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…
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