May 28, 2006

We're back from Australia. What a killer trip. I keep saying this but I swear by it....Every couple getting married needs a pre-wedding vacation. Ours was nice and long but even a short one would work. It was so refreshing to enjoy the fact that our wedding is a month away instead of planning non-stop. I feel completely rejuvinated.

The whole trip started with the Ultimo Wine Company. We landed, went to the hotel but couldn't get early check in. So we took advantage of the amazing fall weather and strolled through chinatown (totally ironic) and ended up at Ultimo. We bought a few bottles and got great advice for wineries to check out in nearby Hunter Valley, which has over 80 wineries. The trip was relaxing. We had great food. Went back to this amazing breakfast place twice (lonely planet recommendation) that served ricotta pancakes with honeycomb butter, syrup and banana. Yeah..so good. The prices in general were not bad either. I think we were just happy to eat western food in a western (basically but not technically) country.

We toured the harbours by ferry and saw Manly beach during a storm. Coincedentally, we found a chocolate cafe and spent an hour drinking straight up venezualan dark chocolate..no milk or anything. Oh..it was so good. We had all sorts of seafood...the calamari were one of Dave's favorites but I couldn't eat it after we saw one of the aquarium. They're really cute!

One major goal of mine was to see and hear a Kookabura!! I grew up singing that song..you know..the Kookabura song. Well, I can't really sing it to you. But we went to the zoo where I was sure I'd see one. And I didn't know what to listen for except something sounding like a laugh. Well, we saw koalas, giraffes, lizards, snakes, tasmanian devils, emus, wallabys, and womabts but no flippin kookabura. I was so dissapointed but then on wine tasting day I saw one! It didn't laugh so I wasn't totally satisfied. Then on our last day in Australia, we went to a museum with a bird exhibit. There were some speakers booming out bird calls and that's when I heard it...the famous laugh. I stayed and listened 3 times to the whole track to make sure. But there was no mistaking it...I heard a Kookabura! YAY! I wish I could imitate it for you but it kind of sounded like a chimp and went.. oo ooo ahh ahhh ahhh ahahhahhahahhah oo oo ahh ahhh ahahahhahahah. Something like that. haha!

My other big thing-to-see were the koala bears. We saw them during feeding hours so they were awake and all. Koalas are lazy and have no energy since the ONLY thing they eat are eucalyptus leaves. They're toxic to every other animal except the koala and even koalas can't eat too much or they'll get sick too. So since they get little to no nutrients from the leaves they sleep for 20 hours a day and eat the other 4!! Nice life. They also have walnut sized brains from having no energy to operate anything bigger. I wanted to take one home with me for Cheddar...they'd have been best friends!! haha...

We saw the blue mountains, which get their name from the forrests of Eucalpytus trees that emit oil from their leaves, filling the sky with blue shades. We hiked through a cool climate rainforest filled with moss, ferns and waterfalls. And of course..the wine tasting was amazing. I'm pretty sure it's b/c of the recommendations but each winery was really amazing. We went to smaller wineries, some don't even sell outside their cellar. Dave drove on the left hand side of the road on wine tasting day. We rented a car and he did a really great job. He only got too close for comfort a few times on the left hand side of the car. I guess he wasn't used to having so much car to the left of him...but no accidents and it was easy to get around. We ended up buying 9 bottles of wine total, we drank 2 there b/c we didn't think we could get them all here...I know..that was real tough, and yesterday we bought a tiny mini fridge for the wines! YAY!

That's sort of a sum up. Hope everyone had a happy labor day weekend! School starts up here in a week so I have lots of planning to do this week. It looks like I'll have a studio of 12 this year. Should be a fun year. Ok..BYE BYE BYE BYE BYE!

May 14, 2006

Happy Mother's Day!

I know I wrote yesterday but I just HAD to write about our experience yesterday. We had the photo shoot thing and oh my gosh..so hilarious. First we got seriously rained out. It was a really bad storm..branches and trees were fallen over everywhere. But it stopped and we knew the park would be really muddy so we decided to take pictures on campus near the Thai house. We get over there and it's sooo hot from the humidity. The photographer's lense would NOT stop fogging up. Eventually we got some shots and moved around a bit and then we decided to go over to a nice bridge. Dave and I get on the bridge and see a fallen brach with BIG red ants on it..but we step around the branch and continue walking over the bridge. As we're walking, we look down and see a lot more red ants and within seconds I felt little bites on my leg and so did Dave. Oh my gosh!!! So we ran across the bridge..I threw my horn (in it's case) on the ground and we were shaking our pant legs before we realized that the ants got in our hair and on our necks and under our clothes. How they got there that fast...ahhh..sooo gross. I don't think they were posionous but both of us got bit a few times. Even 10 minutes later I still found one on me. We were so freaked out that we couldn't really do any more pictures. It was quite an experience. One we'll never forget anyway. But it's pretty funny today...and it'll be funnier tomorrow.

May 13, 2006

Happy weekend! Tomorrow is my 25th and 1/2 birthday! YAY! I asked Dave if I could have 1/2 of a cake and 1/2 of a present and he said YES. WAHOO! Can't wait for that one..

This week has been excellent. A little crazy but Dave's home so I don't have to do everything by myself anymore. Sweet. And I don't have to only talk to Cheddar..human interactions are nice. So we went downtown this week to start the paperwork for our marriage. Oh my gosh..how fun is that! We had a really good time. I made up a song and dance. The song went "we're getting married, we're getting married" and the dance involved lots of arm swinging. YAY! We took a picture through every step. First, we had to go to the embassy and sign an afadavit that we're both single and not being forced into the marriage. The consular was laughing when she was asking me that. Then we had to get that notarized. Then we had to get that translated in Thai and then we had to have that sent to the Legalization office to certify the translation. Oh my gosh. Crazy. But it's all being done for us from this point. Sooo exciting!!

I did my first solo recording this week. It's only a demo so it's short and sweet but it went really well and reminds me of L.A. I should have that when we get back from Australia. Speaking of which, I'm soo excited. We leave on Tuesday.

On Tuesday evening we arrived home from dinner and our water wasn't working! Lame. We went down and asked the office and were told that in 20 minutes it'd be working. I knew that didn't mean 20 minutes but I thought maybe at most 2 hours. So we go to sleep with still no water. We wake up and still no water. We go out for the day and come back in the afternoon and still no water. We go back down and they look so surprised that we don't have any?? Umm.hi. Thanks..we're going to need that now. So the workers come up and about 2 hours later they figure out the problem and we have water. It wouldn't be so bad in a temperate climate but it's way too hot here to not have running water. Good times in Thailand. Ahh, that just reminded me of my house in Mexico. The water pump was always broken. ALWAYS. And the guy that would come over to "fix" it would take the dang thing leaving me with no way to get water. And then he'd bring it back like 2 or 3 days later and it'd work for a while and then brake again. Oh my gosh..I hated that house.

I've decided that there are no such things as late fees on movie rentals in Thailand. I'm super on top of movie rentals. Being a former Hollywood movie employee..that's right, I know that something like 50% of movie store profits are made from late fees. I wrongfully assumed the same here. I was being really good about returning movies and then one day I was a few hours late. No late fee. The next time I was a little lazier and was a day late. NO late fee. Finally I was 2 or 3 days late. Still, no late fee. When I finally thought about it..how could you have late fees here? There's no time frame like that. People aren't concerned about time like we are in the states. Hilare. It's funny how those little isms of a country hit you. Anywway..

We're having a engagement/head shot photo shoot today. Should be fun if it's not too hot and/or rains. It's part of the photographer's package. A little late for engagement photos, but it'll be nice to have formals photos anyway. We've never had any and we really need head shots. Well, I think that's all I have to write about this week. Have a great weekend!!

May 4, 2006

It's not just me. The heat is really bad and I'm not the only one who thinks so. Of all the people I spoken with, everyone agrees that this is the hottest summer in at least 5 years!! I can't even describe what it feels like. Well, imagine a sauna. A huge Thailand sized sauna. It's so bad that I just avoid going outside, which really sucks. I now truly understand why people move at a slower pace here. I feel like I'm a tough cookie and not one to complain much..but this is ridiculous. I'm curious to see how Dave is going to react when he gets here. Just to give you an idea...I know I did this in my last blog..BUT, it's 8:40pm and the weather feels like 107..and that's with NO sun. Tomorrow, by 9am it will be 100. This is just mind boggling. And by 3pm tomorrow it'll be 109 degrees!! I guess I'll get up early for my run...

I went into Bangkok today with much success. I've been purchasing attire for the wedding/honeymoon and I made a few more purchases today. It's kind of nuts how much I can justify b/c of the wedding. I'm not much of a spender, especially on our salary here but I want to feel like the wedding/honeymoon is different than a regular vacation. I was telling Mary this but I want that time to feel like a 2 week birthday..you don't want the same old clothes on your birthday! But this is like the best birthday ever b/c you don't get older..you get hitched! haha..last thing I'm looking for is a clutch, but maybe I can borrow one from Ann.

Oh my gosh..for the past few weeks I've been smelling a little burning and I couldn't figure it out until last night. The voltage converter for our american purchased speakers was brown!! It had melted and been burning for a few weeks. I'm soo glad I caught it. I'm sure it would have eventually caused a fire. I am so paranoid about that stuff. It all goes back to that dang water heater when I lived in mexico. That stupid thing..the pilot light would go out soo easily so I was always out back, religthing it..unless I was okay with a cold shower...which during the winters was not fun. When I didn't want to light the pilot I would go for a run so that my body temp. would be hot and ready for a cold shower. Anyway, there was a little opening at the base of the heater to light the pilot so I had to kind of bend down and put my face up close to the opening. Well, I did everyhing right but the heater decided to blast a wave of hot firey gas at my face one day. Luckily I was wearing glasses but I lost most of my left eyebrow and lashes. Needless to say, I hate anything gas related (haha) but I'm now moving that hatred to electronics here. Just last week I was using one too many appliances in the kitchen-I dont know if I can technically call it that...anyway... and everything went out right in the middle of cooking. Sooo annoying. Oh, and my last story about annoying burning..this one is good. Once again in Mexico..notice how none of this has happened in the states..hmm. The orchestra was playing Beethoven's "Fidelio" opera so the pit was set up and and all the stand lights were lit. It was kind of funny b/c we all noticed that the horns standlights were connected to the woodwinds standlights which were connected to the strings stand lights, which were connected to ONE power stripl Yeah..well, out of no where the 3rd horn's (I was sitting 4th) stand made a noise and then instantly the whole cord burned up his stand and blew out his light. We ran out of there soo fast. haha..so I'm not sure that the situation is any better here but I've replaced the power strip and will no longer use ANY 110/120 voltage equipment with ANY voltage converter, EVER again.

Cheddar was hilarious this morning. I let him into my room (he sleeps in his own room cause he wants to play on my head at night) and he curled up under the blankets while I fell back asleep. I rolled around a bit and when I finally woke up, Cheddar's whole body was laying, sprawled, out of the blanket but his whole head was tucked under the covers. haha..goof.

Dave comes home in 2 days! YAY!