An Email From Tommy: Our Adventure Captured from A Different Perspective

Hello Fantastic Family,

Thank you so much for all your generous donations to the Tommy Australian fund.  The funds are leaking at a rapid rate and your birthday donations are much appreciated. THANK YOUUUU SOOO MUCH!!!  Instead of using this money on rent and life necessities, like food and beer, I will be using it instead to take a short vacation to either Tasmania or Southern Australia, or to the extravagant Sydney Vineyards, either way your donations will be put to good use.

Although my travels have been documented by my wonderful girlfriend Kaitlin at seegsatsea.blogspot.com, I would like to tell you about my travels from a different perspective.  Sydney, Australia, although suffering from a lack of work ethic and dental care, is the best place on Earth, besides New Jersey of course.  The only downside of Sydney is that everything is so expensive. Considering that the average beer at the local pub is 8 dollars and a movie ticket is 20 dollars, it makes sense that Sydney is currently ranked 7th most expensive city to live in in the world.  Besides the money part, Sydney is amazing, especially Manly Beach.  The reason why Sydney is my favorite city that I have ever visited is because it has everything.  Think about combining the best parts about New York, San Francisco, and LA and creating one great city. That city would be Sydney. It has the world-renowned Sydney harbor, like San Francisco, with the iconic landmarks of the Sydney Bridge and opera house. It has world-class beaches minutes away from the center of Sydney, similar to that of LA. It also has great city parks, like Hyde Park and the Royal Botanic Gardens, and a central city structure like that of New York.  The people here are one of kind too.  They are laid back about everything, sometimes too much, and love to have a good time, no matter what day it is.  During a typical working day it seems like the average worker has at least three to four breaks.  An hour coffee break at 10am, a two hour lunch break at noon and another afternoon coffee break at 3pm, and before you know it they are outside sipping on cocktails right outside of their office building at 5pm.  My kind of work!  And even though Kaitlin and I only have enough friends that can be counted on two hands, we are having an absolute blast.  

Ok so after my last vacation I PROMISE I will get a real job, and begin my real life and stop living in this fairytale, or as I like to call it my "country club".  So thank you kind family for providing me with the opportunity to take one last vacation, with your generous birthday donations, as a final hurrah to my unrealistic yet wonderful Country Club life in Sydney.  I wish you all the best during this Holiday season, and I am looking forward to our next family Skype session. Happy Holidays!

Love,
Tommy

Bird-Day Boy!

11/21/11 – Manly, Australia

This morning when I woke up Tommy brought “Adventure Kait My Cooking Mate” breakfast in bed.  That is what he now calls me after the last cooking blog.  Pretty clever if you ask me!

11/22/11 – Manly, Australia

Rainy days...

As we walked to town to the grocery store, we could not help but realize the dark clouds turning a nice shade of black.  Sure enough as we stepped outside of the market an hour later ready to walk home, it was pouring.  We sure do know how to pick the ideal time to do our grocery shopping, a 15-minute walk from our apartment.  Clad in shorts and t-shirts, we arrived back to our apartment looking like we had just taken a nice dip in the ocean.  A nice soggy dinner sounds delicious right now…

11/23/11 – Manly, Australia

It is still raining…

Talk about cabin fever!  The rain keeps Tommy and me locked in our little apartment aching to get out, stretch our legs, and overcome our boredom.  There are only so many movies to watch and cups of hot cocoa to drink!

Luckily my volleyball coaching, although initially canceled, was still on for today.  No, we did not play soggy beach volleyball, but got moved indoors to the school’s gym.  The 15 minute run through the rain, with the lack of a car or bike was lovely as I showed up to coach looking like a drowned rat, but the idea of cash in my pocket at the end of the day left a smile.  Desperate times call for desperate measures…just kidding.

Town hall lit up for Christmas in the city.

11/24/11 – Manly, Australia

Of course another Thursday was canceled from rain.  At this point we need a rowboat to get across our patio to our garage.  The rain has not let up since Tuesday afternoon!

On a better note:

Happy Turkey Day everyone!  I know your Thanksgiving does not start until tomorrow, but we are celebrating in Aussie, GOBBLE GOBBLE!

We are attending a Thanksgiving Party on Saturday with the entire spread of the festive foods, so we did a modified Thanksgiving feast for tonight.  Buying a whole turkey was just too expensive for us, so we opted for a half of a turkey that was more similar to cold cuts…works for us!  To supplement our turkey, we picked out a few of our favorite dishes, which resulted in a sugar fest!  We gorged on sweet potato casserole and baked Brie.  The sweet potatoes were whipped with cinnamon and nutmeg spices, and topped with brown sugar and marshmallows before being baked in the oven to create this heavenly dish.  The baked Brie was smothered in a mixture of caramel, brown sugar, and pecans, acting as our appetizer when in reality it was a dessert.  For dessert we had a pecan pie, meaning more sugar.  It is not surprise that by the end of our meal we were dancing to our Christmas music to work off our sugar highs! 

 

Thanksgiving is a day to give thanks, and today I am most thankful for my family.  I miss my sisters and parents everyday, but am so lucky that they support my passion for travel and adventure.  The support of my parents has allowed me to travel across the world to Australia, and they push me to strive for more everyday.  I am thankful for my sisters because they are my best friends, and not many siblings can say the same.  I feel blessed everyday to have such an amazing family that I love so much!  I miss you all and hope you have a wonderful Turkey Day back at home!    

Of course I am also thankful for Tommy, my fellow adventure-er!  He is my partner in crime, and has made this journey better than I ever could have imagined!  Today was our first Thanksgiving together on our own, and I’d say we did a pretty dang good job together! 

11/25/11 – Manly, Australia

RAIN…more movies.  Thank you iTunes.

 

Pecan Pie and a Root Beer Float for dessert.

11/26/11 – Manly, Australia

RAIN RAIN GO AWAY!

Well, the rain finally let up this afternoon, just in time for our Thanksgiving party.  Eric, a contact living here in Manly, invited us to his annual Thanksgiving party with a handful of Americans thrown in with a large group of Australians.  It was fun to share our holiday with the mouth watering Aussies, and three 16 pound turkeys were enough to feed us all, and then some.  I was on salad duty and made a goat cheese, apple, candied pecan salad that was well loved by everyone at the party, but the highlight of the evening was the pumpkin pie.  An older man from Colorado brought 5 homemade pumpkin pies made from scratch, and from scratch I mean he made them straight from the pumpkin.  I have never had and never will have a pumpkin pie as delicious as this one!  Tommy and I were thrilled to take home the pumpkin pie leftovers.

11/27/11 – Manly, Australia

SURPRISE!

Tonight I threw Tommy a surprise birthday party with four of our friends.  I wanted to do something special for him because he had a bit of a tough time missing Thanksgiving back home.  I had set up a dinner at a restaurant called Out of Africa in town by the wharf, and had Jon, Hanna, Gina and Travis waiting at the decorated table for our arrival.  When we walked in the restaurant, I pointed out the table to Tommy with our friends anxiously waiting, and of course he thought it was a coincidence they were all their and went to tell the hostess our name so we could be seated.  I had to drag him over to the table for him to understand that it was a surprise party for him and we were not coincidently all having dinner at the same restaurant the night before his birthday!  As much as I would love to make fun of him for this, this is something I would do, and in fact did the exact same thing when Kirsten threw me a surprise birthday party my senior year of high school.  After the realization that everyone was there for him, he was very surprised and had a great night followed by a chocolate dessert at Max Brenner.

11/28/11 – Manly, Australia

HAPPY BIRTHDAY Tommy!

Today is the one day of the year that Tommy gets to be treated like the ultimate king by me, so I set the alarm clock to wake up early and start the preparations.  As he slept in, I baked him a yummy birthday cake and set up his presents to surprise him when he woke up, and then brought him some breakfast in bed.  But, the ultimate surprise came after he had opened all of his gifts, which was my surprise present: SURF LESSONS!  We threw on our bathing suits and headed to the beach for two hours of surf lessons.  We had the best time ever riding in the waves, and I must say that Tommy is becoming a really good surfer!  The afternoon was spent giving Tommy his free volleyball lesson before heading out for a mouth-watering steak dinner in town. 

11/29/11 – Manly, Australia 

Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree, how lovely are your branches…

We made the trip over to the Warringah Mall today to find our perfect Christmas tree.  Online we found that most of the inexpensive trees were sold out, and the cheapest one left was $45, but when we arrived at Target, I found that the elves had left us a little present!  Hidden behind the expensive trees was the most perfect $15 tree that someone had returned, marking it down to $10.  We snagged it right away and brought it home to decorate.

After brewing up some hot cocoa topped with whipped cream and two candy canes, we cranked up the Christmas music and had a little Christmas tree decorating party. 

Step 1: Unpack and unfold the tree

Step 2: Put on the lights and the star.

Step 3: Prepare the ornaments for hanging.

Step 4: Put the ornaments on the tree.

Step 5: PICTURE TIME!

12/1/11 – Manly, Australia

25 days until Christmas and 24 days until my family is here!!!!!  The countdown has begun.
I was not surprised to wake up to rain on this THURSDAY morning, but was not very happy to see the rain let up on the one day that I am not coaching on the always rained out Thursday.  Luckily I had a babysitting job to occupy me, but really my luck is terrible!  Tommy and I watched little 3 year old Charlie at our place all day, and are just happy right now that our apartment is in one piece…

RIBS!

12/3/11 – Manly, Australia

Santa with his beer...

Today was the Christmas Staff Party for all of the volleyball coaches.  I brought Tommy along to meet everyone and to share our night of fun, and boy was it fun…

Although the night started off pretty tame with our potluck picnic in the park, it turned a bit wild after that.  On the party invitation, it said to dress festive fancy, which turned out to be a bit of a language difference.  To us, festive fancy meant for me to put on a party dress and Tommy a button down shirt and khakis and then top it all off with a Santa hat, but to Australians, fancy actually means costume…  So, when we arrived to the picnic dressed to impress, we were slightly embarrassed to find everyone dressed up in elf, Santa Clause, and other crazy Christmas costumes.  We did find it weird that we had to dress fancy to go sit in the park, but it all made sense when we found out that their meaning for fancy was a costume party!  Luckily our apartment was only two blocks away, and we immediately raced home to change into our “festive fancy” attire!  

Lots of food and a few beers later, it was time for the Secret Santa gift exchange.  We played a fun game called Claps to pick and trade presents, leaving me with a skippy beach ball (a present I picked for Tommy since I lost this exact ball of his over summer while I was babysitting), and Tommy with a bottle of wine that we immediately popped open and shared with everyone.  Now it was time for the fun to begin…we were given one clue and spent the next few hours searching for clues around Manly.  Every few clues would lead us to a bar where drinks would be waiting for us with a fun drinking game to play.  At one bar stop, we got nametags and whatever our nametag said we had to act out before drinking or while drinking.  So, for the remainder of the night, I had to say HO HO HO before every sip, Tommy had to pat his head, another had to drink in the squat position, etc.  Based on what color our name tag was, we were put into 3 teams of 3 to run around taking pictures in front of many different places with our teams, with the losing team left to buy a round of drinks for everyone.  Luckily Tommy’s team finished first and my team finished second, allowing us to be treated instead of stuck paying!  The night ended in this awesome club for a huge dance party, but I really should say the night had just begun…

Talk about a fun Christmas party!

12/4/11 – Manly, Australia

After waking up to the most gorgeous morning in Manly, a cold wind blew through in the middle of my volleyball class, sweeping in a dark, threatening cloud with it.  Just as I made it home from coaching, the heavy cloud released a downpour of huge rain drops…the rain is back.

I must mention that before I woke up to this beautiful morning, I was greeted by another type of friend…  As I reached out to take a sip of water, a cockroach crawled from the glass straight up my arm into the bed!  Now I am totally freaked out!  One word: GROSS!

Call Me Kaity Crocker...

Now will you come stay in our Bunk Bed Bed and Breakfast?

Free dinner included...

11/14/11 – Manly, Australia

Thank gosh I am off to coach a school group right now because the Giants just lost, and somehow it was all my fault…still trying to figure out how I lost the game, but according to Tommy, I am to blame.  I guess I need to start practicing my defense, I mean cheering?

So for this week I thought my main theme would focus around cooking!  Of course after deciding this, we went out to dinner tonight for some Thai food with Gina and Travis.  At least we were being social! 

Our gourmet fruit platter breakfast: Papaya with lime, grapefruit, apple slices, kiwi

11/15/11 – Manly, Australia

Tonight’s dish was chicken and vegetable stir-fry.  I picked out my vegetables to pair with the chicken: broccoli, carrots, onion, and snow peas.  I decided to make a cinnamon teriyaki mixture to add flavor to the chicken, vegetables and rice.  Brown rice was used as the base to soak in all of the yummy flavor, and after cooking the chicken and vegetables on the stove, it was all mixed in with the rice.  The cinnamon and teriyaki is just measured based on taste and personal preference.  As dorky as this may sound, I am one of those kids who always loved a cold glass of milk, and still enjoy having one with dinner every night, and I must say milk is the perfect drink to share with this meal.  If you aren’t as big of a fan as I am, a cold white wine is the perfect alternative!

The most important part of the meal comes next: triple chocolate trip brownies!  In addition to your standard brownie mix, dark, milk and white chocolate chips are stirred in to make the most delicious, melt-in-your-mouth brownies!  Another cold glass of milk is a must with this chocolate heaven!  Bon appetite! 

The best part of making brownies is eating the batter!

11/16/11 – Manly, Australia

Comfort food is always a good way to go.  Tonight’s comfort food consisted of bowtie pasta with vodka sauce and chicken mixed in, garlic bread and double stuffed baked potatoes.  One word: YUM!

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread: the perfect breakfast, snack and dessert!

11/17/11 – Manly, Australia

For some odd reason, when Thursday rolls around, so does the rain.  One of my volleyball coaching jobs I picked up is a Thursday class out by the airport, meaning I get paid for 3 hours (including the drive there and back).  Unfortunately I have not coached once on a Thursday because the past three Thursdays have been rained out; today was no exception.

Instead, today consisted of signing up for a 2-month gym membership so that we are actually motivated to workout!

Of course we did not start working out today, but instead enjoyed a big cup of hot cocoa I brewed up on the stove with some homemade whipped cream…hot cocoa and a movie is the best way to spend a rainy day!

11/18/11 – Manly, Australia

Today was our first day to go try out our new gym, and instead we sat on the couch watching the President’s Cup all day.  I think the problem was that we have not actually paid for the membership, so tomorrow we are going in right after I coach to pay and therefore be motivated to go everyday to make the most of our money spent!  Call us slackers…

On a better note, dinner tonight was DIVINE.  Our lemon and garlic marinated chicken soaked over night before being grilled up by the grill master chef, Tommy, while I whipped up some cream of corn and garlic bread.  Chocolate dipped strawberries were the perfect dessert to top off a VERY PATHETICALLY lazy day. 

11/19/11 – Manly, Australia

There's nothing like a good burst of electrolytes after a hard workout, so in honor of this weeks cooking centered blog posts, we replaced the simple bottle of Gatorade with some coconut water.  I am sure most of you have heard the huge hype about coconut water and how great it is for you because of the abundance of electrolytes, proteins, etc., so we decided to give it a try.  We did not take the simple path of buying a $5 bottle of coconut water, but instead bought a $1 coconut from our local market, and hacked it open to drink the delicious coconut water waiting inside.  I have never been a huge fan of coconut, and actually hated it for most of my life, but I have to say that it is growing on me and it was a delicious and refreshing drink after a hard workout.  Yes, we finally started working out again, making good use of our new gym memberships.  

Tonight for dinner we had BBQ pork ribs, or I guess I should say ribs on the barbie.  After marinating them in a mixture of barbecue, teriyaki and soy sauce, mixed with a bit of olive oil, honey, cayenne pepper and garlic salt, we soaked the ribs in the mixture for an hour before wrapping them up in aluminum foil and sticking them in the oven to slowly bake for 2 hours.  Tommy and I love the charcoal taste of the grill, so we poured a shot of bourbon over the marinade and threw them on the grill for a good barbecue taste, and dug in.  I would not advise this meal for a first date…

BBQ RIBS!!!

11/20/11 – Manly, Australia

Today was a fun filled day of beach volleyball.  As I explained earlier, the way to challenge a pair to a match is by putting one of your flip-flops down by the court.  On the weekends, you can find a line of 10 flip-flops lined up, creating an hour or two-hour wait until your flip-flop finally comes up.  That being said, it is really important to win to stay on the court!  Well, after waiting an hour and a half, we got unlucky to be matched against a very strong couple we had played before and got annihilated by.  Let’s just say that today’s match was an exact repeat of our previous match…  Thank goodness we did not have to sit around for another hour and a half before getting back on the court, but came up rather quickly just after two short matches, and for the remainder of the day we won our 6 matches played keeping us on the court for three straight hours.  We missed lunch, but there was no way we were taking the chance of losing our spot on the court!  I am sure you can tell that beach volleyball is quite popular in Manly.  

Cheese, crackers and wine before dinner.

Tonight was the last night of the cooking blog theme, and unfortunately it is not ending with a bang.  After a long tiring day of volleyball, we limped home exhausted from hour of running around in the sand, and decided to just throw together anything we had around the apartment.  What we turned up with was penne arrabiata with onion, some garlic bread, and a nice summer salad mixed with strawberries, sliced almonds and goat cheese.  Although it was nothing special, it was the perfect thing to fill our growling bellies.  The best part of the night was digging in to our yummy chocolate treats that we received in a package my mom sent over!  There is nothing like a little taste of home.    

Yes, we still have a cockroach problem...