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... 

Dolphins, Jaws, and a Whale of a Tail

11/6/11 – Manly, Australia

It is pathetic that it took us this long, but we finally had our first beach day today!  We intentionally picked to live in Manly so that we could be beach bums all summer, yet it took us this long to actually get to the beach!  PATHETIC!  Anyways after a few hours of fun in the sun, a huge thunderstorm rolled in creating a small pond in our patio area…lovely.

What better thing to do on a rainy evening than to cook up a warm meal, so we grabbed some essentials at the market, heated up the grill, stove and oven, and got down to business.  As I whipped up some double stuffed baked potatoes and garlic bread, Tommy was grilling up some asparagus and…kangaroo!  I think this may be our last time grilling kangaroo because it tasted like a plain hotdog; I don’t think you’re supposed to buy packaged kangaroo from the market…oops. 

Just as we thought our day was coming to an end, drama arrived in the form of cockroaches.  GROSS!  Six cockroaches flushed down the toilet later, it was time for bed, but who can sleep with the thought of cockroaches skirting around the apartment!  I think we are in for a restless night full of nightmares of creepy critters…

11/7/11 – Manly, Australia

This morning I transformed from Kaitlin to Katalina.  I pulled my hair up into a bun, threw on some shorts and scrubbed our apartment from head to toe; I even swept up all the leaves outside on our patio.  Meanwhile, Tommy sat on his arse, eyes glued to his computer, watching the NY Giants football game play by play…something is wrong with this picture. 

Tonight for dinner we cooked hot wings, and by hot I mean lips burning, tear jerking hot.  Hot to the point of sweating, which was clearly apparent when I turned to Tommy and saw beads of sweat running down his cheeks, forehead and creating a wet mustache above his upper lip.  (What a romantic dinner).  Although these were a bit towards the hotter side, they were still absolutely delicious!  If you like wings (hot or mild) I highly suggest the recipe we used that can be found at this link: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/grilled-buffalo-wings/detail.aspx.  The hotness depends on how hot your hot sauce is, ours was sizzling, but you can adjust how much hot sauce you put into the recipe.  Pair this with a cold glass of beer and you have a great meal or snack to munch on during the Giants game on a Sunday afternoon!

11/8/11 – Manly, Australia

Today was payday!  It felt good to have some cash in my hand…until Tommy reached his hand out and said, “Sugar Mama, may I have some money to buy some lunch?”  Bye bye money. 

We spent our afternoon playing some volleyball down at the beach, but were interrupted by an announcement that came over the loud speakers lining the boardwalk that runs along Manly beach.  A lifeguard came on and casually announced that a shark had been spotted right by Queenscliff, and everyone at the north end of the beach should make their way to shore.  There was no urgency in the alert just as there was no urgency from the swimmers and surfers to get out of the water.  The surfers waited for a good wave to catch in, clearly not alarmed by the fact that a SHARK WAS IN THE WATER!!!  As Tommy and I had a quick freak out and ran up the cliff to try and see it swimming by in the water, the surfers waited around impatiently for 5 minutes before deciding the shark was probably gone and headed back out to surf…SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE! 

A big thunderstorm rolled in and ruined our Tuesday movie night (half off tickets on Tuesdays at the theatre), and again flooded our patio with a little pond.  We should invest in some inner tubes to float around our backyard…

11/9/11 – Manly, Australia

Today was a typical day, fun for us, but boring for you all to hear about, so I will lay it out to you very simply:  Breakfast, work, lunch, volleyball, dip in the ocean, dinner, bed.  We can’t complain; life is good in Manly. 

Second Round of Wings: Teriyaki hot wings.

11/10/11 – Manly, Australia

I set up a little volleyball match for us this morning with two of the people I work with coaching beach volleyball.  It was a good way for us to be social, get a work out, and have some fun practicing our volleyball skills.  I have been training Tommy down on the beach everyday (I don’t even charge him!), and it was good to put his skills to the test.  Luckily I have a very athletic boyfriend and he picks up new sports really fast.  Although sometimes his timing can be way off as he jumps three times before the ball comes down, he is a pretty quick learner and a great partner! 

All throughout our game, we were lucky to enjoy the huge pod of dolphins surfing the waves.  As they made their way up and down the beach, only 50 feet from shore, we would stop to watch them ride in a wave right next to a surfer.  This was a pretty awesome site to witness.   

One of the girls, Shauna, was only visiting for a few weeks, and we decided to take her into the city and show her around.  As we were pulling into Circular Quay on the ferry, Tommy excitedly spotted the Sea Shepherd (Bob Barker) docked in the harbor.  This is one of the three ships filmed in the TV show “Whale Wars.”  We lucked out to explore the boat through their free tours the crew were giving.  As we were shown around the ship, learning about their fight against Japanese whaling ships, as well as helping to prevent the killing of dolphins and sharks, we passed by the famous captain of the ship, Paul Watson, casually eating some lunch in their kitchen area.  It was pretty cool to learn all about this non-profit organization fighting for such a great cause.  Ironically enough the ocean and harbor were swarming with dolphins all throughout the day, circling around the Sea Shepherd ship. 

After our tour Tommy dragged us to the Sydney Fish Market to the protests of a growling stomachs.  As we nearly passed out from starvation on the 40 minute walk, Tommy was convinced we would be there in just a minute, which he said every 5 minutes…  When we finally did make it, most of the market was already closed, but we lucked out to get a few of their last fresh catches before they were taken away, and had a delicious seafood lunch. 

We kept up the seafood theme of the day with our dinner of pasta arrabiata mixed in with freshly steamed mussels. 

11/11/11 – Manly, Australia

Lazy day…one of those days where the PJ’s never come off. 

11/12/11 – Manly, Australia

I am a working woman.  My morning was filled with lesson after lesson of volleyball with the most un-athletic, uncoordinated men and women attempting to learn how to play volleyball.  I was happy to sit down and have a cold beer with some friends when I was finally finished!  Gina and Travis came over to Manly to look at apartments, and joined us for lunch and drinks after their viewing.  They are now searching for separate apartments because they broke up…awkward!  Two of our four friends we have are broken up…shoot!  Luckily they are still getting along as friends (for now), but I guess they have to since they are still living together for the time being.  Nonetheless, we all had a great time together at lunch, such a good time that we accidentally made both of them miss their afternoon viewings of some more apartments.  After a fun afternoon, we sent them on their way to their night viewings, and hurried over to John and Hanna’s for a barbeque at their new place.  John and Hanna are the couple who used to live in the apartment we are now living in.  They made an awesome meal, shared with the two of us and three other of their friends, combined with many laughs and more than a few bottles of wine.  Today was SOCIAL SATURDAY! 

11/13/11 – Manly, Australia

After another long day of coaching, it was my turn to finally play.  They have a really cool system in Manly down on the beach volleyball courts.  If you are interested in challenging a team, you put your flip-flop down by the court, meaning that you have the next game.  While we were playing an older couple, a girl came over and put her flip-flop down to challenge the winners.  We won of course, and faced two girls who play in tournaments together all the time.  Somehow our skills we have been working on finally clicked and we only lost to them 21-16!  We are on the rise… 

VIDEOS

If you have noticed, all the videos I have posted on the blog have not been working, so here are a few that you have been missing!  To see more videos and pictures go to www.seegsatsea.shutterfly.com.  You can click on the link to go straight to the site!

Apia, Samoa

Noumea, New Caledonia

Tauranga, New Zealand

Living in a Garage

10/30/11 – Sydney, Australia

Today we started on a high, excited and anxious to move into our new apartment, but we were brought down to a rough low when we found out that our keys would not be available for pick up until tomorrow.  It was hard enough lugging our luggage across the ferry and down the bumpy streets, but with nowhere to stay, our moods were a bit dark.  We ended up having to resort to a hotel, so we stayed at the one closest to our apartment to create an easy move in the morning.  It was a stressful day to say the least, but at least the hotel was really nice and had our favorite, FREE Wi-Fi!

10/31/11 – Manly, Australia

(Tommy rolls our luggage from the hotel to our apartment...we borrowed their trolly)

Today was a great day!  We finally got our key to our apartment and made the official move in.  I am hoping you are wondering why this blog is titled: Living in a Garage.  Well, atypical to the normal front door of a house or an apartment, our front door is a garage door.  Yes, we literally have to enter our apartment through a garage door that opens by an automatic button on a key chain...  After the garage door electrically opens, we walk through a huge garage space that includes a grill and ping-pong table as well as a vast amount of bare open space.  Exiting out the back of the garage we find ourselves on small outdoor patio with a glass table ready to be used on a hot summer’s day.  Finally we have made it to the actual apartment space, which is entered through a typical sliding glass door that steps up into our living room.  This is Tommy’s favorite part of the apartment because we have a massive flat screen TV.  Our apartment is fully furnished from the appliances and linens to the furniture.  We have a washer and dryer, thank gosh, that is tucked away in the corner of the living room hidden by closet doors.  The living room connects into the kitchen, which leads into the bathroom and study through two different doors.  The study can also be used as a guest bedroom as it has bunk beds in the corner…feel free to come visit!  And last but not least, the study/makeshift guestroom leads into the master suite, which basically consists of the queen size bed, a pretty big closet, and a few dresser drawers.  That is our lovely little apartment in a nutshell, and boy do we feel fortunate and love it! 

We did our first grocery shopping today at the market a few blocks down the road, easy enough to walk to after departing through our remote controlled garage door.  Grocery shopping led to our first home cooked meal, which was actually a pretty exciting feeling.  The two of us were like giddy little kids bubbling with excitement all day from just the idea of having our own place. 

I almost forgot to say “HAPPY HALLOWEEN” to everyone, although it is an American holiday and not very well celebrated in Australia.  It is actually catching on here, but we did not receive any trick-or-treaters knocking on our garage door, so instead bought a few candy bars to celebrate the holiday on our own…in our new apartment!  Clearly I am so excited to finally be moved in to our own place.  I will just remind everyone that our garage door can easily roll open for all of you who are now on your way to visit us for the opportunity to sleep in our glorious bunk beds. 

 

Our Garage and Patio 

 

Our Living Room and Kitchen Area

     

Our Bathroom and Bedroom

11/1/11 – Manly, Australia

Cooking our own breakfast this morning was just as exciting as making our own dinner last night.  The two of us are really not hard to entertain, and our fear of boredom of each other and our jobless lives was quickly forgotten as we settled into the idea of cooking, beach-going, part-time jobs, and the simple bliss of having our own apartment.

Today was the Melbourne Cup, a huge horse race held in Melbourne every year that shuts down the nation for the festivities that go along with the races.  Bigger than watching the races and betting on the horses is the fashion of the races.  Girls show up in their flowery sundresses and massive ugly hats looking like a plant has sprouted out of their heads, while boys flaunt their pastel suits with the occasional top hat.  What it basically comes down to is that Australians love any excuse to drink loads of alcohol, and the Melbourne Cup is one of those great opportunities.  The telltale description of the event would be that girls and boys show up dressed to the nines, and stumble home at the end of the day looking like a raggedy mess. 

As Tommy and I strolled home from the bars, we walked past the beach volleyball nets reminding me of the job I was interested in.  Yesterday we saw some girls out coaching on the courts and I thought, “What a perfect job for me!”  I truly have Tommy to thank who reminded me to look into a coaching job, and I just applied.  Fingers crossed…

One of our great home cooked meals eaten out on our patio.

11/2/11 – Manly, Australia

Well that was dang fast!  After a night of sleep, I woke up to an email offering me a coaching job.  Who knew it would be so easy to get a job, and a fun one at that.  I assumed I would meet with the manager and hopefully hear back from him about the job. Well, I went in and saw the manager, and an hour later I was down on the beach courts coaching my first group.  PAY DAY IS COMING!  Today I coached a group of 4th grade girls fulfilling their PE requirement for their school day.  After an easy hour of volleyball I am $40 richer; now that is what I call a job!  

11/3/11 – Manly, Australia

One word: COCKROACHES.  We have now been living in our lovely apartment for 4 days and we have killed 5 cockroaches…GROSS!  What seemed to be the perfect place that we had been idolizing started to turn up some special surprises, such as the cockroaches, the bugs in the cooking supplies, and the shower mat that is actually not slip proof as Tommy painfully found out.  I would say that reality has hit just a bit. 

The good news is we made contact with other people today!  Yes, we usually spend our days alone wishing we had some friends, failing in our attempts to get an in with the clicky Aussie groups already formed from growing up here, but today we got to do some socializing.  This is really important for us to do because without having other people to hang out with, Tommy and I can get a bit on each other’s nerves.  We met up with Hanna and Jon, the people who lived in our apartment before us, for dinner and drinks.  They were probably wondering why Tommy and I seemed so happy and would not shut up, but little did they know that they are 2 of 4 friends we have here in Sydney.  We actually had a great time with them, and at the end I told them to PLEASE feel free to give us a call whenever they wanted to meet up again because we were always free, always.  Some useful information they passed along about the apartment was that the big black plug in that makes an annoying clicking sound is actually important to leave plugged in because the frequency of the click keeps bugs, in particular cockroaches, away.  Hmmm, the plug in that Tommy so happily unplugged the first day to charge his computer…no wonder why we have a million cockroaches! 

My defense against the onion...

11/4/11 – Manly, Australia

Tommy and I were ready for another adventure.  We set off to hike to the top of North Head where we could see the amazing lookout where the harbor opens up into the ocean, and turn around to be greeted by the entire city line.  We saw this view when we went to Doyles Seafood for dinner on the opposite side of the harbor opening, so we figured it was time to hike the side we are now living in.  What we thought would be a quick hour-long hike to the top turned out to be a few hours longer than that…  This seems to be a repeating theme with the two of us.  We set out on these great adventures and underestimate how long and challenging they are really going to be.  

Hiking North Head was really neat because there is a Memorial Walk that takes up one large part of the trail showing the history and memory of the Australian soldiers who fought in all of their different wars.  After taking in the gorgeous views at the tip, we decided to take the long way down, following the street out to the harbor side of Manly.  Tommy was really keen on finding Reef Beach, which is where the penguins in Manly apparently spend their days, but he did not realize that this was probably another 2-3 hour walk.  We did attempt it having no idea how far it really was, and after walking for an hour on already tired legs, we decided we should turn around and head back.  My stubborn little mind was convinced that if we kept going on the same trail it would cut us back to Manly Beach, of course I was wrong.  Instead we headed another 30 minutes in the absolute wrong direction before Tommy told me I was never allowed to be in charge of directions again.  I don’t blame him because I clearly have no sense of direction.  A big glass of water sounded like a great way to refresh my body, but of course my fratty boyfriend thought two beers would do the trick for us instead.

11/5/11 – Manly, Australia

Happy Anniversary to us!  Today is our year and a half anniversary.  For some reason to Tommy this meant the sky was the limit today, and I definitely was not complaining.  After I finished coaching my volleyball class for the day, Tommy picked me up and we headed to the wharf to catch the ferry to the city.  It was weird how it felt like we were going home after spending so much time there before our cruise, and was nice to go back and visit all of our favorite spots. 

We mistakenly did not make a reservation on the busy Saturday night, but got lucky to slip into a table at an excellent, jam-packed Thai restaurant back in Manly enjoyed with a celebratory bottle of wine.  This is going to be pretty hard to believe, but we did not even have any room for a Max Brenner treat when we were done, and you know I ALWAYS have room for dessert.