through the forest in the dark and hearing that come out of the trees? What would you think it was??



At the park, we learned all kinds of cool Koala facts. First, there are two kinds of koalas: Southern and Northern. The Southern Koala is larger, darker, and in my opinion, furrier.

(This guy is a Southern Koala.)

Koalas only live in Australia and only on the east coast. However, their population is quickly decreasing--mostly due to land clearing. Koalas are finicky eaters. They only eat Eucalyptus leaves and of the more than 400 different species of Eucalyptus in Australia, the Koala only eats leaves from about 40 of them. And from among those leaves, they still choose to eat only the best!

Koalas eat about 500 grams of leaves a day which is the primary source of their water. Because koalas are kinda slow and easy prey for predators, they have adapted to life in trees and gleaning water from leaves so they won't have to look for water on the ground where a dingo might snatch them up! But because all their water comes from these leaves and because they need to eat so many of them to gain such a small amount of energy, koalas need to sleep between 16 and 18 hours a day.



Another interesting fact about their food is that Eucalyptus leaves are toxic; few animals can eat them. Here is another interesting facet of their adaptation--they feed on a plentiful plant that no one else eats and their stomachs contain a special bacteria that breaks down the toxins so their food can be digested!





Lots of koalas get run over each year as urban sprawl tends to move right into their neighborhood. They also find themselves subject to a new kind of dog--the domestic one.



Unfortunately, one other major factor to their recent decline in number is Chlamydia--a virus that can eat the flesh right off a koala's face, often leaving them blind. However, this can be treated and remedied with antibiotics.



Something else you might find interesting, each koala has special and unique markings on his/her butt. This is how many of the keepers at Lone Pine distinguish between all of their 190 little friends. When up in a tree, koala butts serve as camouflage because it looks like spots of light breaking through the forest canopy.



The koala pictured above is a male which is easy to spot because the has a dark, yellow-y looking patch on his chest. This is actually his "stink spot" which he can rub all over trees to mark his territory and attract all the ladies!



One cool thing about koalas is that they are marsupials (don't call it a "Koala Bear"--it pisses off the Aussies!). That means their young are born significantly underdeveloped and then crawl up the momma's fur and into her pouch where the can continue to develop. Once they're big enough, the koala can then ride on the momma's back.



At the end of our trip, Jeremy and I went in to hold a koala. OMG. Talk about fun!! I am so in love. Seriously. Who needs children? I just want to adopt koalas! I think that's illegal though... ;)

Future family photo??



This guy even gave me a kiss!! All on his own! They love me. They're my best friends.

Afterwards, we went into the gift shop to pick up our pictures and I swear, if I wasn't 24, I'd probably have purchase one of those little koala backpacks for kids under 10. Seriously. I also thought pretty hard about buying a stuffed animal. Seeing and holding one of these adorable little animals just turned me into one big kid.



I love koalas. I hope this made you love them too.

Tearing up the rug!

To pass the time around here, we've been renovating the house which includes painting, replacing the skirting boards and trim around the doors, and removing the carpet so we can install hardwood floors.

It's been an adventure--as my previous post suggested--but it got a lot more adventurous yesterday. We found ants in the wall around the door. ACK!

I heard Jeremy oh-ing with surprise and came into the room to find him covered with ants and them crawling all over the wall. Turns out they had made a lovely like home under the trim. We sprayed the wall with bug killer but my skin was crawling and I was so grossed out I could hardly look at it. Then he found them again--under another door! What bad luck!

Anyway, it's been fun. Sorta. I puttied walls yesterday, he sanded and today I think there is a little more puttying in the works.

Write something.

I must say, after so much adventuring, life just seems so dull. It's been pretty difficult coming up with things to do. Jeremy and I have been sitting at home sans money and looking for work online which has yielded nothing. Nothing. After 30, 40, 50 applications? Still nothing? I was getting pretty discouraged looking for work since no one was responding to my resumes and cover letters. And you know, when you spend a good two hours writing a well-crafted cover letter, you would really like something in return, even if it's just a rejection letter. It really bites to put in so much hard work and get nothing back for it.

So, tired of playing hide-and-seek with the other unemployed (it seems that lots of people are looking for jobs these days) I went out to the backpacker district and just handed out tons of resumes at every bar, restaurant and cafe that I came to. I kinda put this off for a while because I was really hoping to get something with better pay and a little closer to home (Fortitude Valley--the backpacker/nightlife area--is a good hour away) but the desire for money and something to burn energy on was the deciding factor. Even if I spend half of what I earn on transportation, some money is better than no money. And lucky for me, I got somewhere with it.

I walked in to Bella Donna Gelateria and was told to come right back on Tuesday and meet the manager. That went well but there was competition there too: a girl from Italy named Sandra. Knowing we were both being evaluated as we practiced scooping ice cream and serving customers, I just took the lead. No Italian girl was going to take that job from me!! And I think I impressed them; They asked me to come back Wednesday night and try out the closing shift. That went well too and I was able to make good conversation with the manager, greet lots of customers, remember most of the gelati flavors, and I had fun doing it all. So they asked me to come back one more time--Saturday morning--and try the opening shift. I really think this job is going to work out! I guess I'm not really hired yet until I've practiced both the opening and closing shifts (because there's only ever one person at the shop) but the manager said if you make it through both shifts, you'll probably be hired. YAY! And it seems like a pretty relaxed place to work too. You can even read and bring your own music to work! Heck yeah!

All this has me feeling pretty good. I did have another interview at a restaurant called Grill'd today (coincidentally, it's next door to Bella Donna) but it just wasn't right and honestly, Bella Donna is going to give me more hours and a better work environment. Oh, and gelato of course. :)

But things are still a little slow around here. Jeremy and I are in charge of dinner one night a week and tonight I cooked tacos--a big hit. Our other happenings include running every other day but we're thinking of making it an everyday thing. I think it needs to be. It seems to me that taking a day off between runs is actually hurting my performance and keeping me from building the strength I need to run these monster hills around here!

In other news, Jeremy and I have started reading a book out loud together every night (the excitement never ends around here) called The Year 1000. (Hmmm, I don't know how to underline in this thing...) But really, it is interesting. It's all about what life was like for the average English man and woman in the year 1000 AD. So far we've talked about the Gregorian calendar, the development of the English language, lots of Bede, and King Alfred. It's kinda like trivia in novel form!

Photos are at a standstill since I don't leave the house too often and the Internet upload speed around here is so slow that I might out pace it by posting my letters to Flickr. But be assured, as soon as I have a job and some money to spend, I am heading straight for the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary! (It's about a 10 minute drive from here.)

Hmmmm.... What else? (As you can see, I'm trying to fill the blog void of this last month with something interesting.) I've been making a list of stories I want to write and publish in the next month or so. I'm also trying to put together a photography portfolio because getting a spot in a gallery is pretty high on my to do list. I also got to thinking and decided today that I need a website. A real one. I want to showcase my writing and photography and give future publishers and employers a good look at how professional I can be. Though I haven't the foggiest idea how to do this. It might take some research. Or maybe just a web nerd who likes to make web pages. Know anyone? Unfortunately, that isn't really Jeremy's thing...

Jeremy is doing well. He's been busy working on applications too but like myself, hasn't had much of a response. He's kinda stuck in a rut with work. He left Australia just after becoming a qualified solicitor to teach in Korea and since the market is kinda cooling here in Australia (though I should add it's not nearly as bad as everywhere else), no one's really looking for anyone with less than 4 years experience. But he's trudging along. I really am proud of him for not giving up and for continuing to send out resumes and make calls about jobs. And he has really been an encouragement when I wanted to give up. I'm really lucky to have him in my life. :)

Oh! And we're both ADDICTED to The Biggest Loser. Have you guys watched it? O.M.G. Inspiring stuff! Sunday is the Australian version's finale and we're getting pretty excited. It really is SO much fun to sit down and have a ritual show together. I love that hour or so every night when we can watch tv and discuss other people's lives for a change. We once said that we weren't going to get a tv or bother with cable when we got our own place... Maybe that should change??

Well, I guess that's about all. I'll tune you all in again sometime soon when I've collected enough tidbits to compile a whole post again. :)

Welcome to the wild kingdom!

We haven't had too many outings around here (cause neither of us have any money) but we did make it out to the University of Queensland campus Sunday afternoon and managed to track some pretty exciting wild life! Okay, not that exciting, but when you consider Jeremy and his cave-dwelling brother David to be the only animals I see on a regular basis, these birds seemed pretty cool.

I love this photo. It looks almost like a water color painting.



And some cool lizard chilling out by the lake... I had to get a few photos of him. :)

Brissie

Not much going on here these days... I applied to two jobs this morning, both in marketing. They seem to have some promise so hopefully someone will hire me soon. Jeremy is still on the seach too. Neither of us have a car and neither of us have much money, and his parent's place is kind of out of walking reach of the city so day trips have been limited. Pretty much the only time we get out of the house is at 5:15 each afternoon when we go for our run/walk around the neighborhood.

We did, however, manage to make it out once last week and did a bit of walking through Brisbane as well as hopping around on the City Cat. City Cat is basically a catamaran ferry that transports people up and down Brisbane River. Appearently Sydney has a vast City Cat network too. Here's a couple photos from our day out.

The tallest building just left of center is where Jeremy used to work as a lawyer with Phillips Fox.

This is a City Cat! Talk about fun! You just kinda glide across the water and move at some pretty high speeds. It just might be more fun than the Washington ferries...

G'day, Mate!

Yes, I made it and am alive. It's been a rough last few days though:

Friday: sat in the LCCT at KLIA for about 5 hours and ate tons of McDonalds. Result: stomach aches for hours. Then hopped on a plane for an overnight flight to the Gold Coast in Australia. It was okay. Surprisingly, the plane was rather spacious for a budget airline and brand new! Air Asia has got some interesting gadgets.... The flight information channel displayed a compass to show what direction you were flying as well as what direction Mecca was in (for Muslims in prayer). Ingenious. Jeremy didn't sleep at all (poor guy) and instead let me lay my head in his lap and take up the whole row (we had three seats to ourselves).

Saturday: I was a little afraid that I'd be searched and arrested for bringing in a petrified sea shell into Australia (they have the world's toughest customs regulations) and decided to declare it. Luckily, the customs officer didn't care and let me go! Yay for unique souvenirs! (I found the sea shell in the Sahara of Egypt). Once outside, I met Jeremy's parents for the first time and their lovely friend Eca (from Romania), who greeted me with a pashima shawl and a coin purse made of kangaroo leather. So nice! When we got home in Brisbane, it was a mad dash to unpack our boxes, pile up the laundry, eat a bit of food, pick up a hair straightener, pick up Jeremy's new 24" computer screen (yeah, big), and get ready for the 21st birthday party. I was under the impression that I'd be meeting all of his aunts and uncles too but as it turns out, Jeremy's brother is a little unmotivated these days and sent invites via email. Only his friends showed up. Which was fine with me, really. I was so tired. Jeremy, on the other hand, was full-speed-ahead on putting back together his computer, though in the end, he discovered that something broke while in the mail and it was going to take a lot of money to replace things--like $1,500. He went to bed a little defeated.

Sunday: the plan was to meet his friends that night but his mom had put together a big Australian meal for dinner, so we opted to stay in. And I was oh so thankful too. She made the most delicious turkey I've ever had as well as potato salad, lamb with mint sauce (YUM!), pumpkin, broccoli and cauliflower (oh, I missed veggies!!!), and an assortment of other yumminess. For desert we had pavlova--a meringue cake topped with fresh fruit. To. Die. For. I ate so well. Jeremy stayed up all night (literally) researching the compatibility of different computer components and makes so that he could go pick up the pieces the next day and start fixing things.

Monday: The house was quiet (I should mention that there are a LOT of people around here: grandparents, 4 of us "kids," and J's parents) and Jeremy finally got some sleep while I cleaned, ironed and read emails. That night we planned to meet his friends for Ashely's (a guy) birthday party, so I had to get iron some shirts--something like 12! Ha! Jeremy picked up the computer stuff and worked all afternoon on it. Dinner with his friends was great. We met in Fortitude Valley (similar to Seattle's U District), ate Chinese food and drink lots of wine. His friends are so nice and I had a great time getting to know some of the girls (tomorrow I'm supposed to go shopping with one of them?). Jeremy fell right back in where he left off (somewhat to his relief) and had a lot of fun relating the adventures of his trip in Iran. It was so good to go out for a change and feel like a normal couple again. It's been AGES since we've been out for drinks with friends. There's supposed to be another get together this weekend too. Something about a Risk tournament coupled with movies and we're all supposed to come in the traditional dress of some country. If this does indeed happen, I'm wearing my sari from India and J will be in his kimono. It was a busy night and we slept well (though it took a lot of convincing to keep Jeremy from heading downstairs and working on his computer all night!).

Tuesday: well, it was supposed to be "paper day" (as in, sorting things) but ended up being "computer day." I organized photos on Flickr and Jeremy put his computer together, asking for my help occasionally. It was sorta fun. I got to screw all the hard drives together and connect cables. I was a little honored that he would trust me to touch the innards of such an expensive machine! But I have no desire to get into computers myself. I'm quite happy being the computer nerd's girlfriend than nerdstress of the Moschner household. I'll take a self-contained, self-maintained laptop, please! That's pretty much all we did. In the evening, I convinced him to take a break and watch a movie with me. (It's easy to lure him away from the computer if you hold popcorn in your hand.) Then it was off to bed! So much for searching for jobs... I guess that will be today's chore...

More stuff to come including the episode where Kortney accidentally drank fruit concentrate and How To Speak Australian. :)