Australia here we come!

(I forgot to publish this prior to my "We've moved" post... ooops!)

I have to admit that when I first met my soon-to-be Aussie husband, I harbored dreams of living in Australia. After actually visiting the place and meeting his family and friends I was SURE I wanted to live in Australia. Well as luck would have it, my Aussie husband was offered a job transfer to Melbourne! In Australia!!!
Who says dreams don't come true?

 I will be sad to leave my friends and family in the States, but hey - I get to live in Australia!

We've moved halfway around the world! Now what...?

So what nobody ever tells you about moving internationally is that until you get moved in to your own apartment or house with your own furniture, you have nowhere to call "home". It is a very unsettling and lonely feeling. Even in this era of Skype and Facetime and Whatsapp, you feel totally disconnected from anything familiar and comforting.
They also don't tell you just how much work is involved in getting your life going in a new country. Sure - you know you are going to have to work your ass off to get all your things sold and the rest of your stuff packed and your accounts closed in your "from" place, but if you are like me and haven't moved more than a few miles in the last 20 years, you forget just how much you have to do in your "to" place.
Setting up bank accounts, getting debit/credit cards, buying a car, switching over your mobile phone service; these are all things you have to do almost immediately. Done? Great! Now you get to figure out where to live. And how to find a place. And how the whole Real Estate thing works. It is nothing like House Hunters International where you have a charming agent to whisk you all over town and show you places well out of your price range so you can choose one and live happily ever after.
Our Australian experience finding an apartment deserves its own chapter.  Even my Aussie husband was confused!
I can't imagine what it would be like if they didn't speak the same language. (mostly...)

Foodie Bucket List

So I have mentioned that we have crossed off an item on our own personal "Bucket List" on our last trip - percebes. We also managed to cross off a couple more items that we didn't even know we had on our list until we experienced them, like sushi fresh from the Tsukiji Fish Market just steps away, or the piure we had in Santiago. Sort-of a cross between a barnacle and a sea urchin, it was something we had never heard of.

We also have a wine bucket list, and are determined to taste the great wines at their point of origin.  This especially holds true for fortified wines. So far we have been to Jerez in Spain to learn about Sherry, Porto to drink Port, and our favorite, the Portuguese island of Madeira to taste all the different varieties of their delightful wine. Still on the list is Marsala... There are the incredible wine regions in France, Germany, and Italy, not to mention the "new world" wines. We also are open to seeking out  other types of beverages, as when we were able to attend a Cidre dinner just outside of San Sebastian, where you take your glass into the barrel room and catch the stream of cider straight out of the massive barrels. It was a lot of fun!

Airports as Destinations

So I was talking to my Aussie husband about my travel "bucket list" the other day, and realized after he agreed to everything I said that we truly do belong together.  Who else would have to fly into the most "interesting" airports in the world - not to visit the country they are located in, but just to land at that airport?  We both (separately) flew into Hong Kong's old Kai Tak airport, skimming the apartment buildings on approach. My husband has flown into Lukla in Nepal when the runway was dirt and describes it as harrowing. One of our favorite destinations is the Portuguese island of Madeira, with its runway built on piers over the ocean along the side of a mountain.
We are in the process of planning our next vacation and the conversation centered on which airports we have to visit. I think next on our list is Princess Julianna airport in St. Maarten so we can hang out on the beach and have jets land right above our heads, Gibraltar might be a close second.  Courchevel in France would be awesome, but we would need to go there in winter for the full effect of the snowy mountaintop landing. Toncontin in Honduras used to be dangerous, until they extended that runway so it is now off the list. We could go to Scotland and land on an official beach runway perhaps, or maybe fly to one of the many Greek or Caribbean islands that have tiny runways.  So many options!

Pumpkin Spice is Everywhere

It is Fall in Seattle; the leaves are turning brilliant reds and yellows before being blown off their branches, the rains have returned, (after a brutally dry summer) and Pumpkin Spice flavoring is in everything. No - seriously! Everything.  There are the things you would expect, like Starbucks lattes, of course... Quaker oatmeal... pies and cookies and other dessert things. But now I am also seeing bread and tea and popcorn and corn chips that are Pumpkin-Spiced.  Corn chips??  I may have to try those...
Here is just a sampling of what is currently on store shelves.

And then I saw this.  There is no escape!!!

Percebes!

My Aussie husband and I have a bucket list, but not your usual types of list that includes things like climbing the highest peaks on every continent or sailing all the oceans of the world.
No, our bucket list involves food items.

And I am proud to say that we were able to cross an item off the list when we dined on Percebes in A Coruna in northern Spain.  Percebes (a fancy name for barnacles) are harvested off the rocks in tidal areas and that is quite dangerous as it involves diving into swirling water around rocks.  We were not surprised that they were expensive.  We were surprised that they were so difficult to get open to eat!  Two different waiters tried to show us how to pry the little beak-like tops open and squeeze the body out.  We still wound-up struggling and making a bit of a mess, but it was all worth it - they were delicious!  Not much to look at, though -

There... and back.

So I have just done something very un-American.  I have jetted off to Europe for a 5 week vacation. Unless you are a college student on summer break or an independently wealthy individual, no one in this country takes more than a couple of weeks for a vacation.  And as I am neither of those things, it must be because I am married to an Australian.
It all started very innocently, with a dinner table discussion with our TFS cooking group.  "Wouldn't it be fun if we all coordinated our vacations so that we could meet up someplace and hang out together?"  Many conversations later we had all agreed to meet in Portugal and spend 5 days eating and drinking, and of course cooking.  Porto was the obvious choice because we all love Port. 
Great!  We're going back to Portugal!  My Aussie husband pointed out that Porto was really only a short drive from the north coast of Spain, a region we had always wanted to explore.  We need to take another week and drive to San Sebastian, I said.  As long as we are going to be in Spain, we should spend a few more days and go to the Jabugo region and eat jamon Iberico, he said.  And then we both agreed that we would have to go to Madeira, as we were so close.  And we really need to be there at least a week...  and then we should spend a few days in Lisbon before we go home. 
And there you have it - 5 wonderful weeks full of excellent wine, delicious food, and great friends.

We started with a few days in Lisbon where we found out about this lovely food and wine festival they have every year - Peixe em Lisboa.  It is way more than fish!  They had booths set up with samples of food and beverage from every region of the country, and then in another huge room local chefs had created dishes featuring flavors from their restaurants.  Most of the plates involved seafood, and they were all quite inventive.  We ate our way through the samples in the first room and barely had room for our actual plate of food that was included in the entry fee of 15 Euros.  Did I also mention that they had beverage "samples"?  Cider, beer and lots and lots of wine.  And some brandy too, I think I remember...  we were quite tipsy by the time we left.  Probably the best 15 Euros we have ever spent!